Organizational Culture: Purposeful Excellence

Why do some organizations consistently outperform others, even when they have access to the same talent, technology, and resources?

The answer isn't strategy alone. It's culture.

In this episode of APEX Performance Podcast, executive leader, scholar-practitioner, and retired U.S. Navy Captain Dr. Anthony Simmons explores why organizational culture is the true engine behind sustainable excellence. Drawing on decades of military leadership, executive experience, and organizational research, Dr. Simmons explains how purposeful cultures are built through discipline, daily habits, shared values, and intentional leadership rather than slogans posted on the wall.

You'll discover why culture drives performance, how authentic relationships create trust, and why leaders must operationalize their organization's values through consistent behaviors and rituals. Dr. Simmons examines the four primary organizational culture models, hierarchy, clan, market, and adhocracy, while introducing his own blended "neo-culture" approach that helps organizations become more adaptable, collaborative, innovative, and accountable in today's rapidly changing business environment.

Throughout the episode, Dr. Simmons shares powerful leadership lessons from commanding the USS Lassen, including how developing future leaders became his greatest measure of success. He discusses practical strategies for mentoring employees, creating cross-generational collaboration, empowering teams through coaching, building psychological safety, and fostering environments where people feel valued, trusted, and inspired to contribute at their highest level.

Dr. Simmons also explains why discipline should never be confused with punishment, why excellence is built through intentional rituals, and how leaders can bridge generational differences by creating cultures rooted in appreciation, accountability, belonging, and shared purpose. His message is clear: organizations don't become exceptional by accident. They become exceptional because leaders intentionally build cultures where excellence becomes a daily habit.

Whether you're a CEO, executive, military leader, manager, entrepreneur, or aspiring leader, this episode provides practical frameworks for creating high-performing teams, strengthening organizational culture, and leading with purpose in an increasingly complex world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Do you ever feel like you're doing all the right things, but success still doesn't last? If you're struggling with trust, strange relationships or performance that feels harder than it should, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, executive leader, and scholar practitioner, Dr. Anthony Simmons.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hey greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Apex Performance Podcast, where I'm always so excited to offer you accelerated pathways to excellence. I am your host, Dr. Anthony Simmons. As we all know, culture is the vehicle that drives performance excellence. We have to be brilliant on principles which yields excellence within cultures. It distills down to operationalizing ethos statements by instilling guiding principles in everything that we do every day. This must be a ritual. As Aristotle says, we are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. Furthermore, it is my conviction that this repetition is based on discipline and having a regiment. The San Francisco 49ers late coach Bill Wars viewed discipline as an ingrained habit which was built through precise execution, attention to detail, and strict standards of performance. Upon taking command of the USS Lesson, I assured the crew of one thing that we would purposely achieve excellence in every undertaking through discipline and ritual. I told them we would be proactive, which is intentional and deliberate, vice-reactive, which is happenstance and emotional. We would practice discipline over punishment and we perform housekeeping vice-house cleaning. Housekeeping is discipline, and cleaning is what I call reactionary. I will talk more about that as I move through this episode. Also, I like to think culture catapult strategy. In their book, Balancing Individual Organizational Values, Huffman and Gillerman, they suggest organizations don't possess values, but rather, you know, their culture is actually shaped by the individuals that make up the organization. Like personal values define organizations' strategic boundaries. So this is where I feel the beauty of diversity really resonates. This is where we benefit from having a workforce that's built for multi-generations. And so I see it as a force multiplier. It increases the chances for success. Also, organizational structures must also be designed to optimize these attributes by having a proper layout, whether it's a hierarchy level, where it's command and control, or whether you do at a clan, which is primarily focused on personnel development or universal involvement, either market where you chase and external demands. In nowadays, more of a hierocracy where we have to be able to adapt to changing dynamics, which is more like having contingencies in place. Now moving into my etho statement, as we know, six gear advocates for authentic relationships. As I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I like to also talk about what I call my ACE, which is appreciation, connection in order to achieve elevation. So I moved through my command philosophy when I was in USS Last, and it talks about good habits and practices. And now it reads that all standard operating procedures and maintenance requirements will be strictly enforced and performed in accordance with my governing instructions. Good working habits and confidence are developed through repetition and daily practices of standard procedures, where 99% of success is based on developing these good habits, which in turn will transform into efficient means of achieving success. Coach Walsh also went on to say discipline was the catalyst to good habits and practices for excellence. Now, think about command, and what really makes me most proud, I always like to say it was the opportunity to develop the next meeting, the new commanders. That was the key metric that I always measured myself on when I was in command. And I enjoyed a track record where I had years of developing new leaders where over 25 of my former officers went on to become commanding officers. And I'm also confident that they went on to do things as more capable and achieved ranks of a higher level than that of myself. And this is what I call the true essence of service ship, putting the interest of others before that of oneself. Bottom line, developing and refining aspiring leaders really defines who I really am and what I'm most proud of. But notwithstanding, this organizational excellence starts with culture. So in organization, culture and leadership, Eric Shin, he defines culture as a group's accumulated shared learning when addressing external actors and also internal differences. We must consider these internal drivers, which are really core values, while examining culture, you know, from three different levels, which is the artifacts, which is the tangible stuff we can see, espoused beliefs and values, and also basic underlying assumptions. As we look at the artifacts, it's obviously what we see and feel. It's the architecture of the physical environment, the language, technology, the artistic creation, style, mannerism, emotional displays, and so forth, where espouse beliefs and values are a little different. You know, it's a sense of what ought to be rather than what really is. Sometimes we have this ideologies and rationalizations that may or may not be really congruent with the behaviors of what we see within the artifact. So we have to determine whether or not we have enough in common in order to create these neocultures where we can have, you know, unbounded success. And then that go moves into the basic underlying assumptions where it's unconscious taking for granted beliefs and values, which can lead to what we call the attribution error from a cultural perspective. So behaviors and perceptions, we must be defined in order to understand what someone really is about in order to align the truth with what we see in the artifacts. We have to make sure the artifacts are authentic. So this is about a depthness in these three particular levels, which is key to building these authentic relationships across disparate groups in any organization. We must understand the beliefs and the values in order to transform what I like to say these underlying assumptions to organizational attributes. So just think about that statement there. Transforming inspires beliefs and values into attributes, you know, where these underlying assumptions become more reality as they connect. So these attributes must be exercised, you know, in appropriate culture types. I talked about earlier the different cultural types that were found by Cameron and Quinn in their book, Diagnostic and Changing Organizational Cultures. They introduced those four types that I mentioned earlier about the hierarchy, where it's more formalized and structured than the market, which is driven by internal, external factors, vice internal result-oriented, things that really drive belt tightening. And then we have the Klan, which is more collaborative, you know, family-like, friendly environment that promotes teamwork and mutual success, while people have a tendency to do, you know, share their skill sets and encourage professional development and facilitate participation throughout an organization. Then you have ad hocracy, which creates change, and so it also adapts to change. It's a creative culture, it's innovative where you have opportunities to address changes through contingencies. It's more like it came from, it was driven by the information age, you know, where organizations have become nimbler and more responsive amid hyper-turbulent and ever-accelerating conditions. Now, to add flexibility and also scalability to the work environment, I developed what I call my neo-cultures, which I introduced a blending perspective for these four cultures, which I call my switch army knife approach to capabilities and productivity. I define what I call my clan adocracy, my market clan, my hierarchical clan, and also my market adhocracy, where my clan adhocracy it fosters continuous development while also emphasizing contingencies to adjust to changing markets. And then I look into my market clan, it accounts for that belt tightening and you know the budget constraints while I continue to support skill development across the organization. And then the hierarchy clan is really interesting in today's time because some leaders say, well, I try to give people a little more latitude, a little more leeway, but now they're taking me for granted. So I said, okay, this is the area where we have to be able to co-create relationships and co-create solutions while also holding people accountable, which I link to my main thing, which is responsibility, accountability, loyalty, and trust. So they always have to be accountability regardless of the cultural lay down, but as well, we have to be a little more sensitive towards allowing people to have voices nowadays in today's time per se. Now, let's talk values and organization as we move further along. We talk about the instrumental values, it's the means that drive, you know, the capacity for success. Obviously, developing skills is gonna always be a value added, so we have to have encouraging work environments through trust and inspired coaching structure that reflects the Klan culture that I talked about earlier, that Klan model within the type of a universal development where we facilitate an environment of universal development where people can be purposeful and encouraged to take initiative. Leaders must intentionally facilitate employees' participation by inspiring people to share skill sets. We have to have discipline which enables flexibility along with professional development, transparency, and alignment are always paramount. So it's a good need in order to build the required synergy in order to get optimal performance within an organization. And this moves all into what I call my strategic plan. How do I make this happen? How do I really empower my organization to execute at the lowest level? As I referenced episode 10, I talked about the coaching organization, which employs a strategic design where acting and planning takes place, you know, in the same plane at the same time. It's a matter of empowering others and enabling them to act in a culture where people really feel as they are valued and they are also encouraged to achieve success indiscriminate of positions. So everyone from the bottom up becomes integral to the process and also to the success story. Now, in his approval edition seminar, Steve Sabol always says that you know people they aren't failing because of the lack of talent. They are addicted to the approval in the climax that are being built. You know, they need permission to speak up in order to take risks to lead and become who they really meant to be. So autonomy is different. It enables delegation, it's the force multiplier. So look across generations here. In workforces today, we still have baby boomers, we have Generation X, also millenniums, which is Y, and then we have the COVID, which is Generation Z. So the days of having a monolithic culture is no longer so it's just unprecedented in these times. So we must actually look at, unfortunately, employees, you know, from how we must assess their tendencies and their behaviors with respect to those certain cultural norms, you know, while considering those three levels, you know, the artifacts, the espouses' beliefs, and values, and also the underlying consumption, so we can have good alignment. So if they're not aligned, then we will struggle to develop those necessary relationships and also establish the trust required to facilitate environments of shared values. I would go on to submit that we must view generations from a lens of what I call five categories, which is work-life balance, learning and development, autonomy, teamwork and purpose, and then compensation, which most people see as salary. So as we look, according to John Rampton, a work-life balance, millennials, they like to go the extra mile to improve their career prospects while learning development is also important as well. They value that, but their professional recruitment, they feel that they like to own the pace, you know, how they move through their development process. While Generation Z primary motive is better than themselves. Like, you know, 98% prefer a job that allows opportunity for multi-skilling. And then autonomy is which is an encouraging aspect, according to John Rampton. Millenniums, they have a strong desire, but they crave recognition through promotion and pay and perks. While Generation Z has more of a strong desire, but want to feel a little more valued in the workplace. Now, for his teamwork and community millenniums, they prefer the isolated work while Z, they don't mind, you know, the nine to five grand, but they really value a community and they thrive on, you know, like tight-nick teams and working, you know, within people and in order to learn, you know, through the ropes and sometimes find the experience of others. Now, for his salary and benefits, you know, both generations they really want competitive salaries and benefits, and they also want plenty of vacation time. Now, while millenniums are more goal-oriented, Generation Z, they prefer comfort. You know, according to one survey, it revealed that 37% would place job satisfaction ahead of both security and salary. Now, let's move forward into the pathos. Let's get into some storytelling. I always like to say people first, excellence always. Although, you know, I had the privilege of operating high-end ships, you know, with the best air, electronics, surface, and undersea defense systems imaginable, but all that really pale when it compared to the outwatering sailors who I had the fortune to help realize their greatness in the employment of these great national assets. My job was always to unlock the greatness in others because I felt it was their ship. Now, what could I do to bring out the best in this operational environment? What could I do to build a culture of excellence? I kept it simple. We have to be brilliant on the basics. CEO must always set the president because he is the key to the culture of excellence and discipline and having a regiment is always paramount, has to be bolstered by rituals. Now, when I took command of the last and I looked at the whole aspect of excellence in the ship, and the ship had a great reputation for really doing well, but through my first certification process, we was a little slow to get out of the blocks. And the sailors came to me, and a couple of top leaders in the ship said, Captain, don't worry, we'll get through this. It just normally takes us a couple of do-overs. I knew then something had to change. I had to change the mindset. So I established those enabling principles. I had to make sure that I was comfortable executing through others while encouraging the heart. That's when I implemented my P10E5, where I had to have the proper prior planning in order to prevent pissboard performance. Had to be passionate, professional, and pride. And this is the good pride, you know, not the huge version of pride. And also I implemented the five E's, which is having the energy, being able to energize those around you, having the edge to make those unpopular decisions, and then execute and not just meeting and talking, have to execute and you have to do everything within an ethical framework. Now, having said this, what honest was on me, you know, what did I have to do in order to establish and nurture this culture of excellence? So let me share some of my responsibilities to the crew. And small things do matter. Earlier I talked about housekeeping. I recall when I first started my command tour there in last, and I recall we had an hour set aside in the morning to do what we call sweepers, cleaning the ship. And I was like, We had to clean for an hour. That just didn't make much sense to me that you would spend that much time cleaning every day. So I cut that down to 15 minutes because I felt that it's really more not about cleaning, it's about housekeeping. And the ship responded really well, so they regained back that purpose for time. And then the second order was about the crew development. You know, what can I do, you know, to make the environment more conducive to uh top performance? So I revert back to what I have mentioned in previous episodes, my inverted Pareto, where I have 20% of the people making 80% better. I like to refer to chapter 8 in my book, Champion and Organization Wellness, where I discuss some of the practices I use in order to accelerate the professional development and also the skill sets of the officers and the crews within the organizations. And I like to start where we had sailor programs in place, a lot of initiatives to help promotion of the sailors in order to improve upon these skill sets, all the way down to how they improve upon their ASFAB score so they can have opportunities to explore other ratings or other areas to develop skills throughout the ship and with wars. I thought that was critically important, you know, that the crew be recognized throughout the waterfront. And I use the core flex model, which is a dynamic skilling process where I move officers around from different positions, whether it was operationally or administratively, in order to accelerate their skill development. And then one of the most important tools I like to consider is my coach protege model, which is essentially a mentorship program. And when I first joined the Navy, you know, mentors was something that was not really a sign. You just had to be, you defaulted to being mentored, you know, by whatever or chain of command you was in, whatever your organizational structure was in place there. What we eventually moved to a mentor model, and some commands still kept the structure as such. They just, you know, put it in writing. But I felt it was more important to put a lot of time and effort into this structure and also to capitalize on different skill levels, also on different backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, so I could have a holistic approach to developing officers that came from different backgrounds, whether it was different universities, whether it was different degree, degrees, technical skills versus non-technical skills. And it was whether you was maybe a limited duty officer who went through the ranks and got promoted, you know, based on our individual skill sets, or one officer for that matter. So I would take officers and assign them to mentor officers based on certain needs and certain backgrounds in order to develop everyone holistically. And I felt that was probably one of the biggest values added to making sure I had 80% of the crew that was better prepared, you know, to fight within any construct. So I like also looking at how do we bridge the gaps across generations. We have to consider, you know, that multiple generations are occupying the workspace, as I talked to earlier. We have to look at that as a forced multiplier. So how do we become inclusive? We have to make sure we understand and consider and also to embrace the needs of each generation, as I talked about previously, in order to foster relationships and to co-locate, in order to capitalize on those varying perspectives that bring added value to the organization. I recall when I was doing in resident at Regent, I was over here in a conversation with between two fellow students. They were talking about how they were experiencing some challenges with the older and the younger generation was having a lot of conflict, and they felt the best solution was to separate them and have them work in different areas. At that point, I had to intervene, and I had to inform them that you know you really lose an valuable opportunity on capitalizing on those varying skill sets that both have to offer the organization. So that's why I like to see this is where it's critical when you do coach, protege, modeling in order to gain more value from the different perspective. It's important to assign that cross-generational structure there in order to you're not really forcing it, but you're facilitating that exchange and where that appreciation takes place and where it bolsters your organization and increases your chances for success. And let's look at discipline with rituals. In their book, The Power of Full Engagement, Lord and Swartz, they suggest that the limits of discipline is offset through building positive rituals. Now, I will paraphrase this and say discipline is bolstered through rituals that automates actions into habits, which is excellence. You know, we are what we routinely do every day, so good practices and habits must be applied daily in guiding principles as depicted in the organizational ethos statement. Now, in his book Legacy, Jane Kerr talks about culture, say it must be nurtured daily as cultures grow like organisms. So we must emphasize good habits and practices to realize Aristotle's position of excellence. So cultures do drive organizations, and excellence must be purposeful. So let's look into the future implications of this organization culture. Let's talk about inclusiveness and belonging. I like to see both of those as psychological safety. We must understand that employees will leave when they are disconnected and feel undervalued or either unappreciated. Participation results in proactive problem solving, which I label as collective intelligence, advice reacting to direction. Silence shouldn't be mistaken as agreement. It often indicates that someone's voice doesn't matter. To that end, I would suggest there's no better way to reclaim these voices than to implement a clan culture, especially when you're going against adverse market conditions. According to Huffman and Gellerman, they feel that organizations are more inclined to compromise individual values to align with changing market conditions. That's why leaders must be mindful that short-term thinking compared to strategic long-term thinking can negatively influence values. I say this because we must be careful not to undermine professional development opportunities because I see professional development as appreciation, which in terms is a retention tool. Conversely, cost of declines happen when organizations stop developing internal leaders. And more importantly, in looking at the artifacts and espoused values and beliefs and underlying assumptions, I feel that we must be careful and understand that we can all do better if we focus on the common threads rather than the differences we have. We should celebrate what we all share, community over silos. Not looking across all three cultural levels is similar to trying to put a puzzle together with some pieces being obscured. And thanks for listening in to this day's episode on organizational culture where excellence is purposeful. Now, as we'll be discussing my next episode, which is on global leadership, the connected world commands culture harmony. So please subscribe to this channel to enjoy accelerated pathways to excellence right there at your fingertips. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

So that's it for today's episode of Apex Performance. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, we'll win a chance to win a grand prize drawing worth $5,000 for a private VIP day with Dr. Simmons himself. Be sure to visit ApexPerformance Podcast.com to pick up a free copy of your gift and ask your questions for Dr. Simmons in your own voice, and he'll answer you that privately in his. Then join us on the next episode.