275 | Culture First: Leading with Purpose and Intent

In this episode of the Lead Culture Podcast, Jenni Catron discusses the importance of leadership and organizational culture. She emphasizes the urgency of seizing opportunities, the power of culture in achieving organizational missions, and the necessity of intentionality in building a strong team culture. Jenni shares insights from her upcoming book, 'Culture Matters', and outlines the key components of her leadership framework. The episode serves as a call to action for leaders to prioritize culture as a critical element of organizational success.

We need your help to get the LeadCulture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:

1. Review us on Apple podcasts
2. Subscribe - we’re available wherever you listen to podcasts.
3. Share - let your friends know about the podcast by sharing your favorite episode on social media!

Transcript

Jenni Catron (00:05.826)
Hey, leaders, welcome to the Lead Culture Podcast, part of the Art of Leadership Network. I'm your host, Jenny Catron, CEO of the 4sight Group. We're a company dedicated to helping leaders develop thriving teams. Each week, I'll be your guide as we explore practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity, confidence, and build

unstoppable momentum in your organization. My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self-leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well so you can lead others better. Each week we take a deep dive on a leadership or a culture topic. You'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well.

So let's dive in and keep learning on this leadership journey together. Well, friends, happy new year. It's 2025. Can you believe it? I don't know about you, but I always go into a new year with a bit of trepidation. Like I'm a little afraid of turning the page into a new year. The highly efficient achiever that I am, I don't wanna waste a minute or...

And I want to make sure I seize every opportunity. And so I'm always a little afraid to turn the corner because I want to make sure I'm ready. Anybody else feel that way? Can I let you in on probably a somewhat surprising fun fact about me? One of my all time favorite songs is Eminem's lose yourself. Now my peers are all going to recognize this song or maybe some of you will don't go Google it because his lyrics are terrible, but there's a line in this song in the chorus of this song.

that just speaks to the urgency that I feel to do something significant with my life. He starts the song with this question, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? And then the familiar chorus, if you know it is, you better lose yourself in the music, the moment you own it, you better never let it go. You only get one shot.

Jenni Catron (02:30.36)
Do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity. It comes once in a lifetime.

And so this year, I'm feeling this urgency even more intently as I gear up for the launch of my new book, Culture Matters, right? So those words are like ingrained in my head, do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity. It comes once in a lifetime. Like here I am on the brink of releasing my new book coming on February 11th. This book has been 20 years in the making. It's the culmination of my work so far and it reflects this deep commitment that I have.

to cultivate healthy leaders and thriving teams. And so I'm feeling the urgency, I'm feeling the importance of not missing this opportunity. See, a number of years ago, I went through a situation where my work experience went from amazing to kind of awful almost overnight. I had been a part of an amazing team and due to a corporate merger, I found myself floundering and unfulfilled.

Right? We went from this great team that I absolutely loved and was doing really great work and just fully thriving to being merged with a different team that left me floundering and unfulfilled. And it was that event that made me vow to never let an employee I was responsible for have the same experience. That if I could do anything in my power to help create environments and create cultures that brought the best out of people.

that that was what I wanted to commit my life work to. So for the next six episodes of the podcast, I'm going to take you through the key parts of the lead culture framework that I outline in my upcoming book. And my hope is that I'm able to give you a glimpse into what culture can be and equip you to make culture your priority in 2025. Now, my hope is you go get the book and I'm to tell you more about how to do that and all the fun bonuses with it.

Jenni Catron (04:31.992)
but I'm gonna spend the next six episodes giving you an overview of what is actually in the book. Cause I wanna give you a taste. I want you to have some nuggets that you can start taking action on immediately. And I want you to get help you get thinking about the importance of culture in the success of your organization. Now, before I dig into the content for today, you need to know about the Culture Matters Summit.

that I'm hosting on January 23rd of 2025. Over 3,000 culture-focused leaders like you are gonna join me for a half-day high-impact virtual event to equip you with the strategies and insights needed to make culture your competitive advantage. Join me and a dozen other leadership experts who will share proven strategies from their own culture journeys to help you build an unstoppable team.

This is your opportunity to move beyond the why of culture and discover how to create clarity and purpose for your team every day. So go to culturematterssummit.com to register for free. This is a free half day event. You guys, it is worth your time. There are such good content. I've gotten a snippet of nearly every talk from the event and you don't want to miss this. So go to culturematterssummit.com.

dot com to get registered and join me on January 23rd. Okay, let's talk about the power of culture. The community that I live in was settled on the banks of the Fox River in northeastern Wisconsin. In the 1700s, this area was still largely undeveloped and sparsely populated. Still kind of sparsely populated in some places.

In the 1800s, loggers discovered the valuable forests of the Northwoods and found a critical resource in the power of the Fox River, the power to transport lumber further south to major cities like Milwaukee and Chicago. And by the mid to late 1800s, word had spread to the East Coast about the infamous power of the Fox River. Papermaking was a fast growing industry and several opportunistic entrepreneurs

Jenni Catron (06:52.386)
discovered that the conditions of the Fox River were especially perfect for the force of power needed to run paper mills. Shortly thereafter, the Fox Valley became a home to paper barons and transformed into a vibrant hub of industry for generations to come. Papermaking is still a key part of what we do here in the Fox Valley. So why the history lesson, right? What was critical to the success of the papermaking industry?

was identifying the right conditions to accomplish their mission of mass producing paper. In this case, the current of the Fox River was ideal for what they needed to do. So much so that the people like the Gilberts, who owned the home that I now live in, moved their families from Pennsylvania all the way to Wisconsin to find the right conditions. Can you imagine moving your family across the country, some of you have done it, to find the conditions that created the environment you needed?

So again, how does this connect to culture? To achieve your mission, the conditions matter. As a leader, you have to create the climate that will most effectively help you achieve your mission. You have to choose the environment to immerse your team in. Culture envelops us and flows through everything you do. In essence, the culture of your organization is the river that is carrying your mission forward. Did you catch that? The culture...

of your organization is the river that is carrying your mission forward. So is your culture a stagnant pond, a slow trickle, or a rushing river? Are there dry spots in your river bed? Are there people lazily floating along, drowning in the culture, or confidently navigating the waters of your culture? Okay, so maybe I'm overworking the analogy a bit.

But my hope is to help you comprehend the importance of culture. Your culture carries your mission. If you're passionate about achieving the mission, vision, and goals of your organization, getting intentional about culture is essential. Several years ago, I was recruited to an organization to help chart the vision for the future that the senior leader had defined. Now, this organization had gone through some significant changes

Jenni Catron (09:17.954)
but there was great hope for a new vision and direction. I found myself compelled by the opportunity and after thoughtful evaluation, I accepted the job. Unfortunately, what I quickly discovered is that we were trying to drive a speedboat through a stagnant pond. We had an extraordinary mission and vision for the future, but a culture that just wasn't ready for it. See, leaders, you can have a great mission. You can be a phenomenal leader.

But if you don't understand and value the significance of the culture, your greatest vision and your best leadership are only going to get stuck in the muck of poor culture. The environment we work in matters. The people we work with matter. So why do so many leaders struggle to build thriving cultures? Why are employees leaving faster than we can hire them?

Why do those who stay seem to be working against us rather than working with us? A key part of the problem with analyzing organizational culture is that we don't fully understand its place in the success of our organization. For many, culture seems like a luxury we'll get to when we have margin for it. I've been there. We confuse culture with employee perks that feel frivolous and non-essential, like gosh, like we feel like we're doing everything to try to make everybody happy.

So frankly, we don't understand culture's place and purpose, and therefore we often relegate it to a function of the human resources department and underestimate its role in being the current that carries our mission. That's such a key thing for us to understand as leaders is that our culture is the current that carries our mission. Now, I was recently speaking at a conference and I asked the attendees the following questions. I said, how many of you have spent time

Maybe you've even hired someone to help you write your mission and vision statements for your organization. Nearly all the hands in the room went up. Then I asked, how many of you have a written strategic plan? You've hired a consultant to come in and do some strategic planning with you. Again, nearly every hand in the room went up. And finally, I asked, how many of you have a plan for your team culture? This time, only a few hands went up.

Jenni Catron (11:44.14)
And I wasn't surprised. In fact, as I referenced a number of times before, you've maybe heard me say this, research tells us that while 90 % of leaders believe that an employee engagement plan will help them achieve their mission, only 25 % of them actually have a plan. So 90 % of leaders believe that it's important, but only 25 % have a plan.

So why is it that we fail to give the time and attention to arguably the greatest resource we have, our people? Another way to think about culture is the stewardship of people in pursuit of our purpose. See, as a leader, you are simultaneously juggling two mandates to accomplish the purpose of your organization and to build and retain a great staff who will make that purpose possible. Those are the two things, the tensions we live in.

And so we live in an era of organizational leadership where employees have greater expectations of their work culture. They have more flexibility and more options than they've ever had. Work and life collide like never before, and employees want to be a part of a culture that reflects the values they hold and connects them with work that has purpose and meaning. They're less fearful to change jobs and they'll prioritize...

seeking out work that provides fulfillment and purpose, right? They're going to find things that bring life and give them energy. So when we're intentional about designing and building our culture, great teams, team members will clamor to be a part of it. And more importantly, they'll want to remain a part of it. So this dynamic creates a unique opportunity for leaders to build cultures in which purpose is clear and team members can find meaning in.

their contribution. This is the opportunity in front of us. As leaders who are shaping the culture of our teams, it's our responsibility to bring clarity to who we are and how we work together to achieve our mission. That's my definition of culture, who we are and how we work together to achieve our mission. Whether it's two people or 2000, you have the opportunity, the privilege and the responsibility to be intentional in leading culture leaders. That's one of the things I really want you to hear is that you

Jenni Catron (14:01.098)
own the responsibility for leading your culture. Culture isn't just a nice idea that you'll get to if you have time for, right? It's the very linchpin that ties your purpose and your strategy together. It is the thing that fuels your mission. You can't achieve your purpose without a team of people to make it happen.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever watched five-year-olds play soccer? It's kind of a maddening experience, especially if you're remotely competitive. A mob of small children huddle around the ball. They move in a big blob up and down the field. There's no strategy. There's no differentiation and responsibilities. They collectively chase the ball together and hope to score a goal here or there. Maybe. They might just be having fun. They may not even care about the goal. And friends, this is how many of us approach our culture.

When your team is small, you essentially do everything together. And while you might be very strategic in the key areas of your business, you treat culture like this amorphous blob of soccer playing five-year-olds. Simply by chance and proximity, you score a few culture goals and you keep blissfully enjoying the game. For a small team in the early days, culture is mostly caught. And so this kind of works. You're with each other all the time.

And sheer proximity enables you to understand who you are and how you work together to achieve your mission. You don't have stated values because they're understood. You just know how we do things here, in air quotes. So this is all well and good until growth makes it impossible to sustain. Before long, you find yourself saying things like, that's not how we do things here. You ever been guilty of that? What used to feel so clear is suddenly chaotic and frustrating.

You feel like you're losing control and you find yourself becoming the bottleneck for all decision-making. Any of that feel familiar? Cause I have absolutely been there. We hold our breath and cross our fingers when our team is thriving. We just hope beyond hope it will stay that way, but we're not quite sure how we got there. And we're afraid that one wrong move could topple it all. You'll ever find yourself doing that kind of holding your breath when the team is doing well and you're not playing like.

Jenni Catron (16:14.024)
HR whack-a-mole where you've got people coming and going and you're trying to juggle and manage all of it. Like when it's going well, you just kind of hold your breath. We're often unsure of what makes it go well and what makes it go poorly. Add to that the myriad responsibilities we're juggling to keep the organization moving and culture gets relegated to the back burner, doesn't it? It's not on fire, so hopefully it'll be okay. But as the familiar adage goes, hope is not a strategy.

And this is one of the things I really want you to be paying attention to is for many of you, your culture feels fine. But what I want to impress upon you is that your culture needs a plan to ultimately be successful. And that's the problem I see too many leaders making, hoping that their culture will be okay or just work itself out. If we sniff a few problems, we delegate it to HR and just kind of hope it gets better, but it doesn't go away. Culture exists whether you acknowledge it or not.

and it doesn't get better on its own. This is why culture must move from caught to taught, right? In those early days when we're a small team, we just kind of catch it, but we have to move to being intentional about building it. The organic nature of your culture has met its end and without an intentional commitment to build a plan to define and embed your culture, the frustrations you're feeling will only get worse, right? It's just compounding.

Like growth just compounds whatever is already there. Healthy, sustainable, scalable culture needs leadership and it needs a system. Just like every other organizational initiative, great culture needs a plan. You're not going to accidentally arrive at your desired destination. The longer you ignore it, the more work you'll have ahead of you. So you have to define it to achieve it.

And I want to acknowledge here that talking about creating a system for culture might feel a little counterintuitive, right? Culture is about people and therefore to systematize it raises concerns that you'll lose that heart, the connection, the camaraderie that had been the best of your culture so far. And I actually want to assure you that the clearer you get about your culture and the system you've built to support it, the more supported, connected, and engaged

Jenni Catron (18:35.318)
your team members will feel, will feel, right? The more that you're being intentional with it, the more they will feel that intentionality and it will actually serve to do the very thing you're afraid you might lose. So before we dig into the nuts and bolts of how to build a great team, I want to just add a couple more things of why this matters. This is what we're going to focus on today is kind of the power of culture and why it matters. And then in further episodes, I'm going to start giving you more of the nuts and bolts.

Jenni Catron (19:04.992)
In order to build an extraordinary team culture that great people are clamoring to be a part of, you really need to know what you believe about leadership and specifically about your leadership in creating team culture. Because here's what won't work. You won't build a great team culture if you're doing it only because someone told you to do it. So even though I'm telling you to do it and even though I think it matters, if you don't really believe it, it's not gonna work.

You won't build a great team culture if you're doing it because it seems to be the organizational focus du jour, meaning all the cool leaders are doing it, right? Just because it's kind of the thing to do isn't always the reason to do it. You won't build a culture team, a great team culture if you're doing it for selfish reasons, perhaps to make yourself look better or solely to achieve all of your goals. So it's really about, are you doing it for the good of your team? The reality of building great teams is that they take work.

They take perseverance, they take patience, they take a willingness to adjust your pace, your style, your preferences for the greater good of the team, which is what leadership is all about.

And so for my framework to lead change in your team and organization, it has to start with you. Like you really need to believe it. You must embrace a perspective shift that prioritizes the good of your team over even your goals and ambitions. It's not that you can have goals and ambitions and in fact, as you'll learn a bit later in the whole process, a key element of great teams is that they have clear shared goals. They know what they're working towards. So goals are important, but first you need to understand how to lead you.

Like you need to lead yourself well to lead others better. Self leadership is the starting point of all leadership. If you want to lead your team to a new outcome, to a new culture, it needs to start with you. You need to embody this. You need to believe this. You need to start setting the conditions. Remember how I told you, I like to move fast. Like I like to make things happen. I like to get things done. I don't want to lose the moment.

Jenni Catron (21:13.644)
Research tells us that substantially changing your organizational culture can be a three to five year process. Yowch, yowch, yowch, which is all the more reason why you need to attend to it while it's not off the rails. So many times people come to me when their culture is in a really unhealthy place and then want us to magically rebuild it overnight. But great cultures are built with intentionality.

The commitment of time and energy is why we're often unwilling to do the real work necessary to build a strong foundation for team culture. But we're going to have to slow down. We're going to have to take some time. We're going to have to engage the process. And that's why even these six weeks of this series, I feel like will be so valuable to you because it'll kind of be an immerse you into this content. And then you can get the book and you can keep building upon it.

So, so many of our organizations are fraught with a revolving door of employees because we no sooner fill a position than another one opens up. It's kind of HR whack-a-mole. You ever been there? Not only are we dealing with the frustration of recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, training that's required every time a team member transitions, but the hard and soft costs to our organization are exponential. Like if you just need a business case for why to focus on culture, the fact that it will reduce your turnover, which in turn reduces your costs, is

evidence enough. Research tells us that it can cost as much as two to three times the annual salary of the position when a transition occurs. And that's just the hard cost. It's difficult to put a price tag on the emotional toll on you, your HR team, and other staff that are having to compensate in time and energy for the open position. So there are so many good reasons about investing in your team and creating an environment that they're thriving in that are there so important. But if you just need

Bottom line numbers, developing a healthy culture will reduce your turnover in your organization.

Jenni Catron (23:10.242)
What if you could create a culture where you experience an engaged and energized team who enjoy working together? A team where infighting and politicking are rare or unheard of and definitely not tolerated. A team where great people stay and turnover is low and therefore saving you lots of money. A team that shares the same values and are committed to one another. A team that is highly productive. A team that is aligned to the mission, vision and values across

all of your departments. Sounds awesome, doesn't it? And I promise you, this is not just Jenny's magical dreams of great teams. This is possible. I've seen it, I've experienced it, I've built these kinds of teams and better yet, I've led hundreds of other leaders to embrace these principles and build extraordinary teams too. And leaders, that's what I want to help you do as well. And so I hope that you will join me for

the next six weeks of the podcast where we'll just keep deep diving on this lead culture framework that I outlined in the book. I'm going to give you the cliff notes. So join me, share this. mean, you might share this with your executive team. You might share it with a handful of other leaders that are committed to building culture and keep learning and growing together. I promise you that this culture really will become your competitive advantage if you will give it the energy and the time and the focus. And so

Here's what I want you to do. First, want you to go to culturematterssummit.com and get registered for the summit on January 23rd. Go get registered. So much great content. It is free. So go do it. You can upgrade to an all access pass if for some reason you can't be there for the day, you can upgrade and get all the content ongoing. And then I want you to go to culturemattersbook.com and pre-order the book. Would you pre-order the book for me? Here's why this matters.

Publishers pay a lot of attention to early momentum when a book comes out. And if they see that early momentum, it helps them stock, it helps them print enough copies, and it helps them just know, hey, this is a book that matters. This is a book that's meaningful. And so if you find any of this content valuable, if you would go pre-order the book at culturemattersbook.com, really you can go to any of your favorite retailers, go buy the book and come back to culturemattersbook.com and then you can get over $300 worth of extra bonuses.

Jenni Catron (25:35.298)
So you'll get the first three chapters of the book in PDF form. So you can get a jumpstart on reading, along with the cliff notes version I'm giving you here at the podcast, you'll get a workbook, a masterclass, you'll be a part of our culture champion network. And, you'll also get access to the recordings for the summit. So go register for the summit, go pre-order the book, go to culturemattersbook.com and get all the bonuses and then come back here next week and join me for another conversation.

about how we can build a thriving and unstoppable team. Keep leading well friends and I'll see you next week.