Building a Better Brand Culture: An Interview With Josh Levine

Josh Levine is an educator, designer and the best-selling author of the book Great Mondays: How to Design a Company Culture Employees Love. For more than 15 years, Levine has helped build culture-driven brands. He is best known for helping found the non-profit Culture LabX, and as its executive director has overseen its growth into an international community.

Levine says he’s on a mission to help organizations find a competitive advantage by establishing excellent brand cultures. We talked to Levine about how he’s helping businesses establish the framework and tools they need to understand, design and manage a great culture.

1851 Franchise: What is the first step a company should take when looking to establish or re-establish a strong brand culture? 

Josh Levine: In my book Great Mondays, I detail the six components of successful company culture. In my opinion, this framework is extremely important. The first two components are purpose and values. Many organizations forget the need for a purpose-based mission: Why are we in business besides trying to make money?

This first step isn’t always easy, but it should be a simple answer. 

If a brand or company doesn’t have a shared understanding of why they are in business, everything else falls apart. There needs to be a strong, purpose-based reason for joining the company outside of financial gain. The need for a purpose might seem superfluous, but it is actually essential. Everyone, including the owner, is going to have a tough workday if they don’t have a meaningful purpose for being there. That purpose will be the key to keeping employees around for the long haul. 

1851: It's one thing for a brand’s leadership to say how its culture should be, but it’s much more difficult to walk the walk and establish that culture at the highest levels. How can brands accomplish this in a meaningful and authentic way?

Levine: The first three components of company culture are: purpose, values and behaviors. This is where we lay out what the company is looking to achieve and where it is headed in the future. If the purpose is the peak of the culture mountain, the values are the trails that take us there. The values are what companies should be rewarding their employees on. 

For example, if a company claims the only purpose is to drive sales, employees are going to cheat their way there. The brand’s values need to be authentic and in line with the overall purpose of the organization. The factor that connects the values and the purpose is the third component: behaviors. At the end of the day, the reason culture is so important is that it dictates the behaviors that will lead an organization to successful business decisions.

The other three components are what determines if the company walks the walk: recognition, rituals, and cues. This section is how a company activates and operationalizes the culture. We’ve all been to the office where the mission statement is written on the wall, but it doesn’t mean anything in actuality. A company needs to be strategic about creating a series of thorough rewards and recognition programs. While most recognition programs only reward the financial outcome, companies should incentivize programs that encourage culture-aligned behaviors. Rituals are the ways that companies build and strengthen relationships. These relationships are the synapses of company culture, they are how culture builds and spreads. 

Company culture is very hard to maintain at large scale because it becomes almost impossible to have meaningful relationships with every single employee. It is important that brands establish the kind of rituals that allow employees to really get to know one another. Finally, the sixth component is cues, the physical and behavioral reminders of why we are all with the company. Everyone is busy with deadlines, so cues make sure that people actually take the time to stay connected with their coworkers.

1851: What is a brand or company whose culture you admire?

Levine: The first example is a brand that people reference all of the time, Southwest Airlines. The brand is authentic in everything it does, including a great, no-frills business model. Overall, I love interacting with the Southwest organization because the company’s values are always integrated into the customer experience. 

Another example of a brand with a similarly authentic culture is Trader Joe’s. The company knows how to find the right employees and support them. When a customer walks into the store, it is clear that the employees are happy and in a great mood. Everything at Trader Joe’s is about delivering on the authentic and value-oriented company culture.

1851: What are some of the most important qualities leaders must have to grow the culture they envision for their brands? 

Levine: The leader of a company has to understand and believe in the power of culture. It is not enough to write the values, they also need to be able to live up to them. A leader’s day-to-day behavior is hugely influential. Employees want to know what success looks like in the company. Leaders need to constantly remind employees of the company’s values and purpose. 

Leaders should publicly praise value-driven behaviors, whether it be a big success or simple good deed, in order to make sure the rest of the company sees it. By the same token, leaders can’t let bad actors get away with bad behavior. Avoid publicly scolding anyone, but make sure that the person is held accountable. Soon, the news will spread like wildfire and employees will understand how important it is to take the culture seriously. If it gets to the unfortunate point where someone needs to be fired, use it as a culture-building moment for everyone.