Client Testimonials and Endorsements
HEALTHCARE/BIOTECH
Paul was invited back to address our faculty and staff over several years for our annual business retreat because of the valuable content in his presentations and his warm and affable communication style. Whether we were addressing employee motivation and development, leadership communication and teambuilding, or employee performance and accountability, he provided our leadership team with fresh insights and immediate ideas to implement back on campus. It was always such a pleasure inviting him to become a critical part of our annual strategic planning sessions. – Gail Herndon Huskins, former Non-Profit Business Director, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA
Paul traveled to three cities to train our sales leadership team on how to interview more effectively for top sales producers. Their confidence went up immediately, they made better hires, and they compared notes to compete with one another and onboard the most successful new team members. – Heather Rider, former Vice President, Global HR, Intuitive Surgical, San Jose, CA
We reached out to Paul to lead a series of workshops (virtual and in-person) for our “Women of Natera (WoN) leadership team,” an Employee Resource Group, as part of our career and professional development training. Paul captured the spirit of what we were trying to achieve, customizing his sessions to our specific needs. He addressed critical areas of leadership communication, including effective hiring, performance management, and leadership development that were tailored to our team of female leaders in STEM. Paul’s sessions were a true success in every way—fun, informative, enlightening, and full of workplace wisdom. I highly recommend every leader and executive to work with Paul, learn and implement the well-tested strategies of "servant leadership" and of “becoming your people's favorite boss." Paul's leadership series holds the key to the next generation of leaders, and we were extremely fortunate to have him lead our training and provide executive coaching. – Meenakshi Malhotra, Ph.D., Associate Director of Scientific Affairs, Natera, Inc. San Carlos, CA
Paul hosted a two-day offsite conference for our recruitment team that made the event fun, memorable, and impactful. He has a way of putting everyone at ease and making it comfortable to contribute ideas and put your best foot forward. His sincerity shows through and through, and the team built an immediate bond and trust with him. – Cindy VandenBulcke, National Sourcing Specialist, Veterinary Centers of America, Santa Monica, CA
Paul conducted a 90-minute presentation to roughly 150 of our leaders on the topic of remote leadership and employee motivation. It was one of our first gatherings as a senior team since the COVID pandemic began three years earlier, and Paul’s content and delivery style were spot on for what we were looking for and needed to hear. He shared excellent insights into hiring and managing remote workers and motivated us to develop leadership action plans to take our team to the next level moving into the new year. Very happy to recommend Paul for similar types of keynote opportunities to align your senior management teams and get everyone on the same page in terms of leadership best practices. – Anthony Marquez, Head of Human Resources, Prospect Medical Systems, Orange, CA
Paul led a series of workshops for our management team and staff employees that focused on team alignment, workplace civility, and performance management. We’re a smaller medical practice with two offices and were looking for a trainer and meeting facilitator to help us reinvent our way of doing business and create a more inclusive and respectful work environment. Paul’s workshops were fully remote but really resonated with our team. He shared practical wisdom and not-so-common insights into getting the most out of people by becoming a favorite boss, practicing selfless leadership, and building a stronger environment for teamwork and camaraderie. His guidance was very much appreciated by all and gave us something to work towards as we moved to incorporate his insights into our medical practice on a day-to-day basis. – Juanita Scott, Executive Director, Radiation Oncology Centers of Ventura County, Ventura, CA
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Paul spent two days with us in our New York City headquarters office for a management offsite and helped us reinvent our performance management program via a series of onsite workshops for various management and staff cohorts. First, he implemented modifications to our performance appraisal template that helped alleviate grade inflation challenges. We experienced noticeably less inflated ratings company-wide that reflected individual performance much more accurately. Paul’s workshops empowered managers and eliminated the fear of being straightforward and honest in their assessments, especially for underperformers. We adopted a new approach to real-time constructive feedback and introduced quarterly reviews to our program. Employees were excited to receive performance feedback more frequently. Additionally, several new managers displayed significant interest in “partnering with HR,” as Paul outlined in his training workshops. This has opened the line of communication across the organization in a very positive way. Paul’s guidance was extremely helpful and effective, and we’re seeing real results. We call it the “Paul Falcone effect”! --Lisa Tutunjian, senior vice president and chief human resources officer, Interaudi Bank, New York City
Paul conducted a series of senior executive leadership workshops for Thornburg Investment Management that helped launch our 2023 leadership series focusing on management communication, team alignment, and individual performance and productivity. His workshops were exceptionally engaging, and his content focused on effective hiring and onboarding as well as leadership offense and defense strategies. Our leaders spoke about his presentations for weeks afterwards, determining how to incorporate his “best practice” strategies into workable solutions. I’m happy to recommend Paul for any similar types of programs where senior teams might benefit from new insights into leadership best practices, cross-departmental communication, and high standards of performance and accountability. – Dana Jones, HR Director, Thornburg Investment Management, Inc., Santa Fe, New Mexico
FITNESS/CUSTOMER CARE
We retained Paul to help us launch our first formal performance management program. Paul partnered with me and our HR department to build a performance appraisal template that made sense for our organization at our present stage of development. We built a tool and program focused on individual, departmental, and corporate goals, creating opportunities for managers and teams to discuss career and professional development, and recognize and reward high performance. Our goal was to move our organization forward with broader alignment and clarity, while strengthening our culture based on transparency, achievement focus, and reward for successful performance. Paul listened carefully, adapted and pivoted to our needs, and connected well with our senior leadership team for a successful rollout. – Lewis Stanton, CEO, World Gym International, Los Angeles
NONPROFITS
My colleague and I thought we knew everything there was to know about employee relations issues when we reluctantly signed up for an online seminar that Paul was conducting. However, we were surprised to learn a lot from Paul, and we really liked his engaging and practical style with great real-life examples, so we decided to bring him in to conduct similar sessions for our management team. His in-house workshops were a hit with our managers, and due to popular demand, we will invite Paul back again to conduct more sessions. Additionally, he was a delight to work with as he helped customize the content for our managers. -- Nina Fleiss, Deputy Director, Human Resources, The Simons Foundation, New York City
Paul's training on Leadership, Communication, Creating a Coaching Culture, and Teambuilding was what we needed to level-set the skills that our managers require across the organization. Paul received positive feedback from managers stating that he provided them with skills they could immediately implement to better support their teams. The Performance vs. Conduct discussion connected most with managers, as this provided them with the ability to separate issues to address improvement areas more effectively with direct reports. The presentation was lively, engaging, and Paul was able to connect across all the generations we have in our management roles. I highly recommend Paul as a great resource to any organization that needs help with upskilling managers to be more effective in their work. Check out his books and articles as well. -- John Horn, Vice President of Human Resources, L.A. Family Housing, North Hollywood, CA
PUBLIC SECTOR
Paul helped Port of Long Beach design and roll out a new performance management program that needed updating and that required fresh ideas and a novel approach to performance evaluation and employee involvement. The success of the rollout hinged upon the management team’s buy-in, and Paul’s four days of onsite facilitation and refreshing insights helped the launch become a full success. – Louis Gutierrez, former Managing Director, Port of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Paul Falcone delivered training for San Juan County with his usual upbeat, energetic and engaging style. My supervisors were equipped with tools they could immediately apply on the job, and the results were instantly visible. Weeks later my team is still talking about how valuable the training was. Many of us have purchased his books for future reference. San Juan County would love to work with Paul again. – Angie Baird, Director of Human Resources and Risk Management, San Juan County, Friday Harbor, Washington
ENTERTAINMENT
Paul conducted a full two-day intensive leadership development workshop for our frontline operational managers focusing on effective hiring, motivation, and performance management as well as disciplinary interventions and structuring terminations. It was an excellent investment that our management team genuinely enjoyed and learned so much from because of Paul’s outstanding content and engaging communication style. – Catherine Strickland, Director of People and Culture—the Americas, Vista Entertainment Solutions, Los Angeles
ACADEMIA/EDUCATIONAL
Paul conducted a series of workshops—both remote and onsite—to our Leads and above to provide them with formal management and leadership training. Our department heads benefitted from having all leaders aligned on their teams with management best practices, our CEO received positive feedback and ensured that anyone who missed Paul’s live training was required to listen to the recordings, and the buzz and energy created from his workshops still resonates with our leaders and can be felt by our employees. – Kathie Nirschl, Vice President of Human Resources, Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA
Paul presented leadership best practices in the private sector to our faculty and administrative teams. His presentation was exceptionally well received and confirmed for us everything we’re doing right, while pointing to areas that we could reconsider and reinvent going forward. He’s a great speaker to provide an alternative perspective on effective leadership and communication. – Brenda Rushforth, CHRO, Pomona College, Pomona, CA
HI-TECH & MANUFACTURING
Paul joined us for a four-hour workshop on effective leadership and management and rocked it. We’re a startup in the hi-tech space and are preparing for expansive growth, and we realized we needed leadership training to align our senior management team and ensure that everyone is engaging in leadership best practices. The workshop was fun and full of new approaches and useful tools, the level of audience participation and engagement was exceptional, and we’re excited to move forward and put many of his practices into place. We’re hoping to invite Paul back to meet with our engineers and individual contributors to lead a workshop on career management and personal branding as well. – Travis Griffith, Executive Vice President, People and Operations—Spartan Radar, Los Alamitos, CA
Paul conducted inhouse training for leaders as part of our leadership development program, several of whom were not fluent in English or who grew up in Asian cultures. Paul’s approach to presenting was very flexible yet reassuring. Our senior leaders were especially pleased with his communication style and his sincerity, and they grasped his content exceptionally well. – Ellen Lee, former Sr. HR Manager, Lotte Chemical California, La Palma, CA
LAW FIRMS
Paul held several sessions with our legal operations team to discuss our performance management program, including performance appraisal, motivation and reward, and progressive discipline and termination. We needed his level of expertise to answer all our questions and align our expectations going forward. Paul was instrumental in supporting our efforts in strengthening our leadership message and getting everyone on board with a new way forward. His program was timeless, and we continue to use the tools and methods he provided us years later. – Shirley Hands, Director of Operations and Administration, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, Los Angeles
Paul led a series of workshops for our legal administrators that focused primarily on interviewing, hiring, and onboarding and then progressed into key leadership areas, including teambuilding, communication, and progressive discipline. He provided attendees with a realistic set of tools to motivate and develop staff while also holding subordinates accountable for high performance standards. -- Karen Fritz, former Managing Director, Human Resources, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLC, Los Angeles
ASSOCIATIONS
Paul has served as our keynote speaker for SDEA’s biannual legal updates and business development workshops for attracting new clients. His presentations are always fresh and insightful, allowing our members to implement his many suggestions and solutions as soon as they return to the office. He’s a highly regarded presenter and a crowd favorite. -- Christine Bryant, former President & CEO, San Diego Employers Association, San Diego, CA
Paul designed and instructed the American Management Association International (AMA) course “Leadership and Team Development for Managerial Success,” a highly sought after and successful program. His webinars were always top notch and highly popular, and he was one of our favorite authors at AMACOM Books. A pleasure to work with and a true professional – Manny Avramidis, President & CEO, American Management Association International, New York City
Paul is consistently a top-rated and sought-after presenter at the SHRM Annual Conference. He never fails to fill the room to capacity, he always makes learning fun, and he clearly stands out as an exceptional presenter among his speaker and author peers. – Tony Lee, VP Content, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Alexandria, Virginia
Key Micro-Lessons from Paul’s Books
