Culture Is the Way

CHAPTER 3The Dilemma Traps

Your big picture will never be a masterpiece if you ignore the tiny brush strokes.

—Andy Andrews

I should have been in bed, sleeping, like everyone else.

On a gloomy, rainy Saturday morning in April 2020, I received a phone call from Peter, a senior leader of a company that I had been working with for some years. I normally don't receive too many work‐related calls on Saturday morning, so I was almost certain that there was an emergency that needed immediate attention.

When I answered the phone and said hello, Peter, breathless, quickly shouted, “I can't believe I waited this long to start prioritizing our culture and working just as hard on it as much as we spend on growing the business.”

I tried to quickly interrupt his self‐sabotaging tangent, but he went on to tell me, “I am scattered. They are scattered. Everything is just scattered! Our entire workforce is working remote now and the impact on our business is looking to be much worse than I originally thought.”

The tone of this leader's voice conveyed his excruciating pain. We were only a month into the global pandemic, and none of us could have predicted what would happen. To be honest, I recall having many conversations with at least a dozen different leaders who downplayed the gravity of what was to come.

I assumed that this conversation with Peter would breeze right over, and we would get back to business as usual. I tried to calm the senior leader down that Saturday morning. “Look, Peter, ...