In this short testimonial interview, executive coach Louis Carter of BPI discusses how his organization has helped leaders navigate and thrive through multiple crises—including 9/11, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the COVID‑19 pandemic—by focusing on leadership development, organizational change, and culture transformation. Ray Williams, CEO of the Springfield Clinic, shares his experience building trust with the board through a co‑creation process facilitated by Carter, emphasizing the importance of open, constructive dialogue. Both Williams and an additional executive (Speaker C) describe the tangible impact of Carter’s executive coaching on their performance, high‑performing teams, and overall organizational culture, noting that the focus on real work over superficial team‑building activities led to “rocket‑ship” growth. The conversation underscores the need for shared responsibility, resilience, and a shift from blame to collaborative culture rebuilding during turbulent times.
Chapters
With chaos and disorder comes clarity. The world as we know it is changing dramatically. The benefit is clarity. Clarity that we must work together in a different kind of way. We can no longer blame our company's culture, our leaders, and even ourselves.
I'm Ray Williams, and I'm the CEO of the Springfield Clinic. And I became the CEO just a couple years ago, and one of the things I was looking for at the time was really, how do I create trust with our board of directors? How do I do that as quickly as possible? How do I really think about creating a great culture and a great place to work here at the clinic.
Instead, we must all take responsibility for our future. At BPI, we have already done this for years. We have been preparing for every crisis, starting with 9/11, the subprime mortgage crisis, and now the major pandemic. We help you through it. And after it. Through our research, leadership development, and organizational change programs, thousands of leaders have prepared for crises and made it through with resilience and thriving outcomes with us.
I found that his insight, and particularly working with my board, the idea of how do we co-create together. How do we create that trusting, open, constructive kind of dialogue that you really need? His advice, his leadership was just amazing in that regard.
I'm an executive coach, and I also work with companies to help change their culture. Focusing teams on doing real work together. To build culture and not on petty parties, organization cultures, events, and team-building exercises.
Probably heard the term herding cats, but Lou really did that in an exceptionally smart and inclusive way. And I think what came out of that were results for us that we would have just never achieved otherwise. Couldn't have happened. I think the consensus that came out of the co-creation process and just Lou's expert facilitation made all the difference for us.
Doing the real work with you and always have for 20 years.
I've also asked Lou to be the coach for several key executives that I've brought on since I came on board.
Specifically for me, he's really helped me develop a high-performing team, right?
And it's been exceptional, just exceptional. I think both of them came into their new roles with specific challenges and hurdles that they needed to overcome, and, and Lou's just been great at helping them address their challenges and to to think differently and bigger and to think through how do you assume key role like that at a large company like this and work with a board of directors and other key leaders throughout the company and me.
See how this all kind of connects together and how Lou's master plan and helping us here really, really formulated and really is putting us in, I would say, rocket ship mode.
Lou's been the best executive coach I've ever had. I just, I would not have been as successful as I have been in the 3 years I've been CEO here without, without Lou.
