Culture Matters More Than Strategy. Build the Team That Wins Together

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Two years ago, I asked a CEO and a Senior Vice President a simple question: How important is culture to your business?

Their answer: Culture does not matter. We hire good people. They do their jobs. That is enough.

I should have walked out right then.

Over the next several months, I watched what happened when you pull back the sheet on a company that does not care about culture. Retention was hemorrhaging. The business development team had zero support structure. Executives cared about hitting numbers. Nobody else cared about anything.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you?

I asked people around the office how they felt about the culture. They laughed. Actually laughed. Because the culture was so broken that it became a joke.

If someone’s office door was open, you could not even say hello unless you scheduled a meeting online first. People were physically in the same building and could not connect. The disconnection was eating away at how they grew together, how they worked, and ultimately how they performed.

Let’s break down how to make sure culture is paramount in your business. Even if you think that it is. Never underestimate it, as it can move underneath your feet faster than you can imagine.

Let’s dance.

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Let’s Break it Down

Fast forward to the other side of the spectrum. I worked with New Zealand All Blacks coaches and international Olympic-level management who understood something fundamental: culture is not a nice-to-have. Culture is the nucleus.

On a professional rugby team, you have elite athletes. You have clear goals and objectives. You have injuries. You have pressure both on and off the pitch (field). You have raw talent mixed with veterans. You have leaders who have to navigate all of it.

But what held it all together was culture. Transparency. Trust. Clear expectations. Open communication.

Day in and day out.

Whether it was week one of the season or the playoffs, the team moved as one. Not because they had to. Because they wanted to. Because they trusted each other. Because the culture made it safe to fail, to ask for help, to push each other harder.

That culture won games. It won fans. It grew champions.

The difference between those two companies is not strategy. It is not a product. It is not even talent. It is tied together by people and their overall engagement with the organization, the goals, objectives, and leadership with the organization.

Be sure to check out some of my other past articles on growth here:

Structure Is Your Superpower 

2 Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen to Boardroom 

Your Invisible Backbone – Increase Your Success with Your Support Team 

The Cost of Ignoring It

If you think culture is optional, you are already losing.

In the short term, you lose sales opportunities. Your team is not aligned. Communication breaks down. Deals that should close do not close because people are protecting themselves instead of protecting the mission.

Your credibility erodes internally and externally. People talk. Candidates hear the stories. Partners notice the dysfunction. Clients sense it in every interaction.

In the long term, people avoid your company entirely. Your reputation becomes something you have to fight against instead of something that works for you. The best people do not want to work there. The mediocre people stay because they have nowhere else to go. You are left managing the people who could not get hired anywhere else.

That is not a company. That is a holding pattern.

How to Actually Build Culture

Culture is not a mission statement on a wall. It is not a team lunch once a quarter. It is not a ping-pong table in the break room.

Culture is what you do every single day. It is how you communicate. How you treat failure. How you invest in people. How you make decisions. How you celebrate wins and learn from losses.

Here are three specific ways to audit and address your culture right now.

1. The Transparency Audit: What Are You Hiding?

Go through the last month of decisions you made as a leader. Which ones did you communicate clearly to your team, and which ones did you keep to yourself?

If you kept something quiet because you were worried about the reaction, that is a culture problem.

Real culture means your team knows what is happening. Not everything (some things are confidential). But most things. The challenges. The opportunities. The financial reality. The strategic direction.

When people do not know what is going on, they make up stories. They assume the worst. They stop trusting leadership.

Here is your action: Schedule a team meeting this week. Share three things you normally would not share. The challenge you are facing. The opportunity you see. The decision you are wrestling with.

Watch what happens. Your team will feel closer to you. They will offer perspective you did not have. They will understand the “why” behind decisions, not just the “what.”

2. The Support Structure Audit: Are You Setting People Up to Win?

In the broken company I mentioned, the business development team had no support. No training. No tools. No structure. Just unrealistic expectations.

That is not leadership. That is abuse.

Ask your team honestly: Do you have what you need to do your best work?

Not what they want. What they need. The tools. The training. The clarity. The authority to make decisions. The backup when things get hard.

If the answer is no, you have found your problem.

Here is your action: Meet with your top performer on your team. Ask them: What is one thing I could give you or change about how we work that would make you 20 percent more effective?

Listen. Do not defend. Do not explain. Just listen.

Then actually do it. Not next quarter. This week.

When your team sees that you care enough to remove obstacles, culture shifts. People start showing up differently.

3. The Trust Audit: Can Your Team Fail Safely?

Culture lives or dies based on how you handle failure.

If someone makes a mistake and gets punished, your team learns to play it safe. They hide problems. They do the bare minimum. They look elsewhere.

If someone makes a mistake and you treat it as a learning opportunity, your team takes risks. They innovate. They push harder.

Ask yourself: In the last three months, when someone on my team failed or made a mistake, how did I respond?

If you got angry, blamed them, or made an example of them, you killed culture right there.

Here is your action: Find someone on your team who made a mistake recently. Meet with them and say: I want to understand what happened, what you learned, and how we can prevent this together. I am not here to blame you.

Watch how that conversation shifts the dynamic.

When people know they can fail without getting destroyed, they do their best work.

What the Internet Taught Me This Week

From new tools, recent trends, and market updates, here is what has been on my mind.

1. Hegseth Orders Pentagon Review of SBA 8(a) Contracting Program. Check it out here

2. Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking. Check it out here

3. Verizon Outage Caused by Software Issue, but Details Are Still Elusive. Check it out here

Conclusion

Culture is not king because it feels good. Culture is king because it is deeply entrenched within the operating system of your business.

Everything runs on it. Retention. Performance. Growth. Innovation. How fast you can scale. How hard your team will fight for you.

The All Blacks did not win because they had the best players. They won because they had a culture where those players played at their absolute best, trusted each other completely, and moved as one unit.

Your company can do the same. But only if you decide culture matters.

Only if you stop hiding behind your office door and start showing up.

Only if you invest in your people like they are your most valuable asset, because they are.

The question is not whether culture matters. The question is whether you are going to do something about it.

See you next week.

Whenever You’re Ready, Here are 4 Ways I Can Help You:

1. Unlocking Hidden Potential – Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth – Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.

2. AI for Business Development – Download our free eBook on how you can effectively leverage AI prompts to your advantage. From properly setting up your preferred AI tool, to how to shape your prompts, save time, and get the outputs you are looking for.

3. Sales Resources at Your Fingertips – From tools, tips, demos, and how-tos, check out our Pages and content that can provide you with additional support, whether it be social selling, account management, or something else.

4. Cribworks Advisor Program – Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you scale your business.