A Message from Our CEO – September 2025
“Culture doesn’t eat strategy. It lights it on fire and roasts marshmallows.”
One of my first jobs was working in radio advertising sales for a guy named Mel Karmazin. He would humiliate, demean and chide employees. He managed by fear, and it worked… at first. Fear is a great motivator. It makes you run fast, but only until you find the nearest exit. I eventually found the exit and ended up thriving at a company with a strong, purpose-driven culture.
In the end, good culture wins.
Deep down, everybody knows this but building a strong culture eludes leaders. Most cultures are somewhere between meh… and miserable. 10% are magnificent.
The FAA is a case study in what goes wrong in bad cultures. They are short 3,000 air traffic controllers—almost 20% of their workforce. Why? They are widely recognized as a completely dysfunctional culture according to a recent SHRM article. Turnover, burnout, and generally miserable. “Haphazard instruction, organizational dysfunction, and abusive conditions,” according to one source.
So what makes culture stick? Five things, always:
Honest and unbiased management – No spin, no favorites.
Civility – Basic human respect.
Meaningful work – A sense that what you do matters.
Open communication – Leaders who actually listen.
Empathy – The thing Mel Karmazin never read the manual on.
Get those five right, and you don’t just “beat” strategy—you fuel it. You create the kind of place where people want to stay, contribute, and even roast a few marshmallows together.
Because fear is fast, but culture is forever.
Truth. Trust. Tenure.
- Warren