More than one-third of employees in the United States would decline a job offer if the corporate culture clashed with their working style. Today, culture is a powerful tool not just for retention, but also for recruitment. Yet it’s underutilized and overlooked by leaders.
Ask ten different HR leaders what company culture looks like, and you’ll get ten different answers. Ten different approaches. And, ultimately, ten different ways of working that may drive employees away.
To discover how leaders can actively cultivate culture to attract and retain the best talent, we sat with Ricardo Lillo, CEO of DOOR International, the leading global training, coaching, and consulting firm specializing in culture journeys.
Defining Company Culture
To get to the root of company culture, we must look past perks, slogans, and vision statements. For Ricardo, the answer to ‘what is culture?’ is simple: Culture is the way we think and act every single day.
“Culture is always there. Culture exists every day. Culture is not those casual Fridays or your ping pong table in the building- those are perks. Those are cool things. Culture is the way people think and act.”
Rather than being shaped through catchy campaigns or the best benefits, it’s cultivated with every conversation, every decision (big or small), and every leadership behavior.
Culture is created constantly. The question is whether you’re developing it consciously.
Clarity: The Backbone of Culture
A strong culture can’t exist without clarity. When employees don’t understand what matters most, alignment breaks down, people feel disconnected from purpose, and engagement quickly fades.
And purpose is critical, in today’s workplace: A new report from Gallup found that employees with a sense of purpose are 5.6 times more likely to be engaged in their jobs than those with a low sense of purpose.
“Everything goes back to clarity and alignment. We want to achieve this. We want to go here,” explains Ricardo. “Simple is best. If you have 20 different strategic items that you need to deal with, it's very hard to get the clarity needed to align your 5,000 or 500,000 employees to succeed.”
Leaders can strengthen clarity in three practical ways:
- Align broader goals across teams:
Culture thrives when everyone moves in the same direction. Clearly linking team and individual goals to organizational priorities ensures alignment and demonstrates how each individual contributes to collective success. - Model transparent and consistent behavior:
By consistently demonstrating the behaviors, decision-making principles, and values they want to see, leaders make abstract cultural ideals tangible and actionable. Communicating the “why” behind decisions via internal social networks and other tools is key. - Embed continuous dialogue and feedback:
Culture shows up daily, not just during annual reviews. Regular check-ins, open discussions, and continuous feedback loops help people understand expectations, reinforce values, and stay aligned with evolving priorities.
Healthy Cultures Thrive on Feedback
If clarity is the foundation, feedback is the fuel. It keeps culture alive, adaptive, and aware.
Ricardo has seen the power of feedback firsthand, working with thousands of companies across 108 countries through DOOR International. He explains:
“The culture we need is for these companies to be open and candid and ask for feedback, to acknowledge mistakes, learn from them, and move forward. One of the best ways to improve yourself is by asking for feedback.”
Creating a feedback culture doesn’t require a complete overhaul. Even small steps can make a big impact. Leaders can start today by:
- Creating psychological safety for honest dialogue
Feedback only matters when people feel safe to share it. Leaders who admit mistakes, invite input, and respond with curiosity instead of defensiveness show that honesty is valued and safe. - Making feedback continuous
When feedback becomes a daily habit — in team meetings, after projects, or during quick check-ins — it reinforces shared values and keeps teams learning together. - Modeling vulnerability and curiosity
Leaders set the tone for how feedback is received and acted upon. Being open about their own learning, asking thoughtful questions, and showing a willingness to improve inspires the same mindset across the organization. - Building trust through consistency and follow-through
Trust is earned over time. When leaders act on feedback, honor commitments, and acknowledge contributions, employees see that their voices matter. Consistent actions reinforce credibility and strengthen culture.
The Result of Feedback Culture? Innovation
Employees are 3.6x more likely to be motivated to do outstanding work when managers provide daily feedback rather than annual feedback. And extra motivation breeds innovation.
Ricardo backs this up, viewing feedback and innovation as inseparable. “If we need innovation, we'll be ready to accept mistakes,” he explained. “How can you innovate if you're not allowing people to make mistakes or you yell at people when they make a mistake-they will never try again.”
Innovation cannot survive in fear. A culture that punishes missteps kills experimentation — and with it, progress. Leaders must give employees “permission to learn”: an environment where curiosity is encouraged, ideas are tested, and failures are reframed as lessons, even if outcomes are not as predicted or expected.
Building a culture of innovation requires redefining what failure means. Failure is learning. Failure is data. Failure is necessary to achieve success. Encouraging experimentation and open feedback while giving employees a safe space to fail is the first step toward cultivating innovation.
Leaders can nurture this culture by:
- Rewarding experimentation: Celebrate effort and progress, not just results.
- Publicly reflecting on lessons learned: Normalize learning out loud so others see that growth comes from experience.
- Recognizing vulnerability and failure as a strength: When leaders model openness and learning from mistakes, others follow.
Leadership Shapes Culture, Intentionally or Not
Every organization has a culture. Whether it’s by design or default lies in the hands of leadership. Ricardo reminds us:
“Culture has nothing to do with perks. Nothing to do with people working in one environment. It doesn't have anything to do with anything else than leadership, clarity, and alignment. Culture is always there. It’s just, are you going to frame it and shape it to go where you need it to go?”
Culture isn’t lost — it’s led. Every day, in every conversation.
We at LutherOne share Ricardo’s belief that culture is shaped through action, not aspiration. Our platform helps leaders turn insights into action by integrating feedback, clarity, and transparency into daily operations.
With continuous feedback tools, smart communication networks, and digital rewards, leaders can reinforce culture, celebrate progress, and connect individual contributions to organizational goals — all in real time.
Don’t leave your culture to chance. Request a free demo to see how LutherOne can help you build a culture that attracts, motivates, and retains top talent.
About Ricardo Lillo:
As the CEO of DOOR International, Ricardo Lillo helps organizations harness their most important asset (their people) to achieve strategic goals. An expert in shifting mindsets and building accountability cultures, Ricardo has guided DOOR’s expansion into new markets and brought the Partners in Leadership® methodology to 108 countries, creating high-performance business cultures for over 15 years.
Outside of work, Ricardo enjoys spending time with his family, including his four children who live in three different countries. A seasoned traveler, he has visited 80 countries so far and spends his free time playing sports like padel and golf — though his 14-year-old son already beats him by a mile with a handicap under 5!