Episode Title: The Boom Will Come: Why Every Workplace Has a Blind Spot
Hosts: Michael VanDervort & Phil Wilson
Series: The Next 52 Weeks / Left of Boom
Runtime: ~32 minutes
Hello everyone, I’m Michael VanDervort. I am one of the co-hosts of the Left of Boom Show, and I’m here with my other co-host, Phil Wilson, who has a lot of other roles at LRI Consulting Services. And we’re getting ready to start a new series. We had done a series a few months ago on collective bargaining and preparing for that, and we’re going to do another series today based around The Next 52 Weeks.
And to get us started, I’m going to kick it off to Phil and let him explain what The Next 52 Weeks is and why he wrote the book about it. Phil, welcome back. And can you pick us up and get us started on that topic?
The 52 weeks—the idea of the 52 weeks and the consulting behind The Next 52 Weeks—came basically when I very first moved back to Oklahoma to go into the family consulting business.
And I was really passionate about being proactive and trying to create positive workplaces. So even though we’re involved in a lot of union campaigns, I always from the very beginning was kind of like, what can we do to prevent these things from happening in the first place?
And so I designed a program of just different things that I had seen work and things that I wanted other clients to try in their own workplaces to create a work environment where unions basically weren’t necessary.
And so the title of that whole series of different interventions is something we call The Next 52 Weeks. And the reason you call it The Next 52 Weeks is that if you win a union election, there’s a one-year bar on having any other elections with that same group of workers. And so you have this one-year kind of grace period to try to get your workplace turned around so that whatever led to the election in the first place isn’t a problem when you come up on that year.
And so the idea is you have this next 52 weeks to kind of get your house back in order—to create the kind of workplace where employees don’t see the need for representation.
You have a bit of a grace period where you can begin to heal and get your culture hopefully headed in a more positive direction.
So, the title of this episode—and there’s gonna be a dozen or more shows in this series that’ll be dropping over the next couple of months—the title of this episode is The Boom Will Come: Why Every Workplace Has a Blind Spot.
We’re going to talk about what Left of Boom means, what sets up and gets these kinds of situations started.
But I guess as you wrote The Next 52 Weeks or designed that program, and it later morphed into your book Left of Boom, the first question I want to ask you is: when you wrote The Next 52 Weeks, why did you start with the idea that “the boom will come”?
Yeah, well, Left of Boom and that whole idea came later. So it literally started—I’ve got, like, this is the OG Next 52 Weeks binder, right? This is… yeah, there wasn’t even a book. It was a bunch of pages in it.
And this one was actually modeled—a little history of our company—we sold a lot of videos back in those days, and the video preview package came in a…
The 500-page three-ring binder.
Binder that looked like this—it was a blue binder. And so when we started The Next 52 Weeks, I just decided we would build on what was already working there.
So we built this new binder for kind of proactive work. And we would send this binder out to folks, and inside it was a bunch of different ideas about things that you can do to create a positive workplace.
That ended up becoming the book The Next 52 Weeks. In the book, I describe a lot of the ideas that were in this binder, but then I build on them and talk about client experiences I’d had using the program.
That became the Next 52 Weeks book, and it was the program for a number of years—late 1990s into the mid-2000s.
Then we went into the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was where this Left of Boom idea came up.
The whole idea of Next 52 Weeks is being proactive—trying to prevent problems before they grow into large enough problems that employees would want to organize a union around them.
As I’m fond of saying, nobody wakes up in the morning saying the only thing missing from their life is that they’re not a Teamster. They choose a union as a solution to a problem.
So, as an employer, if you don’t want to have a union, then you need to be solving those problems yourself—helping your employees so they don’t ever have anything going on where they feel a need to pay somebody to represent them.
During the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, the Army came up with this idea of Left of Boom.
When you have a boom event—like an explosion of an improvised explosive device—or in company terms, a boom event like a union organizing campaign—there are a bunch of things that have to go wrong before that boom happens.
The military became proactive by investigating each attack like a crime scene and identifying all the steps that led to it. That gave them leverage to intervene before a bomb could ever be made, placed, or detonated.
I carry that same idea through employee relations. Work backward from a boom event like a campaign. What are all the things you need to do to prevent the boom from happening?
So it can be a little confusing because this show is called The Left of Boom Show, but we’re also talking about The Next 52 Weeks. They’re really the same thing—it just evolved into the Left of Boom concept.
Hahaha!
The 52-week component of it is: what can I do in a year to transform my employee relations environment?
And—you don’t have to have a union campaign for this stuff to work. Left of Boom isn’t just about avoiding union campaigns.
If you start today, a year from now your employee relations environment could be substantially better if you take these steps. And that’s what this program is about.
Yeah, and I think it’s important to point out that these same activities can be done before you ever have a union petition or election.
You’re doing the pre-work—the proactive early work that helps avoid these types of events from ever happening in the first place.
So the things we’re going to talk about in this series are applicable at any point in the labor relations process, although it’s built around the idea that you’ve had a union election and now you need to take some really urgent steps over the next year, right?
This stuff works if you’re already unionized. Just because you have a union doesn’t mean you want to have a crappy workplace.
A lot of these same principles apply—you might have to work with your union on some of them, but not all.
Whether you’re represented or not, worried about a campaign or not, these core principles are just good management and good workplace building.
That’s a great segue to talk about what the core ideas behind a Left of Boom strategy are—and how it differs from traditional reactive approaches.
Yeah. We like to call ourselves preventionists. A preventionist looks for where something could go wrong and tries to prevent it before it does.
At a 30,000-foot level, the core elements are:
You don’t want to rely only on annual surveys. That’s not enough.
It’s just one data point of many, right, that you should be looking at.
Exactly—not even close.
You have to invest in first-level leaders—they’re closest to the work and see issues first.
You want them not just to report problems but to solve them. That shows you’re serious about listening and responding.
You also want to create a workplace that’s fair, where expectations are clear, communication is strong, and mistakes are owned and corrected.
If someone struggles, coach them. Fairness in process—how you hire, promote, and discipline—matters.
When things go wrong, employees should still feel like they were treated fairly.
I don’t have analytical data to back this up, but we see companies of all kinds. Some do all the proactive work, and they still face union campaigns. Others do nothing and get blindsided.
So how do you talk to clients about that?
If the only reason you’re doing this is to avoid a union, that’s not a good motivation.
There are three ways to think about vulnerability:
That’s where you want to be.
Even proactive companies can get hit with campaigns—but they’re better positioned to win because employees already value the direct relationship.
You have to earn that privilege.
We’ll go into more depth on those things in future shows.
Wherever you are on that continuum—from unprepared to proactive—there are tools to help.
Why is vulnerability assessment the foundation of effective employee relations?
It’s really about listening—understanding when someone has a problem or concern.
We call it a vulnerability assessment because if you have a lot of unresolved issues building up, you’re vulnerable.
You need multiple ways for people to speak up—anonymous options, skip-levels, surveys—and not everyone wants to communicate the same way.
Once issues are raised, fix what you can. If you can’t, explain why and share the bigger picture.
Then step back and ask: is this a one-off issue or a systemic one? What can we change permanently?
It’s about learning from feedback and eliminating problems at the root.
Companies do this in lots of ways—dashboards, heat maps, risk mapping. It’s about spotting hotspots. What does that look like?
Yeah, it’s a structured way to combine feedback and performance data.
You look for indicators—turnover, safety, quality, productivity. They tell you where the culture might be slipping.
A heat map helps you visualize that across locations. You can see where things are going great and where they’re not—and prioritize resources accordingly.
And one of the most important pieces is that first-line supervisor.
Companies train them on legal compliance but rarely on relationships—the real driver of culture.
Exactly. Legal training matters—but it’s a small part of their role.
We overinvest in legal training and underinvest in relationship training.
Your culture isn’t words on a wall—it’s what your interactions with your first-level leader are like today.
If those are good, your culture is good.
Companies need to train leaders to have tough conversations, to notice when something’s off, to ask, “How are you doing?” and mean it.
Too often, companies promote top performers without relational skills and don’t train them. That’s a recipe for disaster.
During COVID, we had to promote people quickly and couldn’t train them. It created cultural crashes in certain areas that took a long time to fix.
And with AI and automation now, we may see that again—leaner teams, less training. It’s risky.
Yeah, absolutely. As technology expands, spans of control increase, and human connection gets harder.
We have a generation that’s less practiced at face-to-face communication, and that’s only going to increase.
That’s why you have to invest in human relationship skills—they’re getting rarer, but more critical.
We’re at like 32 minutes, so let’s close.
These skills—approachability, Left of Boom—they apply beyond work. They make you a better manager and a better person.
Where do you see the rest of this series going?
Yeah, people skills don’t stop when you leave work. These are life skills.
We teach leaders that these tools also make them better parents, spouses, and friends.
As for the series—we want to make Left of Boom more accessible. The book is long and dense. This series is meant to give people quick, practical steps they can take right now.
We’ll share our greatest hits—things you can do over the next year to make a real difference in your culture.
And anyone who’s gone through a union election will get access to this program as a way to rebuild trust and stability.
But really, these principles apply everywhere—to any organization that wants an extraordinary workplace.
Yeah, you could share it with your HR team, managers, or peers. It’ll be about 14 shows, dropping every two weeks, running through the end of January.
Phil, thanks for doing this. Any last thoughts?
I’m just excited to do it together. For us, it’s the next two months—but for everyone else, it’s The Next 52 Weeks.
Exactly. We’ll also introduce our expert guests as we go along.
Thanks, Phil. Take care.
Yeah. Thanks, Michael.
✅ End of Transcript
In this episode, Michael VanDervort and Phil Wilson introduce the concept of the ‘Next 52 Weeks’ as a proactive approach to employee relations, emphasizing the importance of creating a positive workplace culture to prevent union campaigns. They discuss the ‘Left of Boom’ strategy, which focuses on identifying and addressing potential issues before they escalate. The conversation highlights the significance of vulnerability assessments, the role of first-line supervisors, and the application of these principles in both professional and personal contexts. The series aims to provide practical insights and interventions to help organizations enhance their employee relations environment over the next year.
Takeaways
• The Next 52 Weeks is about proactive workplace strategies.
• Creating a positive workplace can prevent union campaigns.
• Left of Boom focuses on preventing issues before they escalate.
• Vulnerability assessments are crucial for understanding employee concerns.
• First-line supervisors play a key role in employee relations.
• Good management practices lead to a better workplace culture.
• Training for supervisors should focus on relationship-building skills.
• Employee feedback channels should be diverse and accessible.
• Organizational fairness is essential for a positive work environment.
• These principles apply to both unionized and non-unionized workplaces.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Next 52 Weeks
02:15 Understanding Left of Boom
07:35 Proactive Strategies for Employee Relations
14:38 The Importance of Vulnerability Assessments
19:31 Creating a Positive Workplace Culture
25:20 The Role of First-Line Supervisors
31:50 Applying Principles Beyond the Workplace
