Growing a company from twenty people to a few hundred changes almost everything about how you lead. Culture is usually the first thing to feel the strain. In this conversation, Jason Lauritsen talks with Dan Kessler, president of Energage, the research partner behind the Top Workplaces program. He shares what it actually takes to keep a culture healthy while a business grows, makes acquisitions, and reinvents itself more than once. Dan is candid about how his role has changed over fifteen years, when core values are worth revisiting, how to tell whether an executive team is working well, and how his own instinct to be helpful can work against him. If you lead people through growth and want practical ways to keep your culture and your team aligned, this episode offers a grounded and honest look at the work it takes.
Key Takeaways
→ Culture and business performance tend to move together. A struggling culture can carry a business for a while, but strong results are hard to sustain without it.
→ Maintaining culture as you grow starts with the executive team, because the way the top operates sets the tone for the whole business.
→ There is no single right operating framework for a leadership team. What matters is picking one and adapting it to your business.
→ Core values should be durable, but they can be revisited as a company matures. Updating them is not the same as throwing them out.
→ Every strength has an underbelly. At Energage, the value of helpfulness can slide into enablement, where you solve problems people should be able to solve themselves.
→ A healthy executive team talks about the real issues, lets people say what they think in the room, and shares a clear sense of where the business is headed.
Widespread, unnecessary friction is often a sign the leadership team left the room without alignment or clarity.
→ Leading at scale means knowing when to roll up your sleeves and when to step back and trust your team to do the work their way.
→ Knowing who you are and showing up that way consistently makes leadership easier. For Dan, it comes down to love, levity, and purpose.
Timestamps
02:36 – Inside a purpose-driven B Corp software company
05:56 – The pressure of being a top workplace yourself
08:33 – Why strong culture and results go together
10:10 – What maintaining culture at scale really means
13:31 – Choosing an operating rhythm for your leadership team
16:22 – Why healthy culture starts at the top
18:51 – Knowing when to revisit your core values
23:56 – Signs your executive team is really working
27:32 – Leadership skills that growth and change demand
30:41 – Leading with consistency by knowing yourself
Keywords
scaling company culture, leading through growth, executive team alignment, when to update core values, workplace culture at scale, high performing leadership teams, Top Workplaces, culture and business performance, knowing when to delegate, leadership at scale
— Connect with Dan: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dan-kessler-40b4a11/ — JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/59nrvxnj
— Connect with Jason Lauritsen: Website: jasonlauritsen.com/ YouTube: youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/ Instagram: instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/
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