Creating Clarity: How Matt Troskey Helps Leaders Turn Chaos Into Culture
David Parsons
Organizational Development Consultant | Helping Organizations and Leaders Reduce Turnover, Transform Workplace Culture, and Develop Leadership Strategies for Sustainable Success
When organizations lose their way, it’s rarely because of bad intentions. More often, it’s a slow drift, caused by unclear expectations, inconsistent leadership, and cultural norms that were never defined in the first place. Sometimes it is a jolt from a drastic ownership change, external disruption, or tragedy. Matt Troskey has made it his mission to help organizations stay centered.
As a seasoned HR practitioner turned fractional HR leader, Matt helps leadership teams align around what matters most: clear expectations, behaviors that feed the vision, real accountability, and positive culture that drives business outcomes. His approach blends operational rigor with emotional intelligence, helping leaders cut through the noise and lead with intention.
From Firefighter to Architect of Culture
Matt’s early career work was leading others through the wilderness and later, putting out fires - literally and figuratively. Working in fast-paced operational roles, he learned firsthand how dysfunction at the top trickled down to chaos on the front lines. But rather than get stuck in triage mode, Matt began asking bigger questions:
This curiosity led Matt into the world of organizational development, where he found his calling not as a fixer, but as an architect. Today, he helps organizations build strong foundations from the inside out.
Defining the Behaviors That Drive Culture
One of Matt’s core insights is deceptively simple: you can’t scale what you haven’t defined. Culture, he says, isn’t about vibes or values posters, it’s about the consistent behaviors people see, expect, and internalize.
In his work, Matt helps leadership teams:
This clarity creates a ripple effect. When people know what’s expected, and see it modeled consistently, trust builds, performance rises, and culture becomes self-reinforcing.
Helping Leaders Be Self-Accountable (With Empathy)
Matt doesn’t shy away from tough conversations. But his approach is never punitive. Instead, he sees accountability as a gift, an opportunity to realign and grow.
In his leadership consulting and workshops, he helps managers develop the skills to:
He believes that when leaders are clear, consistent, and caring they create teams that don’t just comply, but commit and excel. Your culture can foster greatness, or be a barrier.
Building Cultures That Have Resilience
Whether working with startups or established companies, Matt focuses on scalability and sustainability. His questions: can the culture grow with the business? Can it be sustained through disruption?
To do that, he helps organizations:
His caveat to leaders is that growth magnifies everything, both the good and the bad. If you aren't mindful about how to grow, the culture will be diluted into confusion and empty motions . If it isn’t genuinely strong, it will crumble under stress.
Real Takeaways for Leaders
So what can leaders learn from Matt’s approach?
1. Define culture in behavioral terms. If your values aren’t actionable, they won’t shape behavior.
2. Train leaders to deliver hard feedback with care. Accountability doesn’t have to be harsh, but it must be consistent, with an eye toward improving.
3. Build rituals that reinforce what matters. Culture lives in how you open meetings, recognize effort, and make decisions. It is how every corner of the org feels about what they do and how they do it.
4. Equip your managers. Frontline managers shape daily culture, invest in their development, and support them in being the crucial conduit of two-way feedback. They are where top-down and bottom-up intersect.
5. Design culture to scale. If your systems can’t grow with you, neither will your people. Be conscientious of the interplay between productivity and morale - they do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Final Thought
Matt Troskey isn’t just building better teams, he’s helping leaders reclaim clarity as their greatest asset. In a world where chaos often masquerades as complexity, his work offers a refreshing reminder:
Culture isn’t what you say. It’s what you consistently do. And when that “doing” is clear, aligned, and reinforced - performance and morale follow.
Co-Founder Cultara | Angel Investor at GTAN | Entrepreneurship Coach at McMaster University
2moWell said. The idea that culture drifts—not breaks—is spot on. I’ve seen how easily that drift can go unnoticed until performance, trust, or retention start to suffer. Scaling culture isn't about slogans or one-off initiatives—it's about embedding clarity, accountability, and values into how decisions actually get made. Have you seen any approaches that work especially well in catching that drift early, before it becomes a problem? Would love to hear what’s worked in your experience. David Parsons
Chartered Senior Psychologist | Speaker | Trainer | I empower Professionals through Psychology and Training
2moCulture lives in the actions your organisation repeats, not the words it promotes. Building it into systems ensures it withstands growth and pressure over time David Parsons
#1 LinkedIn Education Creator 🇨🇦 | Performance-Based Learning & Human-Centered Systems | Fractional CLO | 7-Figure Ed Founder | Helping Leaders build Performance-Based training systems for Business Growth
2moConsistency in small daily behaviors quietly shapes whether culture strengthens or drifts apart under pressure.
Human-First Leaders: Turn invisible work into impact clarity. A system to lead, negotiate, and grow with confidence and agency | Oncology-Tested, Corporate-Proven | DM ‘UNIFIED’ to explore how this could work for you.
2moThe real work isn’t defining culture in a meeting, it’s reinforcing it when no one’s watching, David.