1. High-performance cultures aren’t created by HR — they’re modeled by leaders

One of Amy’s biggest realizations came from working at Wiz, which she describes as the highest-performing company she’s ever worked for. Ironically, nobody there talks about creating a high-performance culture.

That led her to a simple but powerful insight: performance isn’t an HR initiative. It’s a leadership behavior.

Too often, organizations assign ownership of performance culture to HR, then expect programs and systems to solve what are ultimately leadership problems. The reality is that culture is shaped by what leaders model, tolerate, reinforce, and hold people accountable for every day.

“The highest-performing company is not an HR mandate. It’s table stakes from day one at the leadership level.”

HR absolutely plays a critical role. But the biggest lever isn’t another process change. It’s building enough credibility and influence with leaders to help shape how the organization operates.

2. HR systems aren’t the work. Influence is the work.

Performance reviews. Calibration processes. Competency frameworks.

These things matter.

But Amy challenged the idea that endlessly optimizing HR systems is where the greatest value lies.

Many people leaders spend enormous amounts of energy chasing incremental improvements to programs while overlooking the bigger opportunity: influencing the people who actually shape culture.

“What if we devoted a little bit of that time to building more influence?”

The most effective HR leaders understand the business deeply, earn trust with executives, and use that trust to shape decisions.

That’s harder than redesigning a form and it’s also where the biggest impact happens.

Instead of asking, “How do I improve this process?” consider asking:

• How can I better understand the business?
• How can I increase my credibility with leadership?
• What conversations am I avoiding because they’re uncomfortable?

Influence compounds. Processes don’t.

3. The best leaders know how to roll their sleeves up — and down

One of Amy’s favorite lessons came during her interview process at Wiz.

A leader told her:

“We need people who can roll down their sleeves and be executives, and then roll up their sleeves and get the work done.”

That idea has become one of her simplest leadership litmus tests.

Can someone operate strategically with senior leaders?

Can they also jump into the weeds and execute when needed?

High performers do both.

Too often, leaders become trapped at one end of the spectrum. They either stay buried in execution and never elevate, or they become detached from the work and lose credibility.

The leaders people want to follow are capable of switching between both modes seamlessly.

They can influence the room and build the deck.

They can shape strategy and solve the problem.

4. “Pick up the trash” is the clearest culture signal you'll ever find

Amy shared a story from her time at Caesars Entertainment that has shaped her leadership philosophy ever since.

Every day, she watched senior leaders walk across casino floors. Whenever they saw a piece of trash, they picked it up.

Nobody talked about it. It wasn’t in onboarding, it wasn’t written in company values. Everyone just did it.

“It was not in the handbook. It was not in orientation. It was not in the values on the wall. Nobody mentioned it. But every person picked up the trash.”

That’s culture. Culture isn’t what’s written on the wall. It’s what people consistently do when nobody tells them to.

For Amy, “picking up the trash” has come to mean:

• Having no ego
• Being above no work
• Taking pride in your work
• Operating with excellence
• Doing the little things that make the team better

The strongest cultures rarely need to announce themselves.

They show up in behavior.

5. Build your people programs like a product team

Amy is a huge believer in applying product and design thinking to HR.

Not because it’s trendy - because it’s practical.

Too many people teams feel pressure to launch perfect solutions. They spend months designing programs before getting any feedback from the people who will actually use them.

Instead, Amy advocates for an MVP mindset.

“Ship things as an MVP. Iterate.”

Use pilots, use focus groups, test ideas with small groups before scaling them broadly.

Get feedback early.

Most importantly, stop assuming employees want HR to disappear into a conference room and emerge months later with a finished solution.

People care deeply about how their workplace works. Include them in building it.

6. In a world full of AI, humanity becomes a competitive advantage

The conversation ended with one of the most important reminders people leaders need right now.

As AI becomes more capable, many people worry that skills like coaching, communication, and emotional intelligence will become less important.

Amy sees the opposite happening.

She shared an example of an article claiming AI could replace EQ by helping managers know what to say.

But anyone who has ever coached a manager knows that knowing what to say is only half the battle.

“We are building a world that will be increasingly desperate for authenticity.”

Great leadership requires judgment, courage and delivering difficult messages in a way that shows people you genuinely care.

No prompt can do that for you.

As technology becomes more powerful, authenticity, empathy, and emotional intelligence become even more valuable.

Humanity isn’t becoming obsolete.

It’s becoming a superpower.