14 years as the #1 Predictive Index partner taught me one thing: culture detection needs science, not guesswork.
When I left Marriott after 20+ years in senior hospitality leadership, I wasn't looking for a tool.
I was looking for a language.
I'd spent two decades walking into hotel properties and reading them.
Not the reports, the rooms.
I could walk a ballroom during setup and feel whether the team was flowing or fracturing.
The way people moved around each other, who was helping whom, who stayed in their lane, the energy between the front desk and housekeeping, those signals told me everything about what guests would experience that evening.
I didn't have a name for what I was doing. I just knew what I knew.
Then in 2009, sitting with my business coach, she said something that stopped me mid-sentence: "Everything you're telling me is about workplace culture."
I remember putting my pen down. What did you just say?
It was a lightning moment.
I'd never framed it that way, and suddenly everything came flooding in.
The stories, the patterns, the yes, yes, yes. It's not the brick and mortar. It's the people.
The Predictive Index gave me the scientific language for what I'd been observing all along.
That was 2011.
Almost 15 years later, PI Midlantic was named the #1 Certified Predictive Index Partner in the US, and I'm still learning from the intersection of behavioral science and culture observation.
But what I want to share with you isn't about that recognition, it's about why combining science with human observation changes everything.
Here's what I learned over those Marriott years: I could walk into a building and within 20 minutes, dare I say even less, I've got a vibe.
The feeling, the atmosphere.
How I was greeted, the energy in the elevator, who's talking, who's not talking.
The email exchanges ahead of time tell me a lot.
The words, the body language, the depth of someone's stories, the emotion you feel or don't feel, it tells you a lot about how they lead.
That's powerful. But it's also subjective, it's hard to replicate, and it doesn't scale across organizations.
What I discovered through PI Midlantic was the scientific complement to what I'd been doing intuitively.
Behavioral assessment gives leaders the objective data that confirms, or challenges, what their instincts are telling them.
Observation tells you what is happening.
The meeting energy dropped.
The VP stopped contributing.
The language shifted from "we" to "they."
I can detect those dehydration signals walking a building.
Behavioral data tells you why it's happening.
That VP's behavioral profile shows high dominance and low extraversion, she stopped contributing not because she's disengaged, but because the team's decision-making shifted to consensus-driven when she needs directness.
That's a solvable problem, but only if you have both data points.
Together, they create a detection system that works 9-12 months ahead of your engagement survey.
PI Midlantic was founded in 1985 by the Picarde family.
Working alongside consultants like Teri Scally Kinsella, David Lunken, Melanie Wood, and Vicki Myoda, each bringing decades of their own expertise, I've watched organizations of all sizes use behavioral data to detect culture problems that no survey would surface.
I could do culture work without PI.
I've been reading rooms since before I had a name for it.
But I wouldn't be as effective, and that's an honest admission, not a sales pitch.
Maybe this combination of observation and science is my superpower.
Maybe it's just the gift of having stumbled into the right tools at the right time.
Either way, I know this: the organizations that combine behavioral data with human pattern recognition detect dehydration faster, intervene earlier, and retain their best people longer.
Here's what makes me believe that, 20 minutes into a meeting, I can tell you when the conversation wasn't really a conversation.
One person talking, everyone else listening or kind of listening. That speaks volumes.
AI's going to transcribe everything the CEO said. But it's not going to read the facial expressions.
It's not going to pick up the text messages under the table, the DMs on the Zoom call.
It's going to miss the meeting after the meeting, or the meeting happening during the meeting.
Behavioral assessment won't catch those things either.
But it will tell me why the room configured itself that way, and that's the piece that makes the observation actionable instead of just intuitive.
Our team's mission, and it's one I believe in deeply, is ending workplace dissatisfaction.
Not managing it. Not measuring it more precisely.
Ending it, through understanding what people need and creating environments that provide it.
The Predictive Index is one of the most powerful tools I've found for that work.
Combined with the observational practices and the detection methodology I've developed over 35+ years, it gives leaders something rare: clarity about what's actually happening in their culture, not just what the dashboard shows.
Your people are everything. That's not a motto, it's the operating principle behind every assessment, every culture engagement, and every recommendation I make.
How do you use PI for team building?
PI for team building starts with understanding each person's behavioral drives, dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. This data reveals why certain team combinations create friction or flow. Combined with culture observation practices, leaders can design team compositions that naturally support collaboration.
What is the connection between behavioral assessment and culture?
Behavioral assessments provide the objective why behind cultural patterns. When a leader notices dehydration signals, behavioral data helps identify whether the cause is role misalignment, team composition friction, or leadership style mismatch. This creates a detection system that works 9-12 months ahead of traditional engagement surveys.
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