Motivation – Y-Connect Thought Leadership

Cultures that scale with Margaret Hirsch and Yoke van Dam

Leadership

Great leaders build great people: lessons from my conversation with Margaret Hirsch

Five years after her last visit to Leadership Lyrics, Margaret Hirsch joined me again, this time from Florida, where she and Allan now live after handing Hirsch’s over to their son Richard. We spoke about the deliberate choices behind the Hirsch’s culture: what Disney University taught them about structure, why every morning starts with training and singing, why they hired for attitude ahead of skill, and how they prepared the next generation to lead. Margaret leaves every founder with one practical question: what happens in your business by design, and what happens by accident?

9 July 2026

Leadership

When Performance Isn’t Enough: The Real ROI of a Team Culture Intervention

There’s a dangerous illusion that organisations sometimes fall into: confusing short-term results with sustainable success. Numbers look good on paper, so leadership assumes the team is fine.
But what happens when strong performance is masking a culture on the verge of collapse?
The real question isn’t whether a toxic culture will eventually impact performance — it will. The question is how much damage accumulates before someone decides to act.

22 April 2026

Executive Coaching

Tips for New Managers

Congratulations on your promotion to a leadership role! This article outlines essential steps for new managers, including identifying your team’s purpose, setting clear expectations, and balancing feedback to ensure both your success and the success of your team.

9 July 2024

Life Coaching

How to climb a mountain or go for a stretch goal?

I often train, coach, and advise leaders who struggle with procrastinating teams because they see their targets or goals as too large. They fear that they wouldn’t be good enough or that they wouldn’t reach it, so instead of starting, they don’t even begin.

Today a year ago, I was hiking from Papingo in Greece to the Refuge in Astraka Refuge in Greece. I’d love to give you some ideas about going for those stretch goals, through our lessons from hiking to the Refuge in Greece.

18 March 2024