About the show
the Watson standard is a podcast for leaders who want to change their organizations without losing sight of people, purpose, or principles along the way.
Explore the human and organizational side of change: how leaders develop, how organizations evolve, and how to stay grounded when the work gets complicated.
About the hosts
She helps people change.
He helps systems change.
Together, we’re helping to change work for the better.
Megan Alexa Watson
Cohost
A leadership development and talent management executive with deep experience helping leaders navigate complex organizational challenges. She is currently focused on stewarding senior leaders through the individual change required to drive strategic and AI transformation at scale and speed.
Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.
Cohost
The founding principal of Madrona Strategy Works, where he advises leaders on enterprise strategy, organizational design, culture, and leadership-team effectiveness. His research explores how organizations adapt and thrive amid uncertainty and change.
Megan Alexa Watson
Megan Alexa Watson leads Microsoft’s Executive + Partner Development organization managing a team of HR professionals who steward senior leaders through the individual change required to drive Microsoft’s AI transformation at scale and speed. Her work focuses on helping executives build critical leadership capabilities and evolve needed leadership mindsets for success. She crafted a talent development strategy grounded in organizational psychology, talent management, leadership development, and change leadership. Together her team is accountable for senior leader onboarding, talent assessments, success profiles, executive coaching, and customer development offerings that enable executive excellence.
Prior to this role, Megan was Chief of Staff to Microsoft’s Chief Diversity Officer where she supported the leader in setting strategy and reimaging her function; she led executive communications for the CVP of Consumer Device Sales; and she supported HR and senior leadership by driving communications and storytelling for the company’s industry-defining culture transformation. Prior to Microsoft, Megan worked at a public affairs agency in Washington, D.C.
Megan holds a graduate degree in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, a graduate degree in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications, and an undergraduate degree in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley.
Carl B. Watson, Ph.D., is the founding principal of Madrona Strategy Works, where he advises leaders on enterprise strategy, organizational design, culture, and leadership-team effectiveness. He is also an Affiliated Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations at USC Marshall and a former executive at Nike, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase.
As VP of Transformation, Organizational Strategy, and Culture at Nike, Carl and his team drove enterprise transformation across the Nike, Jordan, and Converse Brands, including the strategic translation, design, and activation of the global operating model for the consumer sport evolution. Under his leadership, they successfully launched a new enterprise-wide focus on high-performance teaming and multi-year work to re-energize Nike’s company culture.
Carl led Microsoft’s Organizational Development & Culture Activation team. He was the organizational architect of the strategic shifts for the Entertainment + Devices business and, later, the Windows + Devices Group, shifting these businesses from an operating system on PC hardware to a service powering experiences across devices. He and his team were accountable for major enterprise-wide culture initiatives and evolving the enterprise operating model, during a critical juncture in the company’s industry-defining culture transformation.
His research examines strategic renewal and how organizations build the capabilities to adapt in turbulent environments. Carl holds a Ph.D. in Management, Designing Sustainable Systems from Case Western Reserve University; an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan.
Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.