Don’t Build an Organizational Culture They Like. Build One They Won’t Leave

ORDINARY doesn't cut it in organizations. It never did. But today, the market punishes average. Leaders who cling to comfort, who delay bold decisions, who tolerate mediocrity—these leaders don’t manage growth. They direct decline.

The top 5% of your people create 95% of your value. These high performers expect more—and deliver more. They don’t wait for permission. They don’t require handholding. They demand direction, opportunity, and a culture that accelerates contribution. They move fast, think clearly, and act decisively. And they expect the same from leaders.

Exceptional organizations know this. They don’t hoard talent; they magnetize it. They don’t manage strategy; they drive it. They don’t react to change; they provoke it.

And here’s the paradox: the same forces that drive high performance also threaten to destabilize the organization if someone strong doesn’t take the helm. Top talent demands a high-octane culture. Strategy must flex, not fracture. Execution must speed up, not stall. When you shoot for excellence, you walk the razor’s edge.

If you want to win big, you must lead with nerve, not nostalgia. When I wrote Challenge the Ordinary in 2024, I predicted that the road that took most companies to success would not be the same one that defined future success. Now, the road has turned into an interstate with no exits and no speed limits.

Five Forces Killing Average

Here are five forces you need to keep in mind as you lead:

Top talent walks faster than you promote: Recruiters don’t knock—they text, direct message, call, and Zoom your stars out from under you. In the meantime, your HR playbook loads your talent down with lengthy interviews, generic job descriptions, meaningless assessments. Throw them out. Today’s stars want clarity, challenge, and growth. Not policies. Not forms. The best talent doesn’t chase perks—they hunt results. If you can’t offer it, your competitors will.

Strategy need speed, not slogans: Five-year plans offer illusions, not outcomes. What worked last year no longer applies. Strategy must evolve quarterly. You don’t need consensus. You need courage. Ask better questions: What must we solve now? What creates value fastest? If we weren’t already doing this, would we now decide to do it? What would we do instead? Strategy without speed equals stagnation.

The global tilt won't wait: Emerging economies outperform their past—and threaten your future. While you run scenarios, they launch startups, cut costs, and scale talent. Capital moves fast. Talent follows faster. You no longer compete across town. You compete across continents. Stop assuming your market position protects you. The next unicorn already launched—and they don’t know your name.

Fear chokes decision-making: Media-driven anxiety seeps into boardrooms. Leaders freeze, stall, or hedge. Meanwhile, courageous competitors steal market share. Fearful cultures build silos. Exceptional ones build solutions. Your job isn’t to risk elimination—it’s to risk selection. Fortune rewards movement, not caution.

Change no longer waits for buy-in: Change doesn’t ask for permission. It shows up with a wrecking ball. You can’t manage it—you lead through it. The best organizations disrupt themselves. They redesign teams, rebuild strategy, and relaunch product lines before they face pressure. They train people to thrive in motion. They coach decisiveness, not compliance.

What Exceptional Organizations Do Differently

To lead an exceptional organization takes a different approach. These examples show how pace, culture, excellence and talent come into play:

Netflix drives strategy with urgency. When streaming disrupted traditional media, Netflix didn’t hesitate. It pivoted from DVD rentals to digital streaming, then again to original content production. During COVID, it accelerated its global expansion and localized programming. In 2023, when subscriptions dropped, it responded within a quarter with ad-supported tiers and password-sharing crackdowns—moves that reversed its fortunes.

Netflix doesn't plan in decades. It reacts in quarters, guided by customer data and real-time feedback.

Microsoft engineers cultures that reward contribution. You don’t need a culture everyone likes. You need a culture your best people won’t leave.

Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft reinvented its internal culture, prioritizing a growth mindset and cross-functional collaboration. Nadella replaced a toxic, competitive environment with a performance culture rooted in shared learning. Microsoft invested heavily in retaining and upskilling top talent through its AI push and hybrid work policies—resulting in a talent-driven resurgence in innovation and market value.

Toyota defines excellence—and enforces it. Excellence isn’t aspirational. It’s operational. It shows up in your hiring, performance management, promotions, and client interactions.

In 2023, Toyota became the world’s top automaker again—without compromising its manufacturing philosophy. Toyota continues to apply its legendary Toyota Production System with near-fanatical consistency. When global supply chains buckled in 2021–2022, Toyota outperformed by enforcing its just-in-time excellence model.

Leaders gave every worker authority to stop the line. Quality trumps speed, and continuous improvement (kaizen) remains non-negotiable—even 70+ years in.

Palantir attracts elite talent—and keeps it challenged. Palantir has grown from a niche intelligence tool to a high-impact AI-driven data platform powering global infrastructure—driven by talent that would rather fail at bold problems than succeed at routine ones.

Palantir recruits elite engineers and data scientists who want to solve global-scale problems—national security, epidemiology, financial crime. It offers tough missions and big autonomy.

Employees work on “forward deployed” teams embedded with clients like defense agencies or energy grids. They solve complex problems under pressure and adapt constantly.

Making the Shift

Although they want to be paid fairly, great people don’t just want more compensation—they want to grow and contribute. They want to build, innovate, and influence. Give them room to move. Skip the endless onboarding rituals and the we’ve-always-done-it-this-way promotion strategies. Provide targets, support, and room to stretch. Then get out of the way. Stars find momentum when leaders stop interfering and start trusting.

• Stop tolerating inertia. Culture follows the path of least resistance. Make excellence the easiest path.
• Stop managing as if it were 2015. Work doesn’t need to “return to normal.” It needs to upgrade. Flexibility, hybrid structures, and project-based teams outperform rigid hierarchies.
• Stop recruiting for fit. Hire for stretch. Fit perpetuates sameness. Stretch grows capability.
• Start leading from the front. Don’t ask for change you won’t model. Your energy sets the pace. Your decisions set the tone. Your tolerance sets the standard.

Markets don’t reward intent. They reward execution. You no longer win because of who you are—you win because of what you do, how fast you adapt, and how ruthlessly you eliminate drag.

Exceptional organizations think boldly, act quickly, and hire wisely. They know talent wins markets. Speed wins attention. Clarity wins decisions.

Are you brave enough to empower? Are you bold enough to step aside so others can step up? The measure of exceptional leaders isn't found in what they do, but in what others can do because of them.

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Dr. Linda Henman is an advisor, speaker, coach, and author or co-author of 11 books. She founded Henman Performance Group, a leadership consulting firm that works with C-suite leaders from organizations like Avon, Emerson Electric, Estee Lauder, Kraft, and Tyson Foods. Her work with executives is guided by her PhD research on how American POWS (including John McCain) maintained resilience by making pivotal decisions during their brutal imprisonment. Her strategies in decision-making to increase profitability, mergers & acquisitions, succession planning, and other issues have never failed. Her work with John Tyson helped land one of the most successful acquisitions in the twenty-first century. Her new book is Healthy Decisions: Critical Thinking Skills for Healthcare Executives. Learn more at Henmanperformancegroup.com

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:45 AM
Permalink | This post is about Human Resources