In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Karen Walker, President and Principal Consultant of One Team Inc. Walker recounts her 14‑year tenure at Compaq, the fastest‑growing company in U.S. history, and her decision to leave without a clear next step, eventually founding One Team with her husband. She emphasizes that aligning internal organizational strategy with external growth is essential for companies beyond product‑market fit. Walker shares her core leadership habit: deliberately creating time to think, warning that constant problem‑solving prevents strategic vision. She describes her twice‑yearly silent, week‑long meditation retreats, noting the initial mental resistance and the eventual clarity they provide. Her advice to younger professionals is to "think bigger" and overcome limiting beliefs. She links happiness to perspective gained from Zen practice, gratitude, and a service mindset. Walker recommends Terry R. Bacon’s The Elements of Power for understanding power dynamics, and shares three personal quotes about asking for what you want, avoiding over‑use of strengths, and seizing the day. Finally, she promotes her new book No Dumbing Down and provides her online handles (KarenWalker.us, Karen Walker US on social platforms).
Chapters
¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Karen Walker with us and she is the President and Principal Consultant at One Team Inc., which is a consulting firm that helps senior leaders create internal strategies that support their organization's external growth. Karen helped create and lead the then fastest growing company in American history and fastest to $1 billion in revenue, Compaq Computer. After 14 years in senior leadership there, she left to begin One Team. She now serves as an executive advisor and consultant to CEOs and senior organization leaders to grow their companies with outcome including IPOs, acquisitions, market share increases, and dramatic leadership development. Karen's work has enabled sustained growth in a multitude of companies from startups to Fortune 500 firms. She resides in Jupiter, Florida, although she can most often be found aloft in seat 2C. So welcome to the show.
I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Of course. Thrilled to have you on. So Karen, the first one we ask on the show is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Yeah, wonderful place to start. I had a hard time with the word best. I've chosen a story that I think has a great underlying valuable message, and that really has to do with my career change. And it's, as with many things, you don't understand the message until afterwards. I worked at Compaq for many years and enjoyed my time there. I learned a lot. I developed a lot. It was amazing to be part of that team. And after 14 years, knew that my job wasn't getting any different. It was just going to get bigger. Bigger, and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing the same thing, just more of it. So, I decided to leave, but I was so busy with this giant global job that I couldn't take time to think about what I wanted to do next. I knew that I would be limiting myself in many ways by not exploring enough possibilities. And so, I left without knowing what I was going to do next, not necessarily I recommend to your listeners or to my clients. You could do a little more investigation than I did. I got ready to leave and I left. And I really spent the next couple of years sorting out what it was that I enjoyed doing, why I enjoyed doing it, who I enjoyed doing it with. And I met my now husband who was doing consulting work as a psychologist. I'm an engineer by background. And we started one team working with CEOs and other leaders to grow their businesses. And it's been pretty amazing. But the underlying message from that is that I think about how my career could have gone. There are, like, lots of interesting threads. I could have gone on to another company just doing what I was doing. I could have stayed at Compaq and done more of what I was doing. I could have become a Zen monk. I could have— no, there are all kinds of interesting things I could have done. And I chose this one, and it's been amazing. But it doesn't mean that I necessarily chose the exact right one. I chose one that was amazing, and there were just so many that would have been been equally good, just different. And so I think the message for people is, you know, don't get too psyched out about finding the best. Find what works for next. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, right.
And when you look, when you look back on it, you know, I married, didn't married, or didn't marry my college sweetheart, right? It just would have been a different life, not necessarily a better or worse one.
Absolutely. My next one for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Oh, great. So, uh, my real focus of my work is working with companies who are in growth mode, sometimes in hypergrowth mode, but definitely always in growth mode. And the information is that you must pay attention to aligning the internal strategies in your organization to support the external growth, because too often people misunderstand what it takes to grow beyond product-market fit, which you absolutely have to have. If you're not aligned internally to support that growth, you you will not be able to deliver on the promise you made your customers.
And then a good tie-in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Yeah, create time to think. This is for me the one trap that almost everyone falls into. We have good intentions about seeing the big picture and making sure we're moving in the right direction, but so many shiny new objects come our way, or we end up playing whack-a-mole with problem solving at work every day, and we don't create enough time to think. So that you can see the big picture and set strategy. And that's one thing that no one else will do for you. You have to do it for yourself.
I couldn't agree more. I always tell writers that when some of my clients are having trouble writing their book, I say, actually, instead of trying to force the writing, just go for a long walk. And then when you come back, it's interesting how the fog that your mind had when you were trying so hard, when you just allow yourself to step away and think, walk, do whatever, something like that, especially in nature, I find helps the most. It almost like the problem solves itself. Almost.
Exactly. That's the stuff we wake up at 3 AM or, you know, Archimedes jumping out of the bathtub with his eureka moment. It's when we take the time to clear our minds. I do that twice a year through a silent week-long meditation retreat.
No way.
And the clarity coming out of there is just amazing. But a walk, anything that gets you out in nature and away from overthinking the problem is useful.
Yes. So just before we move to the next question, I have to ask you, because I've been considering doing one of those. Is it like— tell me some of the highs, the lows. It seems like at first, at least, it'd be pretty painful. What's it like?
Yeah. So the lows are the first couple of days. I would not recommend doing a 2-day retreat. But because what happens the first couple of days, your mind is so full of, why am I— my mind after 20 years is this way. Why am I here? I have too many other things I need to be doing, et cetera, et cetera. And then about the end of the second day, all that chatter goes away because you're basically in a time where there's no new input, right? And so the chatter dies down and then you sort of settle into what I think of as a really solid meditation space. It's not that you don't continue to have thoughts, but you're more clearly able to see them and let go of them. And so the highs are, In fact, you don't even notice the complete shift that's going on until you, until you leave. But the highs are definitely the clarity that comes out of there. The lows are the first couple of days and just learning what is or isn't useful in your life. Very interesting.
That's so cool that you do that. So the next one I got for you is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Oh, it'd definitely be to think bigger. We all have blind spots, right? And I think because we have— when we have problems, we can solve them, right? I think most of the people listening to your podcast and certainly my clientele are all people who are problem solvers, and it's served us really well. The thing is, we're not— we don't think big enough and see what our limiting beliefs are. And that causes us to think and act smaller than we could. And those those smaller decisions and smaller goals impact you over time as they compound. So definitely think bigger.
And then kind of going a little bit down a different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Yeah, well, I can say for myself, my key to happiness really had to do with perspective, which came out of my Zen practice. And that, because that led to a feeling of gratitude which doesn't mean that I'm like woo-woo every day, right? But really understanding what the combination of events were that allowed me to be where I am now, doing the work I'm doing with the people I'm doing, living the life I'm living. So, great gratitude for that and how it's all interconnected. And that leads to a position of service. And I think anytime that you can put your work and your life into the perspective of service, you will be, at least for me, happier than if I'm looking at it from almost any other perspective.
And then what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Oh, as we were saying before we started this podcast, I have so many books, it was really difficult to find, you know, the best book. However, I've chosen one which is called Best Business Book, The Elements of Power by a guy named Terry R. Bacon. And I love this book and I use it all the time. And the reason is I, in particular, have a blind spot, had a blind spot about power. And this book, among a couple of others, helped me see all the different elements of power, the types of power that go on in life and in organizations, when to use them, when not to use them. And definitely a good and recommended read for anyone who's in in relationship, really, not even needing to be in a large organization.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
Yeah. Oh, so I'm going to give you 3. I just couldn't do it. So the first is, ask for what you want, notice what you get. I think too often we expect other people to know what we want, and your chances of getting what you want are so much higher if you will ask for what you want. And then you might or might not get it. Secondly, any strength overdone is a weakness, right? We all have things we're really good at, but we keep applying them to problems that don't require that strength. And so to be careful about not overapplying your strengths. And then lastly, just carpe diem, right? Being able to get up and seize each day and each moment as it comes your way.
Well, thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got for you before we let you go is where can our audience best find and connect with you online?
Yeah, thanks for asking that. First, I'd like to talk, I have a book that's just come out called No Dumbing Down, and that book can be found at nodumbingdown.com, which will direct you back to my website, or you can certainly find it at all the places we now buy books online or in outlets. Secondly, all the social media sites, my, the way to find me is Karen Walker US. That's all traditional spelling. Karen Walker, Karen Walker US. So that'll do LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Or my website, which is KarenWalker.us.
Perfect. Thank you again for coming on.
I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
The podcast you just heard was made using Anchor. Ever thought about making your own podcast? Anchor makes it really easy for anyone to get started. It's a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Best of all, it's 100% free. Sign up now at anchor.fm/new. That's anchor.fm/new to get started.
