Editorial
When I think about growth, my mind doesn’t immediately go to product roadmaps, revenue models or marketing campaigns. Instead, I think about culture.
For me, culture is inseparable from trust. I learned this outside the office, when I began pursuing creative outlets like playing guitar, writing music and even poetry. What struck me wasn’t the act of creating itself, but the environment that made it possible. Surrounded by a small group of people I trusted, I could bring in a half-finished song to be workshopped or share a new poem when I knew I’d cry when I read it aloud — and know I’d be met with encouragement instead of judgment.
That freedom to be imperfect, and to try something new just for the sake of it, taught me how powerful trust and support can be in unlocking creativity. It underscored a lesson that carries into my leadership today: people will only push boundaries and innovate when they feel supported and safe to try.
At Agiloft, we distill it into a simple equation: EX = CX. The employee experience equals the customer experience. And I hold firm in the fact that you cannot separate the two.
Organizational Culture as a Growth Engine
Too often, company culture is treated as an intangible “nice to have” — something that matters for employee engagement surveys or recruiting campaigns, but not necessarily to business performance.
That framing is outdated.
Organizational culture is strategy. The way you invest in your people, the consistency of your values, and the trust you build internally all determine whether your company can sustain growth over time. You can have a brilliant product, but if your team feels unsupported or undervalued, your customer experience will eventually reflect it.
Support, Not Perks
When I’m asked to describe our culture in one word, I say: supportive.
Support shows up in how we work together across teams, how we accommodate the diverse needs of our employees’ lives and how we respond when challenges arise. It’s not about offering the flashiest perks. It’s about showing empathy, creating opportunities for growth and being consistent in how we treat people.
This approach may sound soft, but it delivers hard results. Supportive cultures enable people to handle complex problems, collaborate across silos and go the extra mile for customers –– and for one another. And when EX = CX, that support ripples outward. Customers feel it in the way we anticipate their needs, respond quickly and commit to solving their hardest problems.
Practical Ways to Build a Strong Company Culture
So how can leaders turn these ideas into action? Here are a few practices that have made a difference for us:
Lead by example.
Culture is contagious. The behaviors you model — whether it’s transparency, humility, resilience or openness — are the ones your people will emulate.
Keep it simple.
Avoid long lists of vague values. Choose one or two that matter most and make them actionable. For us, “supportive” is both a word and a standard.
Measure it.
Regularly track employee and customer satisfaction. Metrics like eNPS (employee net promoter score) and CSAT (customer satisfaction) keep you honest about whether your cultural intentions match reality.
Communicate often.
Talk about culture with customers, partners and prospective hires, not just at the occasional all-hands meeting. Culture becomes real when it’s woven into every conversation.
These principles aren’t theoretical — they come from my experience.
Lessons From the Deep End
I didn’t always understand this. Early in my career, I went from managing eight people to leading a team of 1,500 overnight at Thomson Reuters. And I was unprepared. I had to quickly learn that leadership is less about technical expertise and more about people skills: listening, coaching and creating an environment where others can thrive.
Those lessons have stayed with me. Today, I spend as much time thinking about how to cultivate purpose and empathy inside Agiloft as I do about market positioning. And that’s exactly what’s required of CEOs today. Setting the cultural direction isn’t an HR initiative — it’s a core leadership responsibility, on par with vision-setting and resource allocation.
The Bottom Line
Today’s companies don’t succeed because they’re the loudest or the biggest. They succeed because they have cultures that enable people to bring their best selves to work — and, in turn, to deliver their best to customers.
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Editor's Note: Learn more about the role of organizational culture in our changing workplaces:
- How to Intentionally Design Corporate Culture — Corporate culture isn't defined by a physical place. Ideally, it's a combination of behaviors, practices and processes.
- 5 Tips to Improve the Culture of Your Organization — To change culture, we must change behavior.
- When Company Values and Behaviors Collide — When your stated company values stand in direct conflict with your corporate culture, it's time for a culture reset.
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