There are conferences we attend where you learn about an organization’s philosophy and then there are conferences where you experience it. That distinction stayed with me throughout the duration of O.C. Tanner’s Influence Greatness 2026 at Black Desert Resort in Southern Utah.
I attended as an invited analyst guest representing Brandon Hall Group™, with O.C. Tanner hosting my participation. Going into the event, I expected to learn more about the company’s research, recognition platform, technology roadmap, partnerships and perspective on the future of workplace culture. Of course, I did. However, what I did not fully anticipate was how intentionally the philosophy behind the technology would show up in the experience itself.
For an organization with such a long history in employee recognition and workplace culture, O.C. Tanner had an opportunity to tell us what meaningful recognition should look like. Instead, they showed us.
When the Experience Matches the Message
From the moment I arrived in UT, there was an unmistakable level of care behind the experience. The setting at Black Desert Resort was exceptional, but beautiful surroundings alone do not create connection. It was the consistency of the human interactions that stood out.
Members of the O.C. Tanner team stopped to talk. They checked in, remembered conversations, made introductions and made certain people knew where they needed to be and had what they needed. I especially appreciated Mindi Cox and Raphael Magre, who went out of their way throughout the event to make sure I felt welcomed and connected. That same attentiveness extended far beyond my own experience. I saw it in how O.C. Tanner interacted with analysts, clients, speakers, members of its Client Advisory Council, its own employees and the broader attendee community.
That really matters because recognition loses its power when it feels like a transaction or an isolated HR program. It becomes meaningful when people consistently experience signals that say: We see you. Your contribution matters. You belong here. Influence Greatness demonstrated that principle in practice.
Recognition Is Moving Closer to the Work
Our analyst discussions also provided a deeper look at how O.C. Tanner is evolving its technology and product strategy. One theme surfaced repeatedly: Recognition needs to become easier to access and more naturally integrated into the way people already work.
For many organizations, another standalone platform is not necessarily the answer. Employees are already moving among HR systems, collaboration tools, communication platforms and multiple applications throughout their workday. If recognition sits somewhere outside that flow, participation becomes harder and the experience can feel disconnected.
O.C. Tanner is increasingly addressing this through integrations, partnerships, APIs and expanded ways for recognition to reach employees across different work environments. The company’s partnership with Kudoboard, for example, expands employee-led celebrations around milestones and meaningful life and work moments. Integrations with systems such as Workday and Microsoft Teams similarly reflect a broader shift toward bringing recognition into the rhythm of work rather than requiring employees to leave it.
That is particularly important as organizations think about frontline employees, distributed teams, global workforces and employees who do not spend their days sitting behind a laptop. This is notable because technology access should not determine recognition access.
Another important conversation involved measurement. Organizations increasingly want to understand not only whether employees are using recognition programs, but what those programs are influencing. Retention, engagement, trust, collaboration, performance, employee experience and ultimately business outcomes all belong in that conversation.
From my own perspective, as a former Chief Financial Officer, this is an important evolution. Participation is useful information but, impact is the more important question.
The 2027 Global Culture Report: Growth Cannot Be Extraction
One of the most substantive parts of Influence Greatness was the release and discussion of findings from the O.C. Tanner Institute’s 2027 Global Culture Report. The research, based on nearly 26,000 employee perspectives across 23 countries, examines four areas organizations should consider as they navigate continued disruption: organizational compassion, growth cultures, active trust and innovation.
The growth conversation especially caught my attention. Organizations talk frequently about upskilling and reskilling. Those investments are necessary, but employees do not simply want to be developed so organizations can extract more productivity from them. Growth needs to be reciprocal.
Employees should be able to see how development expands their own capabilities, opportunities, confidence, mobility and future, while the organization benefits from greater adaptability, innovation and performance. That difference is significant and the research reinforces the connection.
When recognition is integrated into growth cultures, employees are substantially more likely to innovate, trust the organization and respect its values. That gives leaders a different way to think about development. Instead of asking only, “What skills do we need employees to acquire?” we should also be asking, “What are we creating that allows employees to grow because they are here?” When those two interests meet, growth becomes a partnership and stops being yet another organizational demand.
Recognition as a Cultural Amplifier
Another idea I kept returning to throughout the event was the concept of amplification. Recognition does not create a healthy culture from out of the blue. It reinforces what an organization chooses to notice.
If leaders recognize collaboration, employees learn that collaboration matters. If experimentation is acknowledged even when every idea does not succeed, employees gain permission to innovate. If compassion, service, problem-solving, mentoring and quiet contributions are consistently noticed, those behaviors become increasingly visible within the organization. That makes recognition much more than saying thank you. It becomes a cultural signal and those signals matter even more during periods of change.
Several sessions explored organizations operating under pressure, whether from AI, economic uncertainty, workforce shortages, burnout, rapidly changing skills requirements, or shifting employee expectations. The common thread was that sustainable performance cannot be separated from the human conditions in which people are being asked to perform.
Leadership Still Determines What People Experience
That theme carried through many of the speakers. Former NASA astronaut José M. Hernández opened the conference with a story grounded in extraordinary perseverance. His path to becoming an astronaut included repeated rejection, deliberate preparation, continued education and a willingness to keep investing in himself. But one of the ideas that stayed with me was his emphasis on validating people and helping them rise to the occasion. Leadership is not simply about setting the destination. It is also about creating the conditions that allow people to believe they can reach it.
Well-being expert Jennifer Moss brought another important dimension to the conversation through her discussion of burnout, trust, hope, purpose and the changing experience of work. Her reminder that hope can be developed as a skill was particularly meaningful in a workplace environment where uncertainty has become almost constant.
Another well-being expert, Ashish Kothari, challenged organizations to look beyond individual well-being interventions and examine the systems creating the conditions employees are working within. One question from that conversation deserves more attention: organizations review operational, sales, staffing and financial data constantly, so why is meaningful people data so often reviewed only periodically? That question connects directly to the work HR leaders are being asked to do today. If people truly are among an organization’s most important assets, our measurement and management practices should reflect it.
AI Can Amplify Culture, but It Cannot Substitute for It
Of course, AI was part of the conversation as well. AI expert Allie K. Miller challenged attendees to move beyond using AI as a basic productivity tool and think more expansively about how it can become part of work systems, workflows, roles and organizational capability. One of the most useful ideas from that discussion was also one of the simplest: AI scales culture, it does not create it.
Technology can increase the speed and reach of what already exists. If an organization has trust, curiosity, strong leadership, knowledge sharing and psychological safety, technology can help amplify those strengths. If those conditions are absent, technology cannot simply manufacture them.
Even O.C. Tanner’s own use of AI within recognition reflects this tension. Technology may help someone create a stronger recognition message or expose an opportunity to appreciate someone, but the human intention behind the recognition still matters. Efficiency should support human connection, not replace it.
From Pickleball to Grease: Designing Moments That People Remember
Some of the strongest examples of recognition during Influence Greatness did not happen in a breakout room. During the analyst experience, O.C. Tanner arranged time with professional pickleball player Tyler Loong. I had never played pickleball before, which made the experience both humbling and fun. We learned, played, laughed and connected in an environment completely different from the analyst discussions earlier in the day. That mattered too because relationships are often built in the spaces around the formal agenda.
Later in the conference, attendees traveled to Tuacahn Theatre for an outdoor performance of Grease against Southern Utah’s extraordinary red-rock backdrop. O.C. Tanner had thought through all the details, right down to personalized boxes waiting at our seats with water, popcorn, a fan and other items for the evening. Those may sound like small things, but they were not. Small moments often tell people whether someone anticipated their needs and anticipation is one of the most tangible forms of care. For a company whose work centers on creating meaningful employee moments, the experience felt truly aligned with the message.
Leadership Is Ultimately About Helping People Rise
The Optimism Company’s Simon Sinek brought the conference back to many of these same ideas during his keynote. Leadership, in his framing, remains rooted in service, trust, relationships, listening and creating circles of safety around people. Technology may continue to change what work looks like, but leadership still remains human work. That means asking better questions, listening with genuine curiosity, understanding how different people receive feedback, giving new ideas room to develop, creating enough psychological safety for people to speak honestly and recognizing that leadership can be messy precisely because people are not standardized. They are ultimately people and maybe that is why recognition matters so much. At its best, recognition says: I noticed. Not only the outcome, but the effort, the idea, the courage, the growth, the contribution and the person.
Recognition, Adversity and the People Behind Performance
The closing evening continued that theme. The Breakthrough Awards recognized organizations including AWS, ICF and Wellstar for work connected to recognition and workplace culture. Two of the most memorable conversations that evening came from ESPN sports reporter Holly Rowe and Team USA Olympian Maxim Naumov.
Holly spoke candidly about adversity and about what she has observed across some of the highest-performing teams in sports. One message resonated strongly: you can often tell how successful a team is by how much its members genuinely care for one another.
Maxim brought another deeply human perspective, discussing the discipline required to remain present, manage doubt and fear and avoid allowing performance to become your entire identity. They had different stories but a similar lesson. Performance matters, but people are more than their performance.
Organizations that truly understand that distinction are better positioned to create environments in which people can contribute, recover, grow and continue doing great work.
What Influence Greatness Reinforced for Me
As I reflect on Influence Greatness 2026, I keep returning to the alignment between what O.C. Tanner teaches and what it created for the people who attended.
There was strong research. There were meaningful technology and product discussions. There were conversations about integration, innovation, measurement, leadership, growth, trust, AI and the future of workplace culture. But there was also hospitality, connection, fun, care, thoughtfulness and recognition.
That combination is a successful formula. Organizations can sometimes make culture more complicated than it needs to be. Technology, frameworks, measurement and strategy all have important roles. But culture is ultimately experienced in thousands of moments that tell people what an organization genuinely values.
Influence Greatness reminded me that recognition is most impactful when it is not treated as something an organization occasionally does, but when it becomes part of how the organization operates.
Overall, that is the larger lesson for leaders: do not simply tell people that they matter, design the experience so they can feel it.
My sincere thanks to O.C. Tanner President and CEO Scott Sperry, Mindi Cox, Raphael Magre and the broader O.C. Tanner team for the generosity, insights, conversations and care throughout the experience. They did not simply host a conference about recognition and culture. They created an opportunity to experience both.
