From Can’t to Can – Leading Culture Change in High-Stakes Environments with Jeff Huff

What happens when you shift from a culture of “can’t” to a culture of “can”?

Highlights Covered

• How a new leader used the first 90 days to map change across an entire organization
• The power of listening, documenting, and acting to build trust and momentum
• Why transitioning from a mindset of “can’t” to “can” unlocks empowerment, innovation, and accountability
• Real-world example - a $150 sponsorship request turned into a catalyst for a cultural shift across the organization
• Leadership takeaway- empowerment creates efficiency - and frees up leadership to lead

Summary

This episode explores how intentional leadership, rooted in listening and empowerment, can transform a team paralyzed by limitation into one fueled by possibility.

Will Gladhart is joined by Jeff Huff, CEO & President of Krucial Rapid Response, a former for-profit, turned nonprofit focused on healthcare and disaster relief staffing. 

With a diverse background that includes time in the Navy, leadership roles at FedEx and Pensify, and entrepreneurial ventures at Restoration Emporium KC, Jeff shares how his varied experience shaped a leadership approach rooted in action, listening, and empowerment.

When Jeff joined Krucial, the organization was stuck in a culture of “can’t.” Employees lacked decision-making power, departments operated without budgets, and innovation was stifled. 

In his first 90 days as the new leader - Jeff implemented a structured approach - what he calls his “9 D’s” - to identify strengths, gaps, and early wins. 

Through observation and intentionally connecting with staff at ever level, he helped the organization transition from a reactive mindset to a forward-looking culture where people felt equipped and trusted to lead.

One turning point came when a team member hesitantly requested a $150 sponsorship for an event. Instead of denying it or micromanaging, Jeff empowered the team to own the decision, ushering in a broader shift toward autonomy, resource ownership, and accountability. 

That moment, he reflects, was symbolic of a much larger transformation.

Jeff’s story is a case study in how intentional leadership - grounded in listening, structure, and trust - can rebuild a culture from the inside out. 

His advice to fellow leaders is simple but powerful - empower your people so you can lead with vision.

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn

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Episode Transcript

William Gladhart (00:00):
Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladheart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.

(00:21):
Today, our guest is Jeff Huff,president at Krucial Rapid
Response.
Thanks for taking the time tojoin us.
Absolutely my pleasure.
Let's begin by having you sharewith our audience a bit about
yourself, your background andalso your organization.

Jeff Huff (00:38):
Full disclosure.
I'm a recovering hillbilly fromSouthwest Missouri and that is
my claim to fame.
I guess, but it gave me theopportunity to grow up in a
small community, learn valuesthat are sometimes taken for
granted.
I grew up watching my mom workhard every day, go to work, so
that hard work attitude comesfrom my mom, my grandma, my

(01:00):
grandpa.
That way I grew up in a smalltown, was able to join the Navy,
and so I spent six years.
Naval Reserve was in supply.
It was not activated duringDesert Storm, but was on call
during that time.
I was able to secure a job withFedEx when I was 19.
I moved to Kansas City and spent17 years at that organization

(01:24):
and watched it grow and flourishand develop.
I grew from washing vans,loading trucks, going into
operations, doing anything thatI could for money as a young
married person with a child, andthen got to go into sales and
that found my passion.
I love sales.
I love being able to sell.

(01:46):
Everybody was doing it at thetime and so I wanted to follow

(02:11):
that trend.
But I was at Pensify for about14 years and went from carrying
a bag from dental office todental office and then worked my
way up into working with largeorganizations.
I was trained by every division.
There's five, six divisions.
Maybe now Got Krucial tounderstand the dental world
inside and out and grew as aperson in my professional career
.
Also was able to get myMBA while I was there, so he'll

(02:33):
believe, with an MBA.
I know that sounds prettyterrifying.
Dangerous right yeah yeah,absolutely dangerous and then
own my own business.
My wife and I own RestorationEmporium as well and I had Casey
Furnishing and so was not justput a lot of the corporate
skills EMTs that I had learnedinto entrepreneurial type of

(02:53):
deal and did that for about fiveyears and then currently where
I'm at is Crucial Rapid Response.
It's a year and staffingorganization focused primarily
on responding to disasters,hurricanes, fires, tornadoes,
those kinds of things.
We really support organizationsthat have called full wrap
services, so they have the tentsand the equipment, but their

(03:17):
cadre of people are not bigenough a lot of times for the
size of those deployments, andso that's where we come into
play.
We also do what I call corestaffing, and so we are where we
come into play.
We also do what I call corestaffing, and so we are working
with hospitals, health careorganizations in order to be
able to fill that need.
That is especially significantright now, whether it's nurses,
emts, behavioral tech, reallyheavy in the mental health

(03:41):
aspect right now, and that'swhat I'm currently doing.
I've been doing that for alittle over a and that's what
I'm currently doing.
I've been doing that for alittle over a year now and I'm
absolutely utilizing everythingI've learned from every stop
along the way and just having alot of fun doing it.

William Gladhart (04:23):
As a leader, am I able, that's great to hear.
Well, you've definitely had awide breadth of experience and
in many roles.
I look forward to yourresponses today.
So we'll be discussing threequestions as a warm up to start
our conversation.
Would you share why you believea healthy culture is critical?

Jeff Huff (04:23):
able to create the empowerment, the ability for
people to do their job and notjust to show up.
We're working throughperformance evaluation season
right now and talking to people,their why, why are they here,
and it creates an understandingof if your corporate culture and
what you're doing, the why isimpactful and your why is not
just about the organization butabout them growing.

(04:45):
That's key, and so really haveworked very hard to make sure
that is in place so that we can,whenever we're on a deployment
and we have working around theclock a lot of times that
there's not that hesitancy ofokay, do I want to be involved,
but it's like I have to beinvolved, I want to do what it

(05:06):
takes in order to be able toaccomplish the task at hand.

William Gladhart (05:10):
Yeah, I think that's really a valid piece
Kcrucial information for otherleaders.
Is, you know, not only the whybut also helping people
understand their role andclarity, especially because
you're in a high pressure, highstress situations, even more
critical to have that alignment.
It's been our experience thatleaders tend to struggle in
three key areas people, processor profit.

(05:31):
In your role as a leader orthis organization or others that
you've worked in, which ofthose areas kind of presented a
cultural challenge?
And then also, how did you kindof go about solving it?

Jeff Huff (05:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I didn't mention.
But Crucial is a nonprofitorganization and so it went from
a for-profit 9 to a nonprofitprior to when I was here, and so
you can imagine that the profitside of it that it's still
important, but it's not like theonly thing we focus on, and the

(06:05):
people are here, the peoplethat are still here want to be
here, and so I really looked atkind of the process side of it
is what things were in place orwhat needed to be adjusted, what
needed to be updated or changedor eliminated in order for us
to be successful.
And so, really, in the first 90days I have my own, I have

(06:27):
issues, but I have nine Ds thatI go through and each 30 days
those D words.
Alliteration is my lovelanguage, being able to go
through that and identify whowas there.
Why were they there?
What did they do?
How did they interact with eachother?
How did that interaction couldit get better?
What were the challenges inside?
of that, and then how did thatplay into all of the things that

(06:50):
we needed to get done?
Were we casting a vision, Werewe fulfilling just our basic
promise to our recruits and thento our facilities that we had
contracts with?
And so that first 90 days as aleader inside this organization
were so important for me to beable to understand all of those
things and took copious notesand what you would see as I went

(07:14):
through it was there wasconsistencies, there were
outliers here, there are thingsthat somebody was important to
them but maybe not to the group,but there was.
I identified five to six thingsthat were like okay, if we solve
these, have early wins as muchas possible, and then be able to

(07:35):
implement processes or programsor whether it's communication
or whatever it is, and implementthose and to be able to see
success, to see that I'm notjust here to make change but I'm
here to create opportunitiesfor us to be successful.
So I think that for me as aleader and that first 90 days
were so key, but then being ableto take pieces of that and that

(07:56):
even today, some of thosethings are part of that vision
for the next one, three, fiveyears, and be able to cast that.
And then it goes back to thosefirst 90 days and they're like
oh wait, Jeff was listening tome.
He wasn't just, we weren't justmeeting, but he's actually
listening and it made an impacton me so that we could be a

(08:17):
better organization.

William Gladhart (08:18):
Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that
CAN'T I think that's a valuablepoint for other leaders, because
one 90 days being very criticalbut also taking a micro look at
every aspect of theorganization and really
understanding that but thendigesting it, turning around and
communicating it back to staffthat not only did you take the
time to listen, but they wereheard and then those actions and

(08:40):
next steps were taken.
What was probably the one thingin that journey that helped
impact your culture andperformance positively across
the organization?

Jeff Huff (08:51):
The culture was almost a culture of camp.
You know you can't do this andyou can't accomplish this and
you can't do that.
And so I wanted to create aculture of can, and so that was
the biggest change in a lot ofthis was I had people like the
business development team andthey can't go to conferences and

(09:12):
you can't support this and youcan't do that.
It was very interesting.
One of the first things we weretalking about.
They came to me almostapologetically asking there's
this account that has asked usto be involved in their golf
tournament.
I'm like, okay, I'm thinkingbig sponsorship or something
like that.
They asked for $150 so thatthey could go to it.

(09:35):
I'm apologizing and I'm like,no, I go.
What's the sponsorship levels?
Let me know what that is.
We'll provide a gift for thegiveaways.
We'll do this, this and this.
And it was almost like no, waita second.
That first introduction to canyou can do this, you can make

(09:55):
decisions, you can do thesekinds of things.
And there was no previousleadership was working to put in
budget because there was nobudgets in place, so there was
no performance reviews, therewere no things like that.
And so, in order to help peopleunderstand that they can do
things.
Each department implemented andpresented their budgets to me

(10:17):
so that we could project ahead,so that we could say in the
first quarter we're doing this,second quarter doing that, so
that they don't have to come tome and ask for $150 for a golf
tournament.
They have the ability to makedecisions on things like that.
So changing that mindset from acan't culture to a can culture
was the key.

William Gladhart (10:37):
Wow, that's a great story, but also a great
testament to leadership andyourself to be able to not only
empower people to look at wherethe gaps were of why they
couldn't and why that attitudeof can't had been pervasive,
versus them being empowered byhaving a budget or whatever
those resources was, to make thedecisions and make the next

(10:58):
step.
As we wrap up today, is thereanything else you'd like to add
or share with fellow leaders?

Jeff Huff (11:03):
Yeah, kind of on that can culture, if I can.
What that does?
It empowers people and thenthat empowerment allows them to
provide ideas and solutions andthen that creates efficiency and
that allows me to be the
visionary, Jeff to be able toprovide the vision, which means
we go back to the top.
It empowers them so it justfeeds itself and so you can go

(11:29):
from little wins Levers tobuy-in and it goes to Levers and
we and the why is explained.
So www.

(12:54):
theculturethinktank.
com I would just encourage toreally dig in and understand
what's the history where you atcurrently and then know that
even the biggest challenges canbe overcome with intentional
efforts and being able to investin others.
And the most important thing isyou know
, you see people in meetings, the leaders, and
they're on their phone andthey're approving and doing this
.
That's for me, I see that asbeing somebody that maybe hasn't
empowered, they haven't giventhem, their employees, the
ability to that can attitude.
Free up you by empowering themis what I would say.

William Gladhart (12:22):
Yeah, well, that definitely speaks to, as
you mentioned, empowerment, butalso innovation, performance,
all those things across theboard that, as you said, can
transform the entireorganization, not only
attitudinally but alsofinancially.
So, jeff, I've enjoyed havingyou on our leadership lovers
podcast today.
Thank you so much for yourinsights.
I appreciate the opportunity.

(12:42):
Thank you for joining us on theLeadership Lovers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Loversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website atwwwtheculturethinktankcom, or
listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
We'd love to hear from youabout the challenges you have

(13:03):
faced as a leader.
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