Most marketing case studies celebrate success – highlighting client wins, sharing innovative ideas, and painting everyone involved in the best possible light. And yes, we can learn a lot from modeling excellence. But sometimes, worthwhile lessons can also come from examining what not to do.
That’s why I’m sharing a recent experience with an organization that considered partnering with BetterCulture. This story, while a 100% failed sales opportunity for us, offers a lesson in mismanagement.
A Glimpse Inside a Troubled Enterprise
This company operates across multiple sites in a four-state region, boasting roughly $250 million in annual revenue. Impressive on paper – until you learn they’ve been spending more than they earn plus have had some concerning performance quality indicators. You don’t need to be a CFO to know that’s a recipe for trouble.
Enter Pete (a clever alias I am using), their newly hired HR executive. Pete, familiar with BetterCulture’s work, reached out to us just a few months into his new role. He saw significant room for improvement in the organization’s culture, both at the corporate office and across their operational sites, e.g., less than optimal executive team dynamics, high staff turnover, and the lack of a strategic initiative to address workplace culture.
Pete believed that transforming leadership across the organization to create workplaces that would attract, develop, motivate, and retain great people was key to moving the company forward. No surprise, we agreed. 🙂 But Pete warned us the CEO might be a tough sell. Still, he arranged a virtual meeting between our team, himself, the CEO, and three other execs.
And that is where the train hit the wall.
The Challenge: Getting Leadership on Board
Let’s just say Pete was being generous. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a CEO so tone-deaf to the impact of leadership and culture on business success. This individual, with a technical background, seemed to view “leadership and culture” as intellectually soft. I suspect he believes the path to prosperity lies in tighter budgeting and stricter operational controls. He was moderately polite but largely disengaged. While he would occasionally nod, it was clear that our message wasn’t landing.
Our Recommendations—and the Deaf Ear
Pete initially wanted our help getting their executive team on solid footing – something we excel at. However, throughout our meeting, we emphasized that while that step would be wise, nothing was more critical than:
- Ensuring the right people were leading their scattered site operations.
- Providing those onsite leaders with excellent training to enable them to build and protect a top-tier workplace environment for their employees.
By the 30-minute mark of our meeting, it was clear that when it came to the CEO, we might as well have been speaking Swahili. No neurons were firing up there.
A Painful but Not Surprising Outcome
We weren’t surprised when Pete called to inform us, with considerable regret, that they wouldn’t be moving forward. Honestly, after our experience in the virtual meeting, we felt a sense of relief.
We often observe that the companies most desperately in need of our support are frequently the least likely to engage our services. This case is a prime example.
However, there’s good news: we’re seeing fewer and fewer leaders like this today. I believe this positive shift is happening for two reasons:
- Growing Awareness: More and more leaders are understanding the critical importance of creating a positive workplace culture that attracts and retains top talent.
- Consequences of Neglect: CEOs who fail to grasp this vital connection are increasingly finding themselves unemployed due to their company’s declining performance.
What Can We Learn?
Here are three takeaways:
- Leadership Buy-In Matters It’s vital that the top executive in your organization recognizes the value of a healthy workplace culture. They don’t need to be the architect of that culture or lead the charge to build it, but they absolutely must treat it as a leadership priority.
- Don’t Skip the “Why” Before diving into strategies and tools for cultivating a strong culture, it’s worth taking a moment to build the case for why it matters. We often assume this is as obvious as saying “water is wet,” but as this example shows, sometimes your audience (in this case, the CEO) doesn’t fully grasp—or value—the power of “moisture.” 🙂
- Appeal to What Leaders Fear Losing A positive, supportive culture offers immense benefits for employees. However, if company leaders don’t already see that as a core goal, that argument may fall flat. Human nature leans more toward loss aversion than gain attraction, so when making your case, don’t just highlight what the company could gain (like engaged staff, higher satisfaction, or a better brand). Instead, zero in on the leaks: employee turnover, customer complaints, increased insurance costs, stifled innovation, and legal risks. Sometimes, it’s the fear of what’s slipping away that compels action.
A Final Thought
This missed opportunity for BetterCulture underscores a critical business reality: In an increasingly competitive landscape, enduring performance hinges on leadership’s capacity to balance executional rigor with cultural strength. In today’s competitive environment, sustainable success requires both, and until executive leadership embraces this dual imperative, organizational performance – and profitability – will suffer.
Founder of MindSet, LLC.
