NCEO Annual Conference 2026  ·  Pre-Conference Session

The GRITT Stress Test
Every ESOP Needs

Are Your People, Culture and Numbers Ready?

This session equips ESOP leaders with a powerful, people-centered approach to evaluating and strengthening the long-term health of their organization - through the lens of resilience science, psychological safety, and modern talent strategy.

April 6, 2026
1:30 - 4:30 PM CDT
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
3-Hour Pre-Con Session
Talk to GRITT About Your ESOP
The GRITT Stress Test Every ESOP Needs - NCEO 2026 Pre-Conference Session
The Session

Most ESOP stress tests focus on the financials. This one includes your people.

Financial health matters. But the ESOP companies that sustain performance through market cycles, leadership changes, and cultural pressure aren't just financially sound - they're built on people who understand the business, trust each other enough to say hard things, and have the structure to perform when conditions get difficult. This session builds the framework to evaluate and strengthen all three.

From Last Year

Watch GRITT at NCEO 2025

See what the session looked like, and why attendees said it was the most actionable pre-con they had experienced.

GRITT brought real frameworks, real numbers, and real ownership culture thinking to the NCEO stage. Content you can use the week you get back.

What You'll Learn

Three frameworks you can apply the week you get back.

01

Explanatory Style & ESOP Culture

The science behind how people interpret challenges, setbacks, and success - and why these mental habits are a foundational driver of ownership culture and performance under pressure. You'll learn how to identify and shift explanatory style across your organization.

02

Psychological Safety & Adaptive Teams

How belonging, trust, and interpersonal safety enable people to adapt faster, communicate more openly, and respond creatively to uncertainty. The conditions that make an ownership culture actually function - and the specific behaviors that signal when they're breaking down.

03

Talent Management Strategy Map

A clear framework that aligns people, roles, systems, and technology in support of a high-performing ownership culture. How to use behavioral data, AI tools, and structured development to predict and navigate stress points before they become performance gaps.

The Presenters

Practitioners who have built what they're teaching.

Tom Bagwell
Tom Bagwell
VP of Learning & Development, GRITT

20+ years executive leadership. Certified Executive Coach. UC Berkeley, University of Chicago MBA, Penn MAPP, Northwestern Kellogg Executive Scholar. Three-time Teacher of the Year at Cal State East Bay.

Alexa Lott
Alexa Lott, SHRM-SCP
Executive Talent & Leadership Strategist, GRITT

30+ years strategic HR. Certified in Predictive Index, Gallup Strengths, and Kolbe. Creator of an ESOP custom GPT and AI-powered coaching tool. National speaker on leadership, employee ownership, and AI.

Sponsored by GRITT Business Coaching  ·  grittbusinesscoaching.com

About GRITT

Built inside a real ESOP. Brought to yours.

GRITT was developed inside PFSbrands - a company built from scratch to $100M+ and 100% employee-owned, with 550+ employee-owners across 30 states and 19 consecutive years of double-digit growth. Everything we teach was tested and refined in a real ESOP business first.

We work with ESOP companies to build the financial literacy, leadership depth, and ownership culture that make the structure actually work.

See our ESOP practice →
$1.4M
Saved in 120 days
AlaTrade Foods · 1,700 employees · 100% ESOP · financial literacy deployed plant-wide
500,000+
Leaders trained
Profit & Cash® · endorsed by NCEO · most played financial literacy simulation in the world
Attending NCEO 2026?

Come to the session. Then let's keep the conversation going.

Whether you want to bring what you learn back to your organization or explore a deeper engagement with GRITT, here's where to start.

Entry Point

Bring Profit & Cash® to Your Organization

The fastest way to build the financial literacy and ownership thinking your employee-owners need. A 4-hour simulation - endorsed by NCEO - that changes how your team thinks about the business. Most ESOP companies start here.

Learn About Profit & Cash®
Entry Point

Leadership Academy

A structured development experience that builds real leadership capability over time - leaders who create clarity, accountability, and results. Science-backed. Practitioner-led. Immediately applicable to your ESOP company.

Learn About Leadership Academy
Entry Point

Data-Driven Emotional Intelligence

Behavioral and cognitive assessments that give your leaders a data-driven foundation for self-awareness, team dynamics, and performance under pressure. Move beyond gut instinct - build emotional intelligence on evidence.

Explore EI Assessments
Full Engagement

Talk to Our ESOP Team

If you're ready to explore a deeper conversation about your ESOP company's people, culture, and performance, schedule a confidential call. We'll listen, ask the right questions, and tell you honestly if GRITT is the right fit.

Schedule a Confidential Call
Exclusive to Session Attendees

Four assessments you won't find anywhere else.

These tools were built specifically for ESOP leaders. They measure what matters. Only available through a conversation with our team.

Assessment 01

GRITT Executive Stress Test

Diagnoses where your organization is most vulnerable under pressure: people, culture, financials, or execution.

Take the Assessment →
Assessment 02

Meaning at Work Assessment

Measures how much genuine meaning your employee-owners experience and where gaps are eroding engagement and ownership thinking.

Take the Assessment →
Assessment 03

PERMA Well-Being Profile

Research-backed positive psychology assessment across the five pillars of a thriving ownership culture.

Take the Assessment →
Assessment 04

VIA Character Strengths Survey

Identifies the core character strengths your leaders bring and how to deploy them to build a high-performance ownership culture.

Take the Assessment →

Shared exclusively with NCEO 2026 Pre-Con attendees. Not posted publicly.

CEO Business Alignment Scorecard

How aligned is your business, really?

Most CEOs sense something is off but can't pinpoint it precisely. This 26-point diagnostic covers People, Communication, Culture, and Execution. See your results instantly.

Take the Scorecard

Takes about 5 minutes. No email required to see your score.

What it covers
→ People - Do your leaders make decisions without you?
→ Communication - Does critical information flow up and down?
→ Culture - Does your team act like it when you're not in the room?
→ Execution - Does strategy become consistent action?
Session Resources

Attended the session?
Get the frameworks.

We'll send you the GRITT Stress Test framework, the Talent Management Strategy Map, and a summary of the session's key tools - plus information on how to bring this work into your organization.

Request the Session Resources

We respond within one business day. No pitch. Just the resources and an honest conversation if you want one.