The Just Don't Get It!

And in the C-suite, decisions were driven by brute force and intimidation, not strategy or trust. Have you ever heard the saying, “the beatings will continue until morale improves”? That was the environment. The company paid its managers at the very top of the market range. That pay wasn’t a reward for excellence—it was a necessity to keep people from leaving. It created the sense of being trapped. Many thought, “where else can I go and make this money?” Bottom line: I failed to drive change or deliver results. In hindsight, a cultural pulse check might have warned me about what I was stepping into. After just 18 months, I left—without another job lined up. The lesson: These principles aren’t optional. Ignore them, and the culture will eat you alive. Live them, and you give people a chance to win. Transition Back to Main Text There’s a saying: culture eats strategy for lunch. That story is living proof. I walked in with a mandate and a strategy, but the culture devoured it before it ever had a chance. The experience was painful and caused me to doubt myself. Yet it also gave me perspective I couldn’t have gained any other way—a deeper understanding of how

29