The staff are always happy to greet you at our local deli/general store. It doesn’t matter who serves you; they are always courteous and friendly. It starts with the manager, who says, ‘I just want it to be a nice place, for customers and staff.’ And it works. I always find it a pleasure to visit the store and probably end up buying more cheese than I intended! The store manager has cultivated a positive work culture to support their purpose. It’s no surprise they are doing well!

The store manager exemplifies the behaviour he seeks in his staff. He shows his team the way we do things around here. 

It is an approach that also works at scale.

Hubert Joly led a successful turnaround of Best Buy over four years using a similar human-centred approach. He says leaders clearly signal change and shape the culture through their own behaviour and actions. Hubert’s emphasis was on “unleashing the human magic” of every Best Buy employee, which he describes as having employees do things for each other and for customers that nobody has told them to do. 

‘Leadership is less about being the smartest person in the room, and more about creating the environment that will enable the purpose and the strategy to come to life.‘

– Hubert Joly –

Hubert believes work must be guided by the pursuit of a purpose with people at the centre. In the HBR article, Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy and Purpose, he poses several insightful questions to unleash human magic.

✅ How do you enable every employee to connect what drives them with their work? 

✅ How do you create an environment where employees experience genuine human connections? 

✅ How do you give employees enough autonomy to allow them to be their best? 

✅ How do you ensure employees feel safe to be who they are and express what they think and feel? 

✅ How do you enable learning and growth?

🙋 Which one of these questions resonates with you? 🙋‍♀️

Best regards, Brian

PS: Get in touch if you would like to explore how coaching could help you be a role model for culture change.