Hero to Zero pulls back the polished corporate curtain and reveals what really goes down in HR, recruiting, leadership, and workplace culture.
Hosted by Ken Pearson — Certified Global HR Professional, Executive Coach, and veteran of more conference rooms than he cares to admit — this podcast explores the moments when best-laid plans meet human nature... and chaos wins.
Each month, we tackle a new part of the HR ecosystem — recruiting disasters, DEI misfires, leadership lessons learned the hard way — with real stories, expert guests, and just enough sarcasm to keep it honest.
Expect real mistakes, real solutions, and real laughs.
No buzzwords. No corporate Kool-Aid. Just the behind-the-scenes reality you always suspected was happening.
Because in HR (and life)... it only takes one email to go from hero to zero.
🎧 New episodes drop monthly.
📩 Got a workplace horror story? Email us at ken.pearson@shadetree-consulting.com — we might just feature it.
Leadership Investment – Why Now Is the Time (Not the Time to Cut)
In this episode of Hero to Zero, Ken Pearson sits down with Tina Schust Robinson to challenge one of the most common—and costly—assumptions in business today: When uncertainty rises, leadership development gets cut. Tina makes the opposite case. In moments of instability, leadership is not a cost to manage—it’s the deciding factor in whether a business stabilizes, adapts, and grows… or stalls under pressure. Drawing from decades of experience across consulting, operations, and leadership coac...
21 Oct 2025
H_AI_R: When the Humans in HR Compete With the Robots
H_AI_R: When the Humans in HR Compete with the Robots A conversation with Russell Porter on how HR can protect what stays human in the age of AI. In this episode of Hero to Zero, Russell Porter joins Ken Pearson to explore what happens when HR’s most human qualities—empathy, judgment, and culture—collide with the rise of artificial intelligence. Together they unpack the five levels of AI capability, the limits of human change capacity, and why “designing for dignity” might be the most importa...
25 Aug 2025
Episode 4 | Resenteeism: They Check In but Don’t Check Out
What happens when employees keep showing up physically, but emotionally and mentally they’ve already left? Welcome to the world of Resenteeism — the workplace trend where people check in, but they don’t truly check out. You’ve probably heard of presenteeism (being at work but not fully productive) and quiet quitting (dialing back effort to the bare minimum). Resenteeism is different — and more dangerous. It’s what happens when frustration, dissatisfaction, or burnout take root, but people sti...
15 Jul 2025
Learning & Development: The Training Trap
Companies love to say they’re “learning organizations.” But when the pressure hits, training is the first to get cut—or worse, it's used to mask deeper failures in leadership, culture, and accountability. In this episode of Hero to Zero, host Ken Pearson sits down with David Dauman, CEO of Solutions House and longtime L&D advisor, to unpack how corporate training programs can become a performance illusion. What starts as a genuine effort to develop people often collapses into checkbox com...
15 Jun 2025
Culture: Do the Music and Lyrics Match?
Fred Deschamps, founder of FitMe, explores the disconnect between a company's stated values and its actual culture with Ken Pearson in an interview about organizational harmony.
15 May 2025
Episode 01 - Recruiting
Recruiting used to be about finding great talent. Now it feels like applying for a mortgage, joining a secret society, and surviving a reality show — all at once. In Episode 1 of Hero to Zero, host Ken Pearson is joined by Dean Trimble (Managing Director at Jackson Stevens Global) to unpack why the modern hiring is so frustrating — and what to do about it. From job descriptions that read like horoscopes to interview loops that never end, this episode is both a reality check and a roadmap. Plu...
26 Apr 2025
Hero to Zero - Trailer
Welcome to Hero to Zero — the podcast where HR legends, leadership missteps, and workplace chaos collide. Hosted by Ken Pearson, Certified Global HR Professional and Executive Coach, this series pulls back the corporate curtain to share the real stories, the real mistakes, and the real lessons that don’t make it into the company newsletter. In this quick trailer, Ken introduces the why behind Hero to Zero, what you can expect each month, and how you can join the conversation — with your own o...
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