Helen Rosethorn is a recognised thought leader in organisational culture and employer branding. With over two decades of experience, she has helped global organisations align culture with business strategy to drive meaningful change.

She’s the author of The Employer Brand: Keeping Faith with the Deal, a seminal book in the field. Helen is known for bringing sharp insight and practical frameworks to complex culture challenges, and regularly contributes to the wider conversation through publications and speaking engagements.

In this podcast, we dive into how cultural thinking in business has evolved — and how to truly harness the power of people. We explore the critical alignment between strategy and culture, the role of leadership, and why culture must be part of the work system and everyday decisions. We also unpack the post-Covid reality, the growing distrust in leaders, and the rising expectations from Gen Z.

Key Takeaways

1. Culture is not separate from work; it’s the work itself.
2. Culture shows up in every people and business KPI
3. Whether culture is right or wrong is not relevant. What matters is whether it aligns with your strategic intent.
4. Intentionally designed culture is a tool to attract and retain the talent you need. It isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t need to be.
5. Without understanding culture as a holistic system, it’s very hard to lead it. Simplified, it consists of people who think and act within a built system.
6. The real shift happens when you understand why people are doing what they’re doing. The root cause always lies in the mindset and the system.
7. Systems can overpower everything else, but only people can change the system.
8. Leadership alignment and shared ambition are critical factors in success.
9. The pace of leadership is the pace of change in the organisation.
10. The inefficient and unsuccessful way to lead culture is to focus on igniting employee motivation without addressing leadership and the surrounding system.
11. Trust in leaders is worryingly declining, yet trust and loyalty remain key parts of performance.
12. Subcultures can be hotbeds of change if aligned with the bigger vision.
13. Culture is not a monolithic game; it’s about understanding subcultures and how they fit within the larger ecosystem.
14. The collective collaboration of working for a company is rooted in a belief in a better tomorrow.The future of work isn’t about going back, it’s about moving forward with optimism and a new set of rules.

Discussion points overview

THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURE IN BUSINESS

00:00 Helen’s springboard into culture

02:56 How cultural thinking in business has evolved

03:26 Tapping into the power of people at work

05:04 Shifting to an adult-to-adult work environment

07:03 Employee engagement and the idea of discretionary effort

09:01 New business models and the entrepreneurial employee

BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE CULTURE

13:00 Culture is a work system — and shows up in every KPI

16:01 Behaviours as visible outcomes

16:37 Beliefs and systems as the forces surrounding behaviour

19:14 Culture, explained through a high-performance car metaphor

STRATEGY AND CULTURE

20:44 Is culture right, wrong or fit?

21:17 Align strategic and cultural intent

22:07 Case: Amazon and its cult(ure)

23:21 The value exchange between people and business

26:48 Culture fit, personality fit, and leadership fit

27:59 Aligned leadership sets the tone

31:19 The middle management brings it to life

33:07 Hybrid strategies need hybrid leadership

35:37 Building a transformative counterculture

36:04 Beware of unintended consequences

36:41 Case: When compliance grew bigger than the customer

HOW TO INTENTIONALLY WORK ON CULTURE

39:10 Culture’s chicken-or-egg dilemma: people or systems first?

40:21 How to intentionally shift your work system

40:43 The CEO’s role: understanding what drives behaviour

42:40 The delicate balance between business and employee interests

44:22 Trust, change and generational tensions

44:22 The worrying decline of trust in leaders

46:40 A harsh truth: business leaders are seen as liars

48:10 Post-Covid reality and Gen Z pressures

49:42 Double trouble: both the business model and the work system are broken

51:41 Trust: the foundation of work and life

54:55 How “forced” trust and autonomy during Covid changed the game

57:17 Like a clock, your work system must move forward — not back

1:00:00 Performance in the era of invisible workforce

1:03:25 The relevant question trust in the value exchange

1:06:19 The need for future-looking narrative

FIVE TAKEAWAYS

1:09:15 Culture is work — not a separate thing

1:09:54 Dynamic culture supports dynamic strategy

1:11:45 Leadership alignment and shared ambition is everything

1:12:50 Nothing changes unless leaders model it, the middle supports it, and the system enables it

1:14:17 A case for intentional culture management

About the author