#39 – From the Trenches: Policy, People & Care (Erica Shoemate)

Most MSP owners don’t think of “policy” as a business lever. They think of it as paperwork—something you buy from an HR consultant, stash in a shared drive, and hope you never need. The reality is sharper: policy is the operating system for how people experience your leadership when the moment is inconvenient, emotional, or high-risk. It shows up the first time an ADA accommodation becomes a management puzzle, the first time a team member interprets “fair” as “inconsistent,” or the first time your good intentions accidentally create liability. In this episode of From the Trenches, Josh Peterson talks with Erica L. Shoemate, MPA about the thing most small business leaders learn late—your culture is only as strong as the decisions your managers can repeat under pressure. If you want a single framework for turning “good leadership” into repeatable execution, start with Vision.

The second layer is systems design. Erica’s career crosses federal policy, intelligence leadership, and Big Tech trust & safety—an unusual combination that makes the point unavoidable: policy is not a reaction to mistakes; it is an attempt to prevent predictable harm. Whether the arena is workplace standards, online safety, or maternal health outcomes, the pattern is the same—when rules are unclear, enforcement becomes subjective, and subjective enforcement becomes bias, resentment, and brand risk. For MSP owners, that matters because you don’t scale on talent alone—you scale on consistency. If you want to connect policy thinking to the realities MSPs face in regulated environments, BMK’s perspective on navigating compliance challenges with MSPs complements this conversation: the strongest operators don’t wait for enforcement to force discipline—they build discipline first.

What does “policy” actually mean for an MSP?

Policy is the documented answer to a simple question: “When this happens again, how do we want to behave?” Not how we behaved last time, not what a manager felt in the moment, and not what is convenient under deadline. Policy turns leadership intent into repeatable behavior—especially when emotions are high, facts are incomplete, and the business is moving fast.

For MSPs, policy touches more than HR:

• Workplace policy (ADA, EEO, performance expectations) protects your people and your company.
• Operational policy (communication standards, escalation paths) protects client trust.
• Risk policy (security, data handling, response) protects your reputation when things break.

Why “we’ll just be fair” fails under pressure

Most leaders mean well. The problem is that “fair” becomes a moving target when it isn’t defined. One manager is empathetic and flexible; another is blunt and strict; both believe they are being reasonable. Over time, employees don’t experience your intent—they experience your inconsistency. That inconsistency becomes resentment, and resentment becomes turnover, conflict, and complaints.

In this conversation, the leadership move is clear: stop improvising in high-stakes moments. Build the guardrails early, train them, and make enforcement predictable—so your business doesn’t depend on who is “on duty” when the situation hits.

The hidden cost of reactive policy

Reactive policy is what you write after an incident—after an employee relationship breaks, after a client escalation goes sideways, after an insurance carrier asks uncomfortable questions. The cost isn’t just legal exposure. The cost is that your team learns the wrong lesson: that standards appear only when something goes wrong.

Proactive policy is different. It signals maturity: “We thought about this because we respect people, and we respect the business.” That’s how you build a culture that scales—because culture isn’t what you say; it’s what your systems enforce.

What MSP leaders can learn from Trust & Safety

Erica’s work in trust & safety highlights a universal leadership tension: the job is rarely black-and-white. You’re balancing speed and safety, freedom and protection, and “edge cases” that become headline risk. The discipline is not avoiding disagreement—it’s building a decision process that stays objective even when the public (or your team) reacts emotionally.

MSPs live the same pattern at a smaller scale: incident response, client disputes, employee performance issues, and security events all force leaders to decide quickly and consistently. The best operators don’t pretend the work is simple—they design a system that makes the right decision easier to repeat.

Maternal health as a systems lesson, not a separate topic

This episode also goes where most business podcasts won’t: maternal health, bias, and the downstream consequences of systems that do not listen well. The point is not politics—it’s architecture. When a system doesn’t have safeguards against bias, people get harmed. And when people get harmed, trust collapses.

For MSP owners, that is the uncomfortable mirror: if your internal systems fail people, your external brand will eventually feel it. Culture and accountability are not separate disciplines. They are the same discipline applied in different rooms.

For MSPs building stronger leadership standards and healthier execution, explore these related articles: Peer Teams: Why Bother? and Cyber Risk, Claims & Coverage.

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Episode Highlights

• 00:00:11 – Josh opens with a small-business lens: what “policy” actually means when it hits real HR situations.
• 00:06:37 – ADA and EEO realities for small businesses: why standards “trickle down” even when you feel too small to matter.
• 00:16:25 – Maternal health, systems failure, and why preventable harm is often the result of biased or broken process design.
• 00:29:32 – Trust & safety in Big Tech: the nuance of enforcing policies objectively amid public pressure.
• 00:36:35 – Writing policy in real time during the Russia–Ukraine conflict and aligning enforcement with human-rights standards.
• 00:41:13 – How leaders navigate internal disagreement and still enforce consistent, defensible standards.

About the Guest

Erica L. Shoemate, MPA is a national security and AI policy strategist — a systems builder for safety, equity, and trust. A former intelligence leader with the FBI and across the U.S. Intelligence Community, she later shaped digital risk, trust & safety, and regulatory policy across Big Tech, including Twitter, Amazon, and Meta. As Founder & Principal of The EN Strategy Group, she helps mission-driven organizations design ethical frameworks that keep humanity at the center of innovation.

Erica is also a nationally recognized maternal health advocate, serving as Ambassador and Maternal Health Policy Co-Chair (VA Lead) for the Maternal and Infant Health Equity Coalition in partnership with March of Dimes. Her work focuses on turning complexity into clarity for leaders operating at the intersection of technology, equity, and public impact.

🌐 Visit Erica’s Website →

🌐 Visit Lead Within Strategy →

🔗 Connect with Erica on LinkedIn →

About the Host

Josh Peterson is the CEO of Bering McKinley and host of the BMK Vision Podcast. Through the From the Trenches series, Josh helps MSPs strengthen financial clarity, leadership maturity, and operational execution using the BMK Vision Operating System. Connect with Josh on LinkedIn →

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is “policy” in a small MSP, practically?
It’s a written standard for repeatable decisions—how you handle accommodations, performance, conflict, client expectations, security incidents, and communication—so outcomes don’t depend on mood or memory.

Does policy matter if we have fewer than 50 employees?
Yes. Even when specific thresholds change requirements, the operating reality is that employment practices and regulatory expectations still create risk. The best protection is consistency, documentation, and well-trained managers.

How do we avoid policy turning into bureaucracy?
Keep it usable: plain language, clear ownership, clear examples, and a training cadence. If your managers can’t apply it quickly and consistently, it won’t protect anyone.

What’s the connection between policy and culture?
Policy is culture under stress. Values are what you say; policy is what you enforce—especially when it’s inconvenient.

What’s one immediate step an MSP can take after listening?
Identify the top 3 “landmine moments” you keep improvising (accommodations, performance, after-hours expectations, client escalation) and write a simple, repeatable decision path for each—then train to it.