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ReCulturing: Design Your Company Culture to Connect with Strategy and Purpose for Lasting Success
Leverage the power of systems thinking to clarify your purpose, build your strategy, and design your culture.
It’s no secret that culture is key to attracting and engaging top talent. But the vast majority of culture efforts fail as quickly as they started. Why? Because leaders are creating and communicating organizational values, but they’re failing to connect those values to their behaviors, processes, and practices of the organization.
ReCulturing is the playbook for building a business in which employees are clear on the why, what, and how they are working. ReCulturing is not a one-time change effort because culture is not something we ultimately have, but rather something we do. One of today’s most renowned thought leaders and practitioners on the issue, Melissa Daimler provides a modern definition of culture that is more of a verb than a noun. Culture needs to be reviewed consistently, just like strategy and purpose. Focusing on these three areas leads to higher performance and engagement. In the pages of this book, you’ll
A powerful framework for designing and evolving organizational culture that goes beyond values to also include behaviors, processes, and practices.How to embed behaviors into core people processes like hiring, onboarding, talent managing, offboarding, strategizing and decision makingHow to integrate “why you work” “what you do” and “how you do it” into an employee experienceWhy it’s crucial to make sure a company’s practices evolve as the company changes
The book also features illuminating real-life stories recounting what has and hasn't worked at some of today's largest and most influential companies.
Whether you’re launching a startup, running a global firm, or overseeing the shift to a hybrid work setting, ReCulturing provides everything you need to the kind of culture that drives long-term business success.
It’s no secret that culture is key to attracting and engaging top talent. But the vast majority of culture efforts fail as quickly as they started. Why? Because leaders are creating and communicating organizational values, but they’re failing to connect those values to their behaviors, processes, and practices of the organization.
ReCulturing is the playbook for building a business in which employees are clear on the why, what, and how they are working. ReCulturing is not a one-time change effort because culture is not something we ultimately have, but rather something we do. One of today’s most renowned thought leaders and practitioners on the issue, Melissa Daimler provides a modern definition of culture that is more of a verb than a noun. Culture needs to be reviewed consistently, just like strategy and purpose. Focusing on these three areas leads to higher performance and engagement. In the pages of this book, you’ll
A powerful framework for designing and evolving organizational culture that goes beyond values to also include behaviors, processes, and practices.How to embed behaviors into core people processes like hiring, onboarding, talent managing, offboarding, strategizing and decision makingHow to integrate “why you work” “what you do” and “how you do it” into an employee experienceWhy it’s crucial to make sure a company’s practices evolve as the company changes
The book also features illuminating real-life stories recounting what has and hasn't worked at some of today's largest and most influential companies.
Whether you’re launching a startup, running a global firm, or overseeing the shift to a hybrid work setting, ReCulturing provides everything you need to the kind of culture that drives long-term business success.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 9, 2023
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast…but maybe culture should meet strategy for lunch, and dinner, and grab drinks together.” That’s a very loose paraphrase, but a big takeaway principle from this book. Daimler has such an interesting professional background, between WeWork and Walmart and plenty of other work in between. I found her attention to specificity in defining what she means when she uses words like process, practice, and culture really valuable. It’s easy to get lost in the sauce of the word salad, but in general breaking down org change into digestible components was helpful as an intro to the OD field.
May 27, 2024
“Reculturing” is a great guide for establishing a company culture. Until I read this book, I’ve heard various managers say generically, “We need a better culture around here!” But it was a vague recognition that something nebulous needed to be done. Some managers think company culture means, “Make employees well-paid, so they don’t quit.” Or some send out an email from the CEO stating, “We are the leading company committed to leading our market sector!” This is part, or a goal of it, I suppose, yet only a fraction of company culture.
Until I read, “Reculturing” by Melissa Daimler, did I see and understand a fuller range of the more granular elements of culture.
If a company, above all else, wants to “have top quality” for marketing purposes, then that is a good value. However, when misappropriated, I’ve seen this goal drive employees sideways or even backwards on a fool’s errand, such as obtaining a third-party quality assurance review diploma, which unfortunately, is meaningless and worthless in some economies.
Other initiatives such as project management or sales technique training are business building strategies, not to be mistaken with culture. Likewise, every firm has company marching orders of “growth”. Perhaps “growth” should be replaced with “building brand, services and capacity”, because “grow” sounds like an unchecked weed.
Firms should have an inclusion process to embrace broad demographic workers. This is necessary to have the best and brightest employees in the field, who broadly both understand and reflect the customers.
A cultural system that is quantitative – one that rewards for competitiveness and achievement – is legitimate. It must set fair and objective standards for promotion and raises. It can have mentorship programs to help one achieve. Nonetheless, the path to achievement is, to a large extent, encouraging employees to be “heat-seeking missiles”, take risks, and make use of all the tools available.
Poor strategic and tactical decisions are stock and trade of the top-down, command and control management, which is so prevalent today, despite giving lip service to some progressive intentions. It is marked by hubris and lack of grass roots participation. Command and control management leads to bad culture, such as: (1) no inclusivity of the actual industry experts whatsoever at the decision table before and after critical M&As; (2) buying the loyalty of both good and bad employees alike - and retaining them in golden handcuffs; (3) hastily hiring virtually anyone and assuming that flags on a map and headcounts or butts in seats drives exponential growth; (4) not properly recruiting, vetting, and/or hiring best-fit, key managers and employees, where a treasure trove of knowledgeable stakeholders were not consulted for panel interviews; (5) band-aiding horrible and outdated operational or accounting software, equipment, and vehicles because of focus on monthly short-term costs; (6) supporting non-endearing managers, who are not liked and respected by the staff and causes attrition; (7) hoarding and concealing performance metric data, so no one in senior department management knows where, or the root cause(s) of why, the company is failing to make the corrective actions; (8) not preparing line managers on a poorly conceived, shock restructuring affecting their employees; (9) and pushing and driving the company by HR and Accounting, when the train engine of Sales pulling the train is failing miserably.
Instead, Daimler advises a more fundamental approach. Melissa Daimler pulls us back to the 30,000 feet level to look at culture systemically. We must establish the purpose and strategy of the culture. If every minute of every employees’ day simply promotes “growth” and “meeting Wall Street or private equity level metrics”, I think that is a company doomed to fail. The company should institute a purpose and strategy. The purpose should be a higher value than just growth and profit. For example, does the company have caring for the worker and client? There are countless values for an employee or manager and a company, which are easy to overlook in a cynical, bottom-line world, such as dignity, forgiveness, family, giving back, gratitude, honesty, kindness, inclusion, peace, stewardship, and trust.
According to Daimler, a big corporate mistake, is to establish, publish, and assume value statements that are not supported by processes, systems, and behaviors. For example, on boarding and off-boarding could be 50% of the cultural impact on a potential career employee, but wasted, if those processes are abrupt, rushed, or at worst - vindictive. The company’s highest values should be systemically supported through focus throughout the onboarding, training, and off-boarding. This will stun most naïve company leaders. The Exit is as important as the Entrance. Employees who are quickly offboarded to conserve payroll, may not come back and/or be good ambassadors for the company. That is not good, if exponential growth is the penultimate value. A company will have attrition, but an open-door policy for all that is good – it is essential for success.
This is critical. The values, once established, must be reinforced through a business process, system, and set of behaviors – not just buried and left for dead in wordy hiring contracts. This is even more challenging post-Covid with employees working remotely and/or with a business where employees are largely lone workers in the field. Employees will value continuity of training in the company process, behavior expectations, and professional skills, as well as close connection and continual reward. Also, in practice, the methods of communication and meetings must be a difficult balance between (1) effusive enough to do the job, but (2) efficient and respectful of employee’s time.
Finally, the leader(s) must both set the tone and walk the walk. The leadership team will finalize the value statements, but they must also exhibit and support all these values. An example of horrendously bad leadership is managers flying first class and staying in executive suite hotels, while the company earnings are falling short, and profitability is a high value.
Overall, this is a good book, which I highly recommend.
Until I read, “Reculturing” by Melissa Daimler, did I see and understand a fuller range of the more granular elements of culture.
If a company, above all else, wants to “have top quality” for marketing purposes, then that is a good value. However, when misappropriated, I’ve seen this goal drive employees sideways or even backwards on a fool’s errand, such as obtaining a third-party quality assurance review diploma, which unfortunately, is meaningless and worthless in some economies.
Other initiatives such as project management or sales technique training are business building strategies, not to be mistaken with culture. Likewise, every firm has company marching orders of “growth”. Perhaps “growth” should be replaced with “building brand, services and capacity”, because “grow” sounds like an unchecked weed.
Firms should have an inclusion process to embrace broad demographic workers. This is necessary to have the best and brightest employees in the field, who broadly both understand and reflect the customers.
A cultural system that is quantitative – one that rewards for competitiveness and achievement – is legitimate. It must set fair and objective standards for promotion and raises. It can have mentorship programs to help one achieve. Nonetheless, the path to achievement is, to a large extent, encouraging employees to be “heat-seeking missiles”, take risks, and make use of all the tools available.
Poor strategic and tactical decisions are stock and trade of the top-down, command and control management, which is so prevalent today, despite giving lip service to some progressive intentions. It is marked by hubris and lack of grass roots participation. Command and control management leads to bad culture, such as: (1) no inclusivity of the actual industry experts whatsoever at the decision table before and after critical M&As; (2) buying the loyalty of both good and bad employees alike - and retaining them in golden handcuffs; (3) hastily hiring virtually anyone and assuming that flags on a map and headcounts or butts in seats drives exponential growth; (4) not properly recruiting, vetting, and/or hiring best-fit, key managers and employees, where a treasure trove of knowledgeable stakeholders were not consulted for panel interviews; (5) band-aiding horrible and outdated operational or accounting software, equipment, and vehicles because of focus on monthly short-term costs; (6) supporting non-endearing managers, who are not liked and respected by the staff and causes attrition; (7) hoarding and concealing performance metric data, so no one in senior department management knows where, or the root cause(s) of why, the company is failing to make the corrective actions; (8) not preparing line managers on a poorly conceived, shock restructuring affecting their employees; (9) and pushing and driving the company by HR and Accounting, when the train engine of Sales pulling the train is failing miserably.
Instead, Daimler advises a more fundamental approach. Melissa Daimler pulls us back to the 30,000 feet level to look at culture systemically. We must establish the purpose and strategy of the culture. If every minute of every employees’ day simply promotes “growth” and “meeting Wall Street or private equity level metrics”, I think that is a company doomed to fail. The company should institute a purpose and strategy. The purpose should be a higher value than just growth and profit. For example, does the company have caring for the worker and client? There are countless values for an employee or manager and a company, which are easy to overlook in a cynical, bottom-line world, such as dignity, forgiveness, family, giving back, gratitude, honesty, kindness, inclusion, peace, stewardship, and trust.
According to Daimler, a big corporate mistake, is to establish, publish, and assume value statements that are not supported by processes, systems, and behaviors. For example, on boarding and off-boarding could be 50% of the cultural impact on a potential career employee, but wasted, if those processes are abrupt, rushed, or at worst - vindictive. The company’s highest values should be systemically supported through focus throughout the onboarding, training, and off-boarding. This will stun most naïve company leaders. The Exit is as important as the Entrance. Employees who are quickly offboarded to conserve payroll, may not come back and/or be good ambassadors for the company. That is not good, if exponential growth is the penultimate value. A company will have attrition, but an open-door policy for all that is good – it is essential for success.
This is critical. The values, once established, must be reinforced through a business process, system, and set of behaviors – not just buried and left for dead in wordy hiring contracts. This is even more challenging post-Covid with employees working remotely and/or with a business where employees are largely lone workers in the field. Employees will value continuity of training in the company process, behavior expectations, and professional skills, as well as close connection and continual reward. Also, in practice, the methods of communication and meetings must be a difficult balance between (1) effusive enough to do the job, but (2) efficient and respectful of employee’s time.
Finally, the leader(s) must both set the tone and walk the walk. The leadership team will finalize the value statements, but they must also exhibit and support all these values. An example of horrendously bad leadership is managers flying first class and staying in executive suite hotels, while the company earnings are falling short, and profitability is a high value.
Overall, this is a good book, which I highly recommend.
November 8, 2022
This is a great book for those interested in learning about the tactical elements of culture, and how to create a sustained strategy of "Reculturing" one's organization.
Melissa does a wonderful job of painting her experiences in the context of her learnings and the Reculturing strategies. She looks at both the organizational level, as well as from the individual's perspective. Both are important when it comes to creating, and re-iterating, on an org's mission and goals.
I highly recommend this read for anyone in the OD, HRBP, and HRM space. OR just anyone who lives and works in Silicon Valley. As a manager or executive, you can take a lot away from this book.
Melissa does a wonderful job of painting her experiences in the context of her learnings and the Reculturing strategies. She looks at both the organizational level, as well as from the individual's perspective. Both are important when it comes to creating, and re-iterating, on an org's mission and goals.
I highly recommend this read for anyone in the OD, HRBP, and HRM space. OR just anyone who lives and works in Silicon Valley. As a manager or executive, you can take a lot away from this book.
March 29, 2023
If we truly believe that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” then this book is a road map to change the calculus of that equation. Culture is a key consideration on the formulation of strategy, and something that most ignore. Reculturization isn’t complicated… but it’s necessary. This is where it begins.
August 24, 2022
This book is an easy one to read, objetive, clear and inspirational to all those who understand the role that a strong culture plays in companies
June 25, 2023
Ms. Daimler is brilliant. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to lead.
July 31, 2023
I dove into this for a Wharton certificate class. Very helpful and a quick read.
August 14, 2023
Practical and well constructed.
March 12, 2025
Melissa Daimler’s Reculturing feels like a thoughtful conversation with an experienced mentor about building stronger workplace cultures. Drawing on her experiences at Adobe, Twitter, Udemy, and WeWork, Daimler emphasizes that culture shouldn't be a vague afterthought but rather an equal partner to strategy and purpose. Through relatable examples and practical Do’s and Don’ts, she illustrates clearly how culture can—and should—be intentionally designed and continuously refined.
What makes this book especially valuable is Daimler’s structured breakdown of culture into three concrete elements: behaviors (daily actions reflecting company values), processes (such as hiring and onboarding), and practices (like meetings, communication, and recognition). Her analytical yet approachable style provides leaders with actionable frameworks for transforming culture from an abstract idea into measurable, sustainable practices. If you're looking to understand not just why culture matters but exactly how to cultivate and sustain it, *Reculturing* offers a clear, insightful roadmap.
What makes this book especially valuable is Daimler’s structured breakdown of culture into three concrete elements: behaviors (daily actions reflecting company values), processes (such as hiring and onboarding), and practices (like meetings, communication, and recognition). Her analytical yet approachable style provides leaders with actionable frameworks for transforming culture from an abstract idea into measurable, sustainable practices. If you're looking to understand not just why culture matters but exactly how to cultivate and sustain it, *Reculturing* offers a clear, insightful roadmap.
January 13, 2024
Culture is not a thing, a place or another happy hour. It’s a verb that’s in every action and decision we make at the office. Culture needs continuing re-designing, or reculturing, to thrive. This book provides useful frameworks for examining company culture and how it applies to common business functions like recruiting, talent management and offboarding. Importantly it gives guidance on strengthening your own personal culture, and the values and behaviors you bring to the office.
August 5, 2024
An excellent post-covid management book with excellent nuggets around managing a remote or hybrid team. Daimler also does a wonderful job of laying out a structure to define one’s own personal culture, which often gets overlooked in the management process.
December 4, 2024
I'm biased since I'm the author but I still think 2 years later, culture is more relevant than ever and many companies are still getting it wrong.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews