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Practice Makes Culture

By Christine Hudson, Ronica Roth

How Welcoming Elephants, Creating Ownership, and Facilitating Daily Practice Transform Organizations

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Coming June 2, 2026!

After decades of organizational transformation efforts, the failure rate remains stubbornly high—over 70%. What’s missing? The human element.

In Practice Makes Culture, you’ll discover why most transformations still fail and how to ensure yours succeeds by addressing what other approaches miss: the emotional dynamics, hidden narratives, and everyday behaviors that truly shape your organization.

Whether you’re helping your humans grapple with genAI (everywhere), helping turn around a business or department, or building a learning organization, you’ll learn how to create lasting change that delivers both better business results and happier humans. Filled with practical templates, facilitator guides, and real-world case studies, this book translates cutting-edge research into actionable practices you can implement immediately.

Don’t settle for another failed transformation. Create a culture where continuous improvement and positive change become organizational habits—where your teams deliver with confidence, quality, and joy.

  • Publication Date April 14, 2026
  • Pages 288
  • Dimensions 6 x 9 inches
  • Paperback ISBN 9781966280200
  • eBook ISBN 9781966280217
  • Audiobook ISBN 9781966280224

Features

  • Instant Implementation

    This book isn't theoretical. It's packed with ready-to-use meeting designs, conversation templates, and leadership scripts that readers can deploy immediately. Business readers will clamor for this practical resource that delivers ROI from page one.

  • Success Stories

    Case studies showcase dramatic improvements in both bottom-line results and employee retention—exactly what business readers are desperate to achieve.

  • Culture Change

    This book addresses the #1 pain point for today's executives: creating adaptable cultures that can evolve continuously without burning out employees. It's not just a book—it's an essential survival tool for modern businesses.

  • Transformation That Works

    While 70% of change efforts fail, Practice Makes Culture gives leaders the missing piece—a framework that addresses the human elephant in the room. Businesses are drowning in failed transformations; this book is their lifeline.

About the Book

After decades of organizational transformation efforts, the failure rate remains stubbornly high—over 70%. What’s missing? The human element.

In Practice Makes Culture, you’ll discover why most transformations still fail and how to ensure yours succeeds by addressing what other approaches miss: the emotional dynamics, hidden narratives, and everyday behaviors that truly shape your organization.

This practical guide introduces a powerful framework centered on three critical focus areas:

  • Elephants: Address the emotional aspects of change, recognize diverse perspectives, and tackle difficult conversations that most leaders avoid
  • Ownership: Create transformation that people actually want by ensuring those affected by change are the ones steering it
  • Practice: Transform meetings into powerful practice fields for cultural change through consistent, daily reinforcement of desired behaviors

Whether you’re helping your humans grapple with genAI (everywhere), helping turn around a business or department, or building a learning organization, you’ll learn how to create lasting change that delivers both better business results and happier humans. Filled with practical templates, facilitator guides, and real-world case studies, this book translates cutting-edge research into actionable practices you can implement immediately.

Don’t settle for another failed transformation. Create a culture where continuous improvement and positive change become organizational habits—where your teams deliver with confidence, quality, and joy.

Christine Hudson
Ronica Roth
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Christine Hudson

Christine Hudson

Christine Hudson is a coach and facilitator of modern value flow and facilitative leadership. She is on a mission to help create a world full of happier humans in high-performing teams and organizations.  Christine has a background in enterprise technology and tech entrepreneurship, in product development and management, and in leading change. She loves working with extended leadership teams, helping tens to hundreds of people practice together to achieve the results and culture change they want to see and feel. Her current favorite is working 1:1 with individual leaders who are striving to up their game–to improve the value flow and culture of their organizations.  Christine volunteers as a facilitator for board and leadership meetings of nonprofit organizations she cares deeply about. In the past, she has helped organize and run New Tech meetups and Fort Collins Startup Week.  Christine has a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from Colorado State University and a smattering of graduate courses on subjects from machine learning to organizational behavior. She speaks several languages (including some French, Spanish, and Dutch and others like Perl, Java, and C++) and loves adventuring–sailing, hiking, skiing, cycling, and climbing–with her partner, friends, and dog.

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Ronica Roth

Ronica Roth

Ronica Roth loves watching humans thrive and achieve together. She believes organizations of all types can elevate how people work together to unleash the potential of individuals and teams at all levels. Ronica wants to change the world of work, helping companies build learning organizations that do great things through the collaborative, aligned, and innovative efforts of their great people.  Ronica has a background in product management, facilitation, business agility, organizational change, and coaching both leaders and coaches. She is certified in the Leadership Circle profile and is a Certified Scrum Trainer Emeritus. She also worked in newspapers and holds an MS in journalism from Northwestern University and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. In addition to business, other team sports she has enjoyed include softball, rugby, and hockey. She loves the kinds of events where people come together to be their authentic selves while celebrating art, music, and expression. Based in Boulder, Colorado, she plays all the mountain games with her dog and friends: skiing, camping, climbing, hiking, and biking.

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"In Practice Makes Culture, the authors, who were once my colleagues at Rally, revive and expand on timeless practices that can help cultivate a culture of leadership at every level, bringing forward a legacy that’s more relevant now than ever. I’m grateful to Christine and Ronica for dedicating their efforts to making these insights accessible, not just for others, but for me as well. Their work is a powerful reminder that culture-making is a living, breathing process."

Ryan Martens

Founder, Rally Software, and Director, Manifest AI

"I’ve been asked countless times how to build a great culture. After twenty years of building and advising companies, I’ve seen most culture initiatives fail—especially enterprise-wide, top-down efforts. What Ronica and Christine understand, and what this book makes actionable, is how real cultural change actually happens. Leaders serious about building a culture that produces results should read this book."

Tim Miller

CEO Rally Software

"I’ve known Christine for over two decades—building companies together and spending long miles on bikes in the Colorado mountains. Those experiences taught me what this book makes clear: culture isn’t declared, it’s practiced. As a three-time CEO and board director, I’ve seen many change efforts fail. Practice Makes Culture is different—a practical, day-by-day, meeting-by-meeting system for making change stick."

Angela T. Tucci

Board Director and CEO Coach

"I've spent over two decades helping companies transform how millions of people work together. Some of my most game-changing moments have come from eight years of collaboration with Christine and Ronica. What I learned from these two extraordinary humans changed me irrevocably—not just as a leader, but as a person. You simply cannot unsee how vital storytelling, presence, honesty, and the courage to have hard conversations are to being both a good leader and a good teammate. I carry their wisdom into every interaction, personal and professional—into leadership meetings, my podcast, and in service of my Quaker community. Practice Makes Culture is a gift: it offers readers the tools to begin practicing in ways that will change them—and the cultures around them—forever."

Cheryl Crupi

SAFe Fellow, Vice President of SAFe Methodology at Scaled Agile, Inc.

"It’s been a decade of intentional, sustainable growth for me and the The Food Corridor team. And honestly, we wouldn’t be where we are, especially in those early, formative years, without Christine’s guidance and the frameworks she equipped us with. I’m thrilled that more people will now get access to the wisdom that helped shape our success through this book."

Ashley Colpaart

Founder & CEO The Food Corridor

"In two decades of nonprofit leadership, I’ve learned that the hardest part of mission-driven work isn't the mission—it's the culture. Practice Makes Culture arrives at a crucial moment for organizations navigating today’s rapidly evolving challenges. It is, quite simply, at the top of my list for leaders who want to ensure their impact is matched by their integrity. For anyone striving to make their organization live up to the values that drew people to this work in the first place, this is essential reading. It stands firmly alongside classics like Brené Brown’s 'Dare to Lead' as a definitive guide for the modern leader."

Sarah Swanty

Executive Director, Animal Friends Alliance

"Practice Makes Culture reflects everything I admire about Christine and Ronica’s approach to transformation: practical, human-centered, and grounded in what actually works. As someone who has spent more than two decades advising C-suites, leading HR organizations, and coaching executives through complex change, I can confidently say this book belongs on every leader’s desk. It bridges the gap between knowing what culture you want and knowing how to build it. It shows leaders how to implement an organizational operating system that turns culture into business results—one meeting, one conversation, one practice at a time."

Candice Bowen

JD, Executive Advisor and Coach, Former Chief People Officer and Chief of Staff

"At LPL Financial, we weren’t just transforming technology — we were transforming how people led. Everyone had a seat, a voice, and the chance to show their value — from executives to programmers. That’s what this book makes accessible — what Practice Makes Culture enables: turning silence into courage, hierarchy into connection, and attempted change into meaningful transformation."

David Ward

Chief Growth Officer at Theorem Labs and Former SVP, Technology at LPL Financial

"This book is amazing. Even though Christine has led us through these exercises before, as I read the book I found myself remembering tactics that I loved and taking handwritten notes off to the side so I could leverage them in our quarterly planning onsite the next week. Practice Makes Culture is a trusted handbook I'll keep using."

Andrea Bloom

Senior Director of Clinical Business Operations, Oscar Health

"Every change effort has one constant: humans. This book reveals practical ways to harness human psychology and transform change into lasting impact."

Tricia Broderick

coauthor of Lead without Blame

"This book will help your organization win. Firehunter didn’t win just because we had the right strategy or wrote down the right values. We won because we practiced them—in how we hired, coached, disagreed, and made decisions when the stakes were high. Over time, that repetition turned values into Culture, and Culture into a lasting edge."

John B. Smith

Founder & Managing Partner, Firehunter; Co-Founder Firehunter Business Unit

"Practice Makes Culture gets it right: Culture isn't what you say—it's what you practice every day. The values John and I established—and practiced—at Firehunter created a unique culture that taught me how to build high-performance teams throughout my career. This book will guide you to do that, too."

Bruce Fischer

CTO Bongo; Cofounder Firehunter BU

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