Culture doesn’t collapse overnight. It dehydrates — slowly, quietly, and almost always 9 to 12 months before traditional metrics catch it. By the time turnover spikes or engagement tanks, leaders are already in recovery mode, responding to lagging indicators instead of preventing them.

In this one-hour session, culture consultant, six-time bestselling author, and PI Certified Talent Optimizer Shelley Smith introduces a fresh framework for reading your organization’s cultural health through the lens of leading and lagging indicators — and shows you how the PI Talent Optimization Platform gives you the data to act before the crisis hits.

Drawing from her proprietary THIRSTY Flow-State Culture Framework™ and its three phases — Detect, Restore, and Tend — Shelley maps each phase directly to the PI platform’s four modules: Hire, Inspire, Design, and Diagnose. You’ll see how these tools, used intentionally, become a real-time early warning system for cultural dehydration — and a roadmap back to organizational health.

Special emphasis will be placed on PI Diagnose and how its employee experience data surfaces the leading indicators most leaders overlook: job fit gaps, manager misalignment, team friction, and organizational disconnects — before they become headline problems.

Whether you’re a seasoned PI practitioner or exploring how to get more strategic value from your platform, you’ll walk away with a new way of seeing your people data and a practical framework for using it to build a culture that doesn’t just survive — it flows.

Learning Objectives:

This session is approved for 1 PDC toward SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification and aligns to the following SHRM BASK competency areas:

• HR Strategic Planning — Identify the difference between leading and lagging culture indicators and connect people data to business strategy using the PI Talent Optimization Platform
• Organizational Effectiveness & Development — Apply the THIRSTY Flow-State Culture Framework™ (Detect, Restore, Tend) to assess and strengthen organizational culture at each stage of health or decline
• Employee Engagement & Retention — Use PI Diagnose to pinpoint early disengagement drivers — including job fit, manager fit, team dynamics, and organizational alignment — and develop targeted action plans
• Talent Acquisition — Leverage PI Hire to make behavioral, data-driven hiring decisions that support long-term culture fit and reduce costly misalignment
• Learning & Development — Utilize PI Inspire and PI Design to equip managers with behavioral coaching tools and build teams strategically aligned to business goals