Growing Your Culture Makes Good Business Sense 🌱 🧠 🎯

Organizations often spend enormous amounts of time trying to improve employee engagement, yet engagement is rarely the starting point. It is usually the result of something much deeper. If employees feel valued, trusted, energized, and connected, engagement follows naturally. Those conditions do not happen by accident. They are created by culture.

 

That says it all. Culture matters. It drives engagement and so much more. 

 

Everyone’s mission: Create the conditions that produce a culture of excellence today.

 

Moe Carrick & Cammie Dunaway: Veterans of big business and co-authors of the book Fit Matters: How to Love Your Job, with insights about hiring and retaining the right employees.

The Organizations People Enjoy Belonging To Get the Most Effort 🎉🤝🚀

Some leaders still view fun as a distraction from work. The most successful organizations understand something different: people do their best work when they genuinely enjoy being part of the team. There is a difference between a workplace where employees have to be and a workplace where employees want to be. More often than not, that difference is found in the daily experience of work itself.

 

For generations, work was viewed as separate from leisure and enjoyment. It was where people went to earn a living, fulfill their responsibilities, and support their families. Employee satisfaction was rarely part of the conversation. But over time, organizations began to recognize that how people felt about work mattered. By the 1980s, employee relations strategies increasingly focused on fairness, well-being, and satisfaction. Holiday parties, recognition programs, and relaxed workplace policies may not have created belly laughs, but they represented a significant shift from the more rigid workplace cultures that came before them.

 

In the 30 years between the acquisition of the Golden Nugget and the opening of Wynn Las Vegas, Mr. Wynn focused on the proposition that happy employees make happy guests who drive profits. We believed that happy employees came from not just cool workspaces and fantastic staff dining rooms, but also from parties, picnics, volunteerism, and annual Employee of the Year recognition dinners that employees worked hard to be invited to as award winners.

 

Those activities were never really about entertainment. They were opportunities for employees to connect with one another, build relationships, and actively participate in something larger than their individual jobs. They created experiences that strengthened belonging and reinforced the idea that every employee mattered.

 

The culture was fair and respectful, and it led not just to feeling good about working there but getting involved. Caring. Doing more than what was required. And enjoying coming to work.

 

Zappos was the epitome of this concept. You could hear it in the voices of the people you connected with on the phone. It felt different from other companies. While not every organization can take it to that extent, every company, yours included, can adopt the countless things, big and small, that make employees enjoy work.

 

The organizations that receive the most effort from their people are usually the organizations their people enjoy belonging to. I challenge you to come up with one thing that will do that where you work today.

 

Anthony Hsieh (1973 – 2020): American Internet entrepreneur (LinkExchange), business executive (Zappos), and venture capitalist (Venture Frogs).

The Leadership Choice We Make Every Morning ☀️🚗👔 Bringing Your Best Self to Others

Every workplace has challenges, frustrations, and unexpected setbacks. What often separates engaged employees from disengaged ones is not the circumstances they face but the energy they choose to bring into those circumstances. Attitude is one of the few things at work that remains completely within our control, which is exactly why it has such a powerful influence on those around us. It also influences how fully we participate, contribute, and engage with the people and opportunities around us.

But I know first-hand that this is easier said than done. You oversleep, morning chores delay you, traffic’s heavy, roads detour, car needs gas, and by the time you get to work you’re fraying around the edges. It’s easy to let personal challenges get in the way of servant leadership and emotionally intelligent thinking.

That’s when a moment of quiet internal reflection reminds you none of that is anyone else’s problem. And that whatever their needs are takes precedence. You must walk into work with a clear head and positive attitude, seeing each glass you encounter as half full, including your own. Because your team needs your thoughtful direction and guidance.

We all get caught up in our own drama from time to time. We’re human. We have bad days, frustrations, and moments when we aren’t at our best. But we can’t let those moments spill over into whatever’s happening in the lives of the people we lead. They’re looking to us for direction, support, and perspective. They don’t need a perfect leader; they need one who can put personal frustrations aside long enough to help others succeed.

Make sure you take care of yourself, make time for your own needs, and do what’s necessary to focus on others. I found that getting up and out of my office, walking the floor, and talking with others was the quickest way to clear my mind and regain my focus. Some call it Management By Walking Around; I call it re-setting your attitude. Because when you bring positive energy to work, you're more likely to participate, engage, and help others do the same.

Having a positive attitude matters. Be a role model for that today.

Jay Samit (born 1961): Former Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Digital. He is the author of the books Disrupt You!

Training Is the Bridge Between Trust and Extra Effort 🚧🤝⭐

Most people are capable of far more than their job descriptions require, yet many organizations never discover that potential because they confuse supervision with leadership. The difference between compliance and commitment often comes down to one question: How much trust are we willing to place in our people?

Empowerment is a term often used by both leaders and employees. Leaders talk about it but do not always create the conditions for success. Employees welcome it but are not always prepared to succeed. Training is the bridge between good intentions and exceptional performance. It transforms employees from being afraid to act into being confident enough to excel. 

Training provides expectations, guidance, practice, and coaching. It transforms good intentions into performance. It helps employees move from being afraid to act to being confident enough to excel. Without training, empowerment is little more than hope. With it, trust becomes a practical leadership tool rather than a risk.

Combine good guidance with good intentions and something powerful happens. Employees feel prepared and trusted. Managers feel confident and engaged. Trust becomes a catalyst for participation, initiative, and ownership.

Once people feel trusted and valued, they become willing contributors. Front Desk and Room Reservation Attendants who know how and when to upsell rooms enhance both revenue and guest satisfaction. Food servers who confidently recommend menu items improve the dining experience. Housekeepers who sign their names to completed rooms demonstrate ownership and pride. Employees always have a choice: do the minimum required or make a meaningful difference.

The key is creating an environment where trust is supported by preparation and rewarded with accountability. Leaders must communicate effectively, coach appropriately, listen intently, and empower wisely. Employees must be equipped to use their judgment and go beyond what is expected.

When trust is matched by trustworthiness, jobs become more than tasks. They become missions.

Make a plan to properly empower your employees today.

 

Laszlo Bock (born 1972): Romanian-born Hungarian American businessman (co-founder and former CEO of Humu, formerly the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, Inc.)

Before Employees Buy Into the Mission, They Need to Know They Matter 👥🎯❤️

Every employee brings two things to work each day: their skills and their humanity. The problem is that organizations often recognize one while overlooking the other. Long before employees care about strategy, goals, or performance metrics, they want to know something much more fundamental: Do I matter here?

I've found that participation rises when leaders answer that question with their actions rather than their words.

I saw this firsthand with the housekeepers at the Golden Nugget. Management had become so focused on productivity that they rarely acknowledged the good work being done every day. Morale was low, absenteeism was high, and turnover remained a constant challenge. When leaders began making a conscious effort to recognize employees for what they were doing right, the atmosphere changed. Performance improved, trust grew, and employees became more invested in their work.

Another lesson came when employees seemed to be sleepwalking through performance and service standards. Management responded with a simple requirement: managers had to explain why whenever they issued directions or introduced new policies. We even told employees that if a manager couldn't explain the reason behind a request, they had the right to challenge it.

On the surface, it sounded a little like planned insubordination. In reality, it was a lesson in respect.

By catching employees doing things right, we acknowledged their value. By requiring leaders to explain the "why," we treated employees as thinking adults whose understanding mattered. Both forced managers to become more engaged in their own leadership responsibilities and created better conversations throughout the organization. Morale improved, performance increased, and employees became more committed to the standards they were being asked to uphold.

When hiring or promoting leaders, don't be shy about discussing these expectations. Technical competence matters, but leadership is fundamentally about people. Make it clear that respect, communication, and engagement are not optional leadership traits; they are part of the job. Just as importantly, model those behaviors yourself. Too often, managers are expected to demonstrate principles they do not see practiced by their own leaders.

When respect starts at the top, it has a much better chance of cascading throughout the organization. When leaders consistently do that, participation stops being something they have to demand and becomes something people willingly give. That's a difference every leader can make today.

 

Pamela Stroko: HCM Thought Leader and HCM Principal Analyst affiliated with 3Sixty Insights.

Take Responsibility for What Needs to Happens Next 🎯 🔄 💡

Everybody loves a rainbow; considerably fewer of us want the weather that comes with it. As your mother probably told you, life requires taking the good with the bad. Rain and rainbows tend to travel together.

In my experience, living and acting responsibly doesn't guarantee success. We can make good choices, work hard, and give our best effort and still encounter setbacks. That's where responsibility reaches maturity. You cannot take responsibility for everything that happens, but you can take responsibility for what you do next. When the rain inevitably comes, don't surrender what you're working toward. Take a step back, think logically, and adjust your thinking and actions.

I've often told the story here about my 15-year quest to develop a paperless HR environment; what I often leave out is the nearly disastrous part of the project we attempted for the opening of Treasure Island.

It started after The Mirage opened, when we debriefed our efforts around recruiting, hiring, and onboarding 5,500 new employees from the more than 55,000 people who applied. We had been so awash in paper that I became determined to find a way to use technology, then still in its infancy, to make the process more efficient.

For the opening of Treasure Island in 1993, I wanted to convert application forms and other new-hire documents into rudimentary databases that managers could access and review electronically. We considered converting those documents into digital text, but optical character recognition (OCR) software was still too new and unreliable. Instead, we decided to scan the original documents into a database and allow managers to review what were essentially electronic copies of the paper forms.

Long story short, the forms containing handwritten information were mostly illegible. Even scanned driver's licenses were often too dark to read. In the end, we went right back to using paper to collect documents that had to be handled, filed, tracked, and processed manually. The paperless project appeared dead.

That's how projects big and small get stalled or cancelled. It's the rain that falls before the rainbow appears.

But by 1995, technology was progressing, and IT executives had become interested in and responsive to my ideas. Even though the concept had been criticized and, in some cases, ridiculed, I never gave up on it. Anyone committed to bringing new ideas to life must learn patience and perseverance. Those virtues are essential companions to responsibility.

We all have dreams. Responsible people don't abandon them at the first sign of difficulty. They adapt, learn, regroup, and keep moving forward.

Even if you have to hunker down in a storm while pursuing your goals, don't let obstacles and challenges cancel them. Keep pushing forward until you find the answers and the rainbow waiting on the other side. Starting today.

Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean (née Parton; January 19, 1946 – August 25, 2026) was an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman. Dubbed the "Queen of Country", Parton was one of the most successful performers in the history of country music.

Stop Playing It Safe. Own Bigger Goals and the Results They Create 🎯 🚀 💪

Playing it safe is a decision, and sometimes it’s the riskiest one you can make. There are certainly times when avoiding failure is the responsible thing to do. But don’t make the mistake of believing that responsibility always means caution.

Aiming low is a clever way to avoid embarrassment. If expectations are modest, disappointments usually are too. But if you're going to act, aim high and give it your best. Once you've decided to act, the next responsibility is how boldly you act. Take responsibility not only for trying, but for what you are willing to attempt.

In my experience, that's often easier said than done.

After rejoining Wynn following the sale of Mirage Resorts to MGM, my role was to recruit a new team of executives and mid-level managers to replace those who had chosen to remain with them. These were talented people who had helped us through three previous openings. Their experience had been one of our greatest advantages, and their absence would now be one of our greatest challenges.

We could have limited ourselves to those who wanted to join us and filled positions as quickly as possible. Instead, we raised the recruiting bar. To meet the demands of Wynn's new vision, we needed an entirely new generation of leaders and team members with the skills, stamina, courage, and drive to help us create what we hoped would be our best resort yet. Many were people we didn't know, and who didn't yet know us or the extraordinarily high standards we demanded of ourselves.

If we were going to ask people to build something extraordinary, then every interaction they had with us had to demonstrate what extraordinary looked like. We designed a recruitment campaign that captured their imagination, an applicant tracking system that reflected our service standards, a recruitment center that showcased our culture, orientation sessions that rivaled the best shows and showrooms, an onboarding process that treated employees like the guests they would ultimately serve, training that prepared them to excel, and team-building experiences that helped transform individuals into championship contenders.

I was nervous. We had already achieved operating and service standards that were the envy of the industry, and expectations were that we would outperform our own reputation. But I knew that aiming anywhere but high simply wouldn't do. Not for Wynn. Not for our guests. Not for the industry. And certainly not for the employees who believed that, together, we could accomplish something special.

It reminds me of Babe Ruth in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, pointing toward the stands at Wrigley Field while enduring the taunts of the opposing team before hitting the next pitch out of the park. Whether the story has grown larger with time almost doesn't matter. What endures is the image of someone willing to publicly commit to an ambitious outcome and accept the risk that comes with it.

Ownership means accepting responsibility not only for the effort you give, but also for the size of the opportunity you're willing to pursue. There are times when restraint is the responsible choice. But there are other times when your experience, preparation, and potential demand something more.

Know the difference between reckless risk and worthy ambition. Then, when the moment comes, swing for the bleachers. Starting today.

Bruce Lee[b] (1940 – 1973): Hong Kong and American martial artist, actor, and filmmaker regarded as the first global Chinese film star and one of the most influential martial artists in the history of cinema.