An interview with Vladimír Tuka, an expert on leadership and corporate culture @vladimirtuka.cz, and Ondřej Rudolf, a specialist in brand building, exploring the key connections between a company's internal workings and its external image.

OR: I've always been interested in the relationship between leadership and culture. We focus on building brands that have a significant source and simultaneous impact within the corporate culture. You mentioned that culture triumphs over strategy and managerial techniques. Why is that, and how do you think it influences brand building?

VT: Ondřej, it's very simple. We make hundreds of decisions every day and don't have time to think deeply about them. We are guided by values, convictions, and certain automatisms. And that is precisely what culture is. If we have a culture that says, 'I must wait for the boss's instruction,' it is completely different from a culture that encourages: 'I need to take initiative, take care of things, cooperate with others, get to where the energy is and where we can achieve something.' That is a totally different culture that you must have within you.

OR: Can I somehow recognize a company's culture from the outside, or do I have to be employed and work there for half a year to find out how they are doing?

VT: They say it's enough to spend three hours in a company and you know what its culture is like.

OR: Can you tell right at the reception desk?

VT: At the reception, during interaction with people... Do they take initiative? Do they not? How do they behave toward strangers? Can they greet, smile? There are a number of things that clearly tell you. Are people rather isolated from each other, or do they cooperate and are they in harmony? You also quickly find out—and this is very important currently—whether a mistake is viewed in the company as something that is completely normal for development. We cannot develop without mistakes, we must make them to be able to learn. Where a mistake is a reason for punishment—and you recognize this very quickly when people react with a style of, 'Oh my god, I shouldn't have done that,' and start making all sorts of excuses—you identify that immediately.

OR: In marketing, we definitely recognize it immediately. The line between a strategic decision and operational matters that a marketing manager is entitled to is relatively thin there. For some people, it is difficult to grasp what exactly they can still do. Some marketers overstep their competence and try to decide on things that do not belong to them. Others, conversely, are afraid to decide on anything without the approval of their superiors. Is this part of the company's DNA regardless of who leads it, or is it primarily the responsibility of the CEO, the person who is the true head and sets the culture?

VT: That is a very interesting question. To a large extent, especially if they are not century-old companies, the DNA is determined by the founder. But it evolves. The founder comes up with an idea, with a team that will realize it, and defines how we will behave toward each other. The group of people around them then crystallizes the culture based on these requirements. However, culture is not static, just like a brand. The world around us is evolving, and ever faster, and we are encountering increasingly complex things. 10–15 years ago, perhaps one big boss who controlled everything was enough, and everyone else listened—that was a culture of dependence, where everyone looked up. Then cultures of independence appeared, where a few smart individuals made the decisions. But even they have their limits. Eventually, we get to the phase where we realize that no one is smart enough to handle everything alone.

OR: That follows exactly what we experience in brand management. Previously, perhaps even more than 15 years ago, the company was represented only by a narrow circle of people and communication took place at a few, well-managed touchpoints. That was enough. Today, the company has a permeable membrane around itself. Everyone communicates with everyone, and the culture prevalent in the company is constantly revealed—whether it is customer support, project management, or after-sales service. All of this is key to how customers perceive the company. If the culture inside is flawed, what happens externally is doubly flawed and has tragic consequences. A company must cultivate its culture, but also be able to define and name it. When we build or innovate a brand, we try to extract the best and most appropriate from the founder's DNA, externalize it, and incorporate it into the brand so that it is understandable to the people inside the company and they can refer to it as a reference point. That is why we spend time with them, to understand what we call the DNA or culture of the company, and get it into communication that then takes place through all employees, whether there are a hundred or a thousand of them. If the culture is poorly set up, nothing will work—especially recruitment. HR marketing cannot function if the culture is not right. What are the mechanisms or procedures for cultivating culture so that it helps the strategy and drives the company forward? Can it be worked on systematically, or is it just a matter of chance and a fortunate meeting of a few people?

VT: I have a feeling that we often approach this from a position of "I know," and that is a mistake. You don't know. The world around you knows what the company needs to succeed today and in 20 years. The entire culture must serve for us, as a company, as a community of people, to be able to survive, thrive, and live into the future, not just somehow make ends meet now. If everything is governed only by you or someone else, where are the objective criteria? Are you the criterion? The boss? No. The criterion is our ability to evolve together with our environment and secure our future.

OR: That is a rather complex construct for a debate with middle or senior management right now. Are there any practical procedures for guarding the culture so that it doesn't fall apart?

VT: Absolutely evident. As we discussed, the top management is primarily responsible for the culture. Not just the CEO, but the entire leadership team. If everyone in top management is playing in their own sandbox, we cannot be surprised that even lower down, everyone is playing in their own sandbox, and everything escalates to the very top. That is a culture that is very outdated today. But if the company's leadership functions as a real team—meaning they perceive each other, share responsibility, and understand that what the situation demands must be solved together—then it is different. They are not just there to total up their individual performances. They must create more than the sum of the parts, and that is the essence of a team. The boss is then not there to decide everything, but to bring challenges: "Gentlemen and ladies, this is what is ahead of us, and I need you to solve it together." If they solve things together, they will also view cooperation with customers and suppliers as a partnership where we create something together. And that is a completely different culture that must be carried further down.

OR: Does that mean that the cultures in all successful companies are fundamentally the same? Or can I have a differentiated culture—"this is the culture of this company and this is different"—and recognize it when I move from one to the other?

VT: There is no universal "best practice." Everywhere I go, they ask me for best practice, and I say, "Look around you, look at yourselves, at your uniqueness." Culture is what is unique to the given company and the environment in which it is located. Darwin's law tells us that we need to evolve as fast, if not faster, than the environment is evolving. We evolve in our specific "niche" (market segment). Every company exists in a niche that is individual to it, and it evolves with it. That means we create the culture ourselves. There are some laws and ways to reach our own "best practice," but in the surroundings, let's look only for inspiration, not a copy.

OR: We also talked about that. When we introduce a brand change in our case, which is a change in the company's self-expression, it is often a very fundamental process for them. They may not fully realize it at the beginning, but after several months of work, it starts to dawn on executive management. And often, they enjoy it very much. They reach a phase where they, as it were, take a breath of fresh air and feel they are going out into the world, into global competition, with something new. It's not just a label, it's their internal feeling of transformation. We, as marketers or brand managers, provide them with the tools for this, but the real transformation takes place during workshops and strategic debates. For example, twelve people out of a thousand-person company go through this process. They are involved for several months, sometimes even a year, before the new change is fully implemented (new website, materials, etc.). Then it regularly happens that these people, who have understood the process, have the task of conveying this message to the remaining 1000, 1200, 5000 colleagues in one or more countries. They find themselves in a situation that is difficult and uncomfortable for them because it is not their primary role. Everyone has their profession—a technologist, a software developer, a financier. And suddenly they have to convey a message that they have experienced, but perhaps do not understand deeply enough to effectively pass it on. This is what we often encounter. What can these people do to handle the situation they are exposed to, without it actually being their fault?

VT: There are a few key things. The first and most essential is that they must consistently lead by example. Those below them constantly monitor what those at the top are doing. The second thing is the concept of "teams of teams." Below them is a layer of managers who lead their teams. These managers should not be isolated, but should form another team. Representatives of these teams (or the entire teams) are then often called together to think collectively about what needs to be done. They must first understand the context: Where is the company heading? Why are we talking about these things now? What has been discovered? What is the new brand and new ways of acting supposed to bring us? And then they look for answers to the questions: What do you need from me, and I from you? How will we cooperate to achieve the goals? Fairly interesting decisions and rules are formed here, to which they then return. This process can then gradually cascade further down because it is a model for those below—it shows how we can escalate the change further. But it is not automatic, you are absolutely right about that. It is not enough to say, "We at the top figured it out, we are great, and now the company will take it over." Without involving people, it won't work. There must be another step to ensure that the change becomes part of the entire company's DNA.

OR: Which is something we could call "brand leadership." It's actually about the leadership team at a given level taking the brand's promotion within the organization as their strategic task. Firstly, they must ensure that employees know what has happened—because suddenly they see different things around them and ask their boss what is going on. So they need information. And secondly, they must know the goals the change is intended to achieve and be in agreement with them. Then they will probably successfully maintain it to some extent.

VT: And again, we return to what we said: culture is a set of beliefs and behaviors. If we can get these beliefs into automatisms that guide our decision-making, then we will de facto promote the beliefs and behaviors that support who we want to be and why. This applies to both brand and culture. It is still about culture. If there is no culture of leadership based on cooperation and moving toward a common goal, then we are out of luck. Neither the brand nor the strategy will succeed.

OR: So it shouldn't work that the CEO goes around to individual departments and explains the new brand, while the other managers stand aside with their hands in their pockets, saying, "Yeah, the boss came up with something with an agency here. Suddenly we're green, we used to be blue, and we actually don't know why." Which is a sentence I actually heard...

VT: Absolutely. You touched upon another important thing: as long as I don't own something, I don't act—at least I don't act on my own initiative. Yes, you told me, so I'll do something. But only "something." Until I internally own the brand, until it is something for me as a person that I stand behind, I will not be creative in promoting it. Because talking about something and showing examples does not yet mean I will know how to apply it in specific situations when I have to enforce it. Your goal is not to convince me, but to ensure that I then promote and live the brand. And to live it, I must own it. So we need to get that brand ownership down.

OR: We try to achieve this by ensuring that when a brand is launched well, people must experience it. They must physically see the change around them, not just at some party where it is announced. It is very difficult to explain the strategic background, the set of values, etc., to them. The lower we are in the hierarchy, the less people have the will and time to understand and grasp the details. The message needs to be delivered to them in the right format so they can adopt that ownership. That is why companies sponsor sports events, for example—they work with a mass of employees there so they can be proud of who they are and cheer the name of their company. It is simple, tribal. We all rally around one pillar. If this gravitational core works. If it doesn't work, people in the company are just surviving, they don't feel belonging. And belonging is key for us. That relates to what you call ownership—I know I am part of something, I know it is also part of me, because without that company, I would hardly function. The brand plays a fundamental role in this because it is a very brief illustration of everything we have discussed. On one side, there is a complex philosophical consideration; on the other, our task is to embody it in a few paragraphs and images so that it works and continuously conveys the correct message. Which is often misunderstood.

VT: Exactly. You speak beautifully about the fact that people need to see themselves in it, they need coherence—it must fit into their lives. "I can wake up in the morning and go to work for this, it makes sense to me." Meaning is very important; we often forget about it. Thanks to meaning, it is worthwhile to go to the company not only for money, but also to "fight" for it, to do something extra beyond what I get paid for.

OR: Exactly. We are touching on the fact that people work in a company that brings them something other than money. This is called the other side of the contract—on one side is the employment contract, on the other is the brand, the direction in which the company develops. I know why I come to work on Monday morning, and it is not just because of the money. It is because I want to live what the company lives, I am in harmony with its culture. Several times it has happened to us, for example when working on HR marketing or employer branding, that a sentence emerged from research among employees or even around the company: "Well, it's not what it used to be." This is one of the fatal sentences about a company for us. It doesn't hurt anyone specifically, it's not directly critical, but it expresses declining sentiment. It signals that the company is no longer what it was. When this repeats in our research, it means something is eroding there, there is some more permanent, long-term flaw.

VT: Which will be a cultural thing.

OR: Unambiguously. It's not about whether it has business or not—regular employees often don't even understand that. But "it's not what it used to be" means that the management responsible for it has stopped dedicating themselves to cultivating the culture and cultural quality that was there before. This is often associated with the departure of the founders—the company was handed over or sold. People suddenly stand without the original direction. Something that used to be there has left them—that original "brand" they embodied with a specific person, the founder, the owner. And then the sentence comes: "It's not what it used to be." Especially in HR marketing, it is fatal. No one wants to join such a company. It comes from the fact that people no longer understand or feel that co-ownership of the brand.

VT: You know, what you are talking about corresponds to one of the levels of leadership culture, which is called dependence. That is about the boss being right; we have a boss, we measure things according to him. No discussions, we work, we toil, because the boss knows best. This culture is good in some ways—there is strong cohesion, people stick together, there are few conflicts. Unfortunately, there are even dangerously few conflicts, because the useful ones are also missing—the intellectual conflicts. This culture then often grows further. Other leaders are separated from it, who already compete with each other, make compromises, and fight. A lot of energy is fragmented there, even though it is more strategically focused. However, the disadvantage is that these "predators" often do not look at the surroundings; they go their own way and can burn out the company. Only then can the company get to the third phase, which is currently key—the cooperative culture of interdependence. No one is smart enough to know everything. No one is nothing, and at the same time, someone is not everything. Everyone has their place, everyone has their meaning. Systems work thanks to elements and the relationships between them, and these relationships have a purpose. Leadership is about having somewhere to go, having agreement in our direction, being able to coordinate, align, and accept ownership—that is, the commitment that I will do something in that direction. This culture is then very strong. It works well with both the brand and strategies. But it is still necessary to constantly take care of it. Just like the brand.

OR: Now you have described the principle of brand building in a few sentences and gestures—to see and know where we are going, because the brand should reflect that. Instead of many texts, we try to create a shortcut that represents the company and shows the direction. Do you think the brand needs leadership, or does leadership need the brand?

VT: I don't know what is primary; I cannot tell you that. But I know what is fundamental. If we have a culture that respects the distinctness of everyone and at the same time the integrity of the whole, then we can achieve anything. I think that good leadership culture will support the brand because the brand is part of the strategy. It cannot be otherwise. These are the subtle things that then play a role even in hard strategic matters—how you address your entire niche, whatever it may be, how you address your business environment. But if someone thinks that they can change the culture of leadership with a brand, I am not sure about that. Culture is rooted in people's beliefs and their automatic behavior. A bad culture can destroy brand building efforts. Conversely, when we build a good culture that corresponds to what the world and the future demand, then these two things—culture and brand—can mutually support each other and multiply the energy that will result from investments in them.

OR: Exactly. We have encountered cases where we said that it makes no sense for the given organization to work on a brand because all those cultural and leadership things were wrong. Then it is just wasted energy—financial, creative, time-related. It doesn't make sense.

VT: You know what is essential? If you see a culture where people attack each other—"that one is responsible for this, that one for that, circumstances are to blame, those people are to blame"—there, no one is a prophet. Everyone is against everyone else; everyone is just defending their own. Such a culture is terribly dangerous, and a brand cannot take hold in it. Conversely, where people say, "Look, let's go together, let's look at what this can bring us, how it can help us, where the connections are," where they are creative, not destructive—there, I think the brand has enormous added value.