KHR Executive Advisory

A value you can't break isn't a value. It's decoration.

A real value names a tradeoff you'll pay for. It becomes real exactly once: the first time honoring it is expensive.

People don't read values. They watch what gets rewarded.

Write fewer. Make each one breakable. Pay the cost the first time it's tested.

Open enrollment is a communications project wearing a benefits costume.

The plans are chosen. The rates are locked. What determines whether enrollment goes well is translation.

Nobody reads the plan documents. People read the one-pager, the deadline, and the answer to one question: what does this cost me, and what changed?

Treat it like a campaign, not a PDF forward.

Most plans do not die in the meeting. They die in the hallway afterward.

Everyone nods. Nobody objects. Then people walk out, tell each other what they actually think, and by Friday the work has quietly not started.

If you run a company, agreement in the room is the cheapest signal you will get. Ask two people separately what they think happens next. Two different answers means you have a meeting, not a plan.

Cheaper to find that out on Wednesday than in January.

Founders, a question about your people leader: are they in the room where decisions get made, or cleaning up after it?

There are two versions of the role. The first runs programs. Payroll happens, reviews happen, offers go out. Necessary, and not enough.

The second is the one you call before the hard conversation, not after it goes sideways.

If you've never gotten counsel like that, you haven't seen the second version.

My read of the room is a guess until I check it.

I treat what I pick up as a hypothesis, not a conclusion. The check is saying it out loud and letting people correct me.

If I'm right, the room opens up. If I'm wrong, I just learned something better than my guess.

The skill isn't reading people. It's holding your read loosely enough to be corrected.

Comp season is decided in September, not January.

By the time merit letters go out in January, the budget was set in October and the bands were locked before that. The teams that get comp right do the quiet work now, before budget season.

Pull market data while there's still time to act on it. Pressure-test your bands. Define what a promotion requires before someone asks.

The letters are the last step. If your cycle starts with the budget meeting, it started too late.