There’s a quote from Charles Bukowski framed on my workplace wall:
“What issues most is how effectively you stroll by means of the fireplace.”
We’re in that fireside proper now. For 25 years, our firm has moved folks to indicate up for leisure. Then the world modified. Leisure modified. Know-how modified. Nearly in a single day, we needed to throw the previous playbook out the window.
So, we paused. We seemed inward and requested the laborious query: Will we rebuild what we had or remodel into what we should be for the long run?
Firms want to decide on the second. For us that meant changing into culture-led, not as a slogan or a rebrand, however because the infrastructure for a way we function. Turning into culture-led doesn’t simply information values; it may develop into an operational benefit.
FROM SILOS TO CONNECTION
We stopped organizing ourselves round deliverables and began paying nearer consideration to what strikes folks. What makes them care, pause, chuckle, click on, and share.
Inside leisure, we’d spent many years studying the right way to meet folks in emotional moments. We started making use of that very same emotional fluency to every thing we do: from automobile launches to hospitality marketing, and CPG storytelling. Not by forcing these classes to really feel like leisure, however by making use of what we’d realized about timing, tone, and human connection in locations the place that means issues greater than ever.
A transparent instance was our work launching God of Warfare Ragnarök for PlayStation. As a substitute of defaulting to an action-forward montage, we leaned into the kid–guardian relationship on the coronary heart of the sport. That emotional middle drove document outcomes. We didn’t get there by chasing classes. We received there by rethinking how we hear, interpret tradition, and act on perception.
A CHANGE IN HOW THE WORK MOVES
Empowering culture-led work to emerge from a corporation requires operational change.
We’re restructuring our technique, inventive, editorial, and social groups to be leaner and sooner. We’re bringing them into the identical room initially of each undertaking. It’s not good but, however the work is already transferring in a different way.
We launched casual tradition briefs to remain near what’s resonating with folks proper now. Not what’s trending, however what feels actual and sincere. That proximity retains us grounded in how folks reside, not simply how entrepreneurs discuss.
The consequence has been work guided by much less formulation and extra coronary heart, stronger briefs that adhere nearer to customers’ realities, and sooner motion of concepts to manufacturing.
LEARN TO SAY NO (WITHOUT FEELING SICK)
We additionally needed to get critical about what we’re prepared to stroll away from.
In leisure, the rule has at all times been easy: don’t flip down work. You by no means know when the subsequent factor is coming. That mindset builds hustle and burnout.
Just a few months in the past, for the primary time, we turned down leisure work that may have been a no brainer another yr. Nevertheless it didn’t align with who we have gotten, and that was purpose sufficient to stroll away from the chance.
Tradition isn’t simply what you invite in. It’s what you’re prepared to say no to.
Each time we’ve made that alternative, we’ve seen sharper focus, extra possession, and better momentum. The workforce feels lighter, clearer, and extra assured in the place we’re steering the ship.
THE REAL ADVANTAGE WAS NEVER THE CATEGORY
The identical intuition that led us to middle the human relationship in God of Warfare Ragnarök is the one that exposed what we’d been constructing all alongside in leisure—an area that trains you to make folks really feel one thing quick. You may have seconds to earn consideration, emotion, and belief.
Over time, we realized that talent, emotional fluency, cultural timing, and instinctive connection have been the actual benefits. Not the shape. Not the class.
In hindsight, it’s what strategist Rita McGrath would name a transient benefit. A functionality, not a credential. One thing moveable. One thing that evolves as tradition shifts.
As soon as we acknowledged that, the query turned the right way to operationalize it.
HIRE TO PUT CULTURAL FLUENCY INTO PRACTICE
Turning into culture-led takes greater than intention. It takes construction.
We’re constructing that now by means of cultural roundups, shared language, and clearer boundaries. Not buzzwords. Sensible methods to remain linked to how folks assume and really feel.
We’re additionally altering how we hire. Expertise nonetheless issues, however curiosity, self-awareness, and real development mindset matter extra. Alignment is changing into simply as necessary as what shopper somebody could carry within the door.
We’re studying to guard the tradition we’re constructing by setting boundaries, by saying no, and by selecting readability over consolation. Each time we do, we transfer ahead.
We’re not executed. And we most likely by no means ought to be.
That Bukowski quote doesn’t say what issues is whether or not you make it by means of the fireplace. It says the way you stroll by means of it’s what issues.
That’s the problem for management proper now. Not avoiding change. Simply strolling by means of it actually and with intention.
Firms that deal with tradition as a core functionality, not a marketing campaign or a slogan, are those prepared for no matter comes subsequent.
Michael McIntyre is the CEO of MOCEAN
