Author · Consultant · Speaker

Leaders create culture — by accident, or by design.

I'm Eric Pope. I spent two decades building continuous-improvement cultures, including one organization that earned the Shingo Prize, and I've consulted with organizations as large as 120,000 employees with a global footprint. Most recently, I wrote the book Designing Culture to teach any leader how to do it on purpose.

75,000+
employee-driven improvements a year, up from ~5
2011
Shingo Prize, operational excellence's highest honor
120,000
employees across the global enterprise I currently advise
20+
years building this methodology inside real operations
"You have great people outperforming poor systems every day. If leaders create the right circumstances, your people will rise higher than you can imagine."
— The belief behind everything I teach
Eric Pope
Who I Am

From a satellite phone call to a Shingo Prize

In 2005, a phone call in the Canadian Rockies pulled me into manufacturing operations, a field I had no background in. What followed was two decades discovering that culture isn't luck — it's the direct, designable output of what leaders repeatedly do. As VP of Operations at US Synthetic, I helped grow employee-driven improvements from about five a year to nearly 75,000, later led the ChampionX Way, and now consult on enterprise CI culture for a global organization spanning 120,000 employees.

Read my full story →
The Book

Designing Culture

Why leaders get the culture they have, and how to get the one they want.

Twenty years of building continuous-improvement cultures, distilled into the principles behind Experience → Belief → Behavior → Artifact — and how any leader can start applying them tomorrow morning.

Learn more about the book →
Speaking

Bring this thinking to your stage

I'm a frequent keynote speaker on lean culture transformation — from public industry events like the ASSEMBLY Show, PEX Week, and BTOES Insights, to private corporate conferences across industries, from healthcare to defense and space. Every talk is built around the same idea: culture is designed, not accidental.

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Eric Pope speaking at the ASSEMBLY Show
Consulting

Work with me, directly

A limited number of leaders and executive teams work with me personally each year — coaching, culture assessment, and hands-on advisory. For larger, team-based transformations, I also founded Culture by Design Partners.

Explore Consulting Culture by Design Partners →
Writing

Recent articles

Personal Essay · 2019

Eliminating Waste is Respect

Read →
Personal Essay · 2018

Going to Gemba is Much More Important than You May Realize

Read →
Personal Essay · 2018

Improving Your Problem-Finder to Problem-Solver Ratio

Read →

See all articles →

Let's talk

Whether it's the book, a keynote, or a direct advisory engagement — I'd like to hear where you're starting from.

Get In Touch