Dr. Marcus Collins on why culture is a cheat code for success

Dr. Marcus Collins: I think that from a brand perspective, culture is a shortcut for popular. In an organizational perspective, we use the shortcut of culture as what we do around here, how we do things around here.

A map culture is very much that this is our destination, just get in line and follow the directions. And when you do that, sure, you get uniformity. But you don't get a ton of creativity. But when you have a compass culture, you're just pointing to a North Star, saying, this is what we believe. Who believes that? help us get there. And the people who show up there, they're not there to follow the rules. They're there to contribute to something great.

It's almost too soft a word to say. It's an untapped resource. I would say this is the greatest. Cheat code known to man when it comes to commerce that many of us are not leveraging or not engaging because we don't understand it. And that's why I have dedicated my scholarship to not only studying the impact and influence of culture on us, but also helping evangelize what culture is. Scaling our knowledge of it so that we might be better practitioners in it and arguably better contributors to it.

Damon Klotz: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Culture First Podcast. I am your host, Damon Klotz. This show is called Culture First because it focuses on the impact that company culture has on creating successful organizations, teams, and leaders. But I want to let you in on a little secret. I've actually always been fascinated by culture and not just really in the workplace setting.

I have a love for things like design, branding, consumer behavior, and community building. And all of that world has taught me a lot about the subjects that I focus on in a more professional setting, such as leadership, team performance, and relational intelligence. I guess it's because I've just always been curious about why do we do what we do?

How do we signal to the world who we are? And what role do cultures and communities really have on us as humans? And all of these worlds are about to collide in this episode, because my guest today is Dr. Marcus Collins, and he's a culture expert. With a career that has included time at companies like Apple, working in the world of advertising and all the messages that go out to consumers, but he's also worked with icons.

And when I say icons, I mean icons like Beyonce. Marcus brings a very unique perspective to the power of culture and how it shapes us. And we're going to be exploring the deep connection between a company's brand and its culture. Why culture is the ultimate cheat code when it comes to success, according to Marcus, and how leaders can harness it to drive meaningful change.

Our everyday decisions as humans are signals to the world about what we believe in. And to bring this to life, I actually shared a story with Marcus about tote bags. So hear me out. And this comes back to my curiosity about why do we make these decisions? Who are we and how do we signal who we are to the world?

So let me paint a picture for you. I have spent a lot of the last decade traveling between the U. S. and Australia. Now when I am in places like New York, this is the tote bag that I take with me. Because it signals to people in New York that I like coffee, that maybe I'm not from New York, maybe I'm from Australia, maybe I've been to Australia.

So anyone who looks at this bag and knows what it is, is able to maybe have a conversation with me about why that's important to me. Now, you might know where this is going. This is the tote bag that I use when I'm here in Melbourne. My Trader Joe's bag, because it also signals to the world that maybe I'm not from Melbourne.

Maybe I've spent time in other places. Maybe I've been to the U S and it's a conversation starter. And really, I think that's why all of these decisions that we make as humans are really interesting because they are all a chance to connect with someone, to have a deeper connection through conversation.

And that's something that I'm super passionate about. That's why I host this show and I do a lot of public speaking about the role of conversation. So. Yes, I wanted to show you those tote bags because we do discuss them in this episode. At the end of the day, culture is really just made up of the decisions that we make.

And as leaders, we can help shape that culture so it can become the ultimate cheat code for success. So this is an incredibly special episode. I'd love to get really meta about culture. Let's head on over to my conversation with Dr. Marcus Collins. So today on the Culture First podcast, I'm looking forward to chatting with Dr. Marcus Collins. Marcus, thank you so much for joining me.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Thanks for having me. This is a pleasure.

Damon Klotz: So I'm excited to have this conversation for many different reasons. I've spent my career sort of in these worlds of leadership, culture, marketing, and storytelling. There is so much overlap between all these subjects that doesn't always kind of get discussed, which I think is something that should be discussed more. So, I think it's a really great privilege to have you on the show today. shall we dive into this conversation?

Dr. Marcus Collins: Let's do it.

Damon Klotz: So you study culture and its impact and its influence on behavioral adoption, which, you know, I think if you listen to the show, if you study business, that might make sense. But if a curious 10 year old comes up to you and says, excuse me, sir, what do you actually do for work? How do you respond?

Dr. Marcus Collins: I'd say I study people and how people influence people, to what we buy, where we go, what we do, how we style ourselves, where we work, who we date, what we eat, how we vacation, how we vote, just about every facet of social living.

Damon Klotz: I really feel like a lot of our understanding of sort of even why we are attracted to ideas or concepts or people really does start so much in childhood when you think about some of those early memories in like the playground and in primary school, you're like, what makes that person popular or that person more interesting and why do you want to spend time with there or why are we all playing this game right now? So I feel like a child would have a grasp on sort of why these subjects are important even at a very young age.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah, it's interesting because I think that kids in some ways intuitively know when they're being influenced. where adults, we kind of have a hubris in that we make our own decisions. We have great agency where we have this big formulated prefrontal cortex and therefore I make data driven decisions. The truth of the matter is we just don't.

Damon Klotz: One of my other rituals outside of getting my guests to explain what they do to this curious 10 year old who is now a very famous persona on this show is, for this latest set of episodes this year, I've been playing some of the card games from Esther Perel, who is a friend of the show and advisor to Culture Amp. So I pulled a card that is very specific for you because it does have the word culture in it.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Okay.

Damon Klotz: So the card I've got for you is something about my culture I wish other people understood.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Ooh, something about my culture which people understood. Well, I identify by many cultures. But I think for the sake of illustrating the cards point, I would say, as I identify as a Christian, I think that one of the things that people understood is that the belief is to be a light to the world, not necessarily convert everyone.

Damon Klotz: Yeah, that feeling of belief and just sort of the joy that you can experience as opposed to getting someone to believe the exact same thing that you do.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right.

Damon Klotz: So we've got you sitting in front of me here today. We were just sort of saying before we started that you are in Sydney, I am in Melbourne. We are so close yet so far. We are having this conversation virtually with a very global audience. the man that sits in front of me today, I heard you discuss this and I wanted to bring this up. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's done this, but you've talked about brands and how in many languages, you know, the word can also mean mark or marking, and we've got Marcus here. So was Marcus always destined to do this work?

Dr. Marcus Collins: Not at all. Not even close. If you have asked me when I was a kid and as a 10 year old, my ambition in life was to be a musician. And by the time I was 11 years old, and Boyz II Men came out with Cooley High Harmony, in my mind, I was going to be the fifth member of Boyz II Men. Like, that was my goal in life. But by the time I graduating from high school and went into university. My parents says, you know, you need to be like focused on something that's realistic. So I went into engineering, didn't like that very much. At least I didn't see it as a career trajectory that I thought I would get a lot out of life, a lot of joy out of life. So I went into the music industry, post undergrad and, uh, gave it a shot before going back to school to get my MBA and then entering in the world of marketing and found myself involved in brands and branding.

Damon Klotz: So your career does have this sort of, like I said, you studied engineering at the University of Michigan, and then now you're back there as a sort of lecturer teaching in the business school, but in between all that, you worked at places like Apple and ad agencies. And like you said, with musicians, sort of, you went from that, like wanting to be the musician to then working with them. And I understand that, you know, you had this chance meeting when you were working at Apple on the iTunes team where you met. Beyonce's father. And that led you to have this chance to, you know, be able to, you know, do some work with her on both her digital strategy, but also the community building and offline online world. Obviously when you think about culture at a macro level, and you think about the role that musicians and storytellers and poets and artists play, maybe to start to get sort of the broadest understanding of culture, what did working with artists and musicians really teach you about the work of culture and storytelling?

Dr. Marcus Collins: It's interesting. I think when I started working with Beyonce, and the artists that were inside the, roster on the roster at Music World, the record label and management company for Beyonce that was ran by her father, Matthew Knowles. I think that I didn't really understand what culture was. I talk culture, I'd say the word culture, but my understanding was so superficial. Like it, it meant like what was popular, what people were doing, and we would attribute artists' relationship to culture because they were essentially creating the things that people listen to. They were creating these people wore, they created the things that people watch. And therefore we would say artists and culture were symbiotic in that nature, but, you know, now being a bit more initiated. So if I were to look into what culture is, I think I have a much more concrete explanation on what these artists mean for culture in the role they play that essentially. Artists, they create cultural production. This is the shared expression of a community and this cultural production becomes a way by which people express who they are based on their shared beliefs of the community, but also reflects what people like them ought to do. So when we talk about artists, they lead culture because they contribute new artifacts, new literature, new music. Film, television, poetry, pottery, and even brands and branded products become ways by which we kind of peacock ourselves the world. And the most powerful creators, most creators, they bring new social facts to the community as such that we adopt them as a way to communicate our identity within the community.

Damon Klotz: I was actually having a conversation recently with someone about peacocking and like contextual peacocking in different markets. and I spent eight years living in the U. S. and now I'm back in Australia. And I was telling someone that when I, when I go back to the U. S., I was just there a couple of weeks ago. The tote bag I bring is of a Melbourne coffee shop. So I can signal to people in the U. S. that I'm not from here and I like coffee and I'm different. And then when you see me walking around the streets of Melbourne, I'm famously always got my Trader Joe's bags on me so I can signal to Australia, like, yeah, but like, I'm from here, but like, I'm also not from here. I've got these other things, so I contextually peacock in the market that I'm in to tell the story that I want to tell.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Isn't that wild how we recontextualized products as a way to project our identity. Me, similarly to you, I lived in New York for almost eight years and I would exclusively wear a Detroit Tigers hat. Because I wanted people to know that I'm from the D in Detroit or in Michigan. I typically wear a Michigan hat because I want people to know that I went to the University of Michigan alumni, the University of Michigan. We are constantly trying to project our identity. If nothing else, but to say that we're a part of you, but also not to stand in, but also stand out and secondarily to find other people like us, because if you're rocking a trailer, Joe's, tote. And Melbourne, someone who, who maybe is from New York or lived in a state to go, Oh, I love Trader Joe's. Yeah, me too. Right. Connection, right. As social animals, we, we, we crave it and we may not know that we're doing it, you know, intentionally, but we're always doing it, whether we're aware of it or not.

Damon Klotz: I think Australians have that experience a lot because this country is so far away from the rest. So that when like an Australian next to an Australian in Australia, just as like, yeah, whatever, like, I won't speak to you on the tram because no one talks on public transport. That's just weird and rude. But an Australian overseas, when you hear an Australian accent, you're like, Oh, where are you from? And then when you really work out that you're like, Oh my God, we have so much in common where. Funnily enough, you know, branding and culture and all these things that we explore, we all have things in common, we just don't know if they've been voiced to the world yet, or we don't know what the world is showing us yet to say that, do you believe in this? And that's why the power of language and story is so important, so we can create these associations.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. Storytelling becomes the way by which we socialize what's normal for people like us. It's the way by which we propagate the social norms, the ideologies, the beliefs, the folk ways. So that when we see them, there is a level of trust that's imbued, you know, being here in Sydney. If I see someone with a Michigan block M, I mean, my heart is going to swell. You know, and since I see that person, I'm going to say, go blue. And they say, go blue back. I'm going to feel immediately connected to that person. and it seems so natural. Trite on the surface. You go, wow, because that person bought a product that happens to represent a school and maybe that person went to it or not. You feel connected to them. You go, yes, this is what we do. We consume as a way to make our culture material. And in doing such, we find ourselves connected to other people who identify the way that we do. And when we do, we just feel a sense of community.

Damon Klotz: That's why I'm so excited to have this conversation because, you know, this show is literally called Culture First. We talk about the role of company culture, but it is often something that can be quite misunderstood or there's misconceptions. So obviously you've been teaching this, for a while now and you've written a book about it, which, yeah, it's just really, I'm so glad you wrote that book because it's like the thing that I've been thinking about for forever. I'm like, yep. Like how do we like learn more about this and all the different ways that it shows up? So, um, Maybe let's start with, we'll get to the definitions in a second, but like misconceptions about what culture is, and either you can answer this from a brand or a business perspective.

Dr. Marcus Collins: So I'll do both. Both. I think that from a brand perspective, culture is a shortcut for popular. We talk about what's going on in culture, what's popular, what's trending, what people are wearing, what they're doing, where they're going, what they're watching, what they're listening to. In an organizational perspective, we use the shortcut of culture as what we do around here, how we do things around here. And I think that both of them have great shortcomings because culture is more than what's popular, culture, which we'll get to definitions in a bit, you know, culture is a governing operating system of a group of people. And as a result, what is normal for them is seemingly popular because. It is normal, right? And when it comes to organizations, I think that how we do things around here is sort of, one step removed. There's an antecedent to that. I think when it comes to organizations, it's really the collective assumptions that we have about the world that therefore informs how we do things around here. But there's an antecedent because of how we see the world. We therefore navigate in the world accordingly with regards to our collective production of work.

Damon Klotz: Like that authenticity of really, you know, there's the signal of whether someone believes that, but then there's the actual, the authenticity of, you know, truly feeling like you believe it. Like, like when you were saying, if you saw someone where, with the, you know, umish thing and you say, go blue, then they say what? You go, Oh, hang on. Like,

Dr. Marcus Collins: Like you're just a fan. You didn't go to school in Michigan. You're not one of us.

Damon Klotz: Exactly. So it's like, it's one thing to have the association and then kind of the understanding. It's another thing to really have that embedded behavioral side where there's like actual repeatable behaviors that you then sort of say, which, I think, yeah, like let's double click onto some of these definitions. Cause I think that they're really useful and I wanted to. bring up this quote from CultureAmp CEO, Didier Elzinga, because he's also a storyteller and he used to work Hollywood and worked on films for a long time before founding CultureAmp. And I'll come back to storytelling as well a few times, but there's this famous line that he uses in a lot of talks that he gives, which is a brand is a promise to a customer and culture is how you deliver on that promise. So I would love for you to sort of, yeah, any initial reactions to that. And then maybe the difference between a brand culture and a company culture.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah, I think I've heard like some symbols that like brand is a promise. I like the, the ad on that, that culture is, you know, the way in which that promise is kept. I think that like, I like the spirit of that. I think the literature might frame it a bit differently. You know, the literature talks about brands as a convention, a mark. Right. It's a mark. And if you translate brand into any romantic or Germanic language, it all turns into mark or marquee or markup brands are, are marks and these marks. These are filled with meaning, they are imbued with meaning, impregnated with meaning. And so the literature talks about brands as identifiable signifiers that conjure up thoughts and feelings in the hearts and minds of people. These vessels of meaning, they conjure up affects and cognitions in our hearts and minds relative to a company, a product, a person, institution, organization, entity, creator and the like. And it's because of that meaning that the brand holds that we either consume it or we don't. We use it to protect our identity or we don't. Then the role culture plays in that is, well, how do we make meaning? We make meaning through our cultural lenses, right? as Raymond Williams would say that culture is a realized signifying system. That is, we see the world through cultural lenses and translate it as such. And therefore we see a brand. We are translating the brand through our cultural lenses. And to me, that's the relationship between brands and culture. Now, is there a promise embedded in that? Totally. Sure. Like, because of the way I make meaning, the way I translate the brand, there is an implicit obligation that the brand lives up to that meaning. And when the brand doesn't, we feel betrayed when the brand does it. We go, yo, what the F I thought that, Oh, what's going on here. And when we feel betrayed, we go, I'm never buying from them again. if another brand that we don't have such an affinity for, lets us down and we go to be expected, whatever, you know? But it's almost like your best friend letting you down and you go, I believed in you. I used you to project my identity. How could you? so I think in that end, you know, I think that's where like the brand is a promise starts to, to play in, at least according to what the literature would say.

Damon Klotz: And then are there specific differences when someone's like, you know, give me a definition of culture and you go brand culture versus company culture. Like, how do you kind of define those two separately?

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah. So I don't, I think culture is culture and whether it's brand or organization or societal. You know, consumption, those are just the contexts, right? But culture as, look, I threw a sociological lens, right? The way Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology, would talk about culture as a system, system of conventions and expectations that demarcate who we are and govern what people like us do, right? The system is made up of shared cognitions and kinetics that are ways by which we act in concert with people like us. It's anchored in our identity because I would self identify, whether it's how we identify out in the world, in the marketplace as consumers, how we identify as a part of this organization, whether it's us in this organization or you're in finance and I'm in marketing so we operate differently, or it's how we see ourselves out in society. Because of who we are, we have a certain view on the world. We have a certain frame by which we see the world, you know, you go back to organizations, you know, in many companies, the finance department, because we're finance folks, when we think about marketing, we go, man, these guys be burning money. You got to keep them in check. Yeah, these guys, man, they need discipline where the marketers who in the same organization identifies a marketer go, the finance people, they're too conservative. They don't get it, right. It's because of our identity that we see the world the way we do. That's why for some, a cow is leather, for others, it's deity, and for some, it's dinner. Which one is it? It's all those things, depending on who you are. And because of who we are, we see the world a certain way, and we navigate life accordingly. Right? So if you see a cow as a deity, you're not eating it for dinner. Right? Or if someone said, Hey, you want hamburgers tonight? You feel offended. So because of who we are, we see the world in a certain way, navigate life accordingly and express ourselves through shared work. And the alchemy of these systems or systems systems make up our culture, whether we are out in the world consuming in organizations, producing collective work or out in society, contributing to what it means to be a part of a community.

Damon Klotz: I think one of the biggest overlap, areas for, you know, brand and culture, as well as then I guess, company culture specifically is this whole idea that, you know, You know, this brand culture is being projected to both the market, but also to potential candidates about saying like, and you know, there's been a lot of conversations and we've had conversations on the show before about, you know, should you go work for your dream company? Like you love this brand or if you love this sports team, like, are there any like kind of drawbacks with going there? So you, you've got this idea that this brand culture is being projected and you are receiving it, but then a company culture is lived because you then kind of go, you know, you're going Behind the scenes, and you're now part of it and you're living it through your experience that you have there. And then I think from a sort of a people and culture lens, one of the most common ways that this sort of gets discussed is things like the rise of employer branding initiatives. So whole marketing departments coming into the sort of HR world, but then also things like realistic job preview. So, can you discuss like brand consistency. I think, you know, it gets spoken a lot about from a company perspective in terms of, you know, product consistency. So, you know, when you go to, I think the most famous example is you go to McDonald's everywhere in the world, the product is consistent. So you have a brand association with what you will get, but culture consistency in terms of the experience you have. Sometimes not as consistent as we might like.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah. I mean, the idea of brand being a mark of ownership, it's not just in this on the front of the house. It's also in the back of the house. In fact, the more consistent it is front the house, the back of the house, the more powerful it becomes. I think of it like, um, when you go to like a five star Michelin restaurant, right? And the kitchen is open because they're like, Hey, what you see on your plate is just as awesome as how it's made so much. So we're going to open up curtain. So you can see what's happening here. as you observe it, you go, man, like I'm getting to watch the, make the guacamole right next to me. It just tastes so much better as a result of it. I think the same thing goes when companies practice what they preach a company like Patagonia. It's a great example of this, they're not just communicating, you know, their products through a frame that is anchored in identity or an ideology, but as an organization, they operate accordingly. Favorite example of this has to be e. l. f. Beauty. If you're not following e. l. f. Beauty, good night. Like you, you are missing a case study, not just in brand, but a case study in company culture. You know, Elf Beauty has a very clear point of view of the world. They believe in democratized access. Everything about Elf is all about democratized access. And it is not only demonstrated in its product. That is like, you can buy a prestigious product at the pharmacy for a dollar, like, whoa, like that's democratized access from a product perspective, but they also ensure that everybody who works at ELF, a public company, mind you, has equity in the company, democratized access, everyone is paid, or everyone's bonuses are associated with EBITDA. Which creates a bit of uniformity for everyone. Democratize access. Not only that, not only that, but they'll look out in the world, and they saw that their board of directors was extremely diverse, like 70 percent diversity on their board of directors. And instead of doing a victory lap, sort of patting themselves on the back their achievement, they said, this is sad. That our board is so diverse, and that's not like the norm, like that should be much more democratized. And in doing some research, they saw that boards are predominantly white males, and most of those males names are Richard, or Dick, or some semblance of that. So, they made a campaign called, So Many Dicks, So Few of Everyone Else. Has nothing to do with cosmetics, nothing to do with beauty, but everything to do with their ideology and the people who work at e. l. f., they believe in that too. They're from the house and their back of the house is consistent. And as a result, here's a company that's had 22 consecutive quarters of growth, hardly any attrition, for employees and nothing else. Their recruitment team is working day and night, going through, shifting through all the applications and all the resumes that they get, because people say, I don't want to just work for that brand. I want to be a part of that movement. I think that's really, really powerful.

Damon Klotz: I love that you bring up those two examples. Cause, actually a couple of episodes ago, we had Vincent Stanley, the director of philosophy from Patagonia on the show, doing the full history of like, when did you start thinking about, you know, the culture and cause he's a coauthor of, their book that they put out every 10 years about the future of being a responsible company with. Yvon Chouinard, who then wrote, Let My People Go Surfing as well. So just such a great example of like, we can stand for something, but we know what we stand for. We know, like, it will attract a certain type of people. And then, yeah, I had the chance to interview the chief people officer at ELF at a culture amp event a few years ago. And again, it was just one of those examples where it's like, such strong messaging about who we are, what we stand for, and I think this is where a lot of companies have been struggling over the last couple of years is, are we an activist company? Do we stand for something more than a product? Partake in political conversations and everything else. And that's where maybe, I don't, I'm not sure what you think about this, but if there aren't really strong brand fundamentals, people don't know where they should put their voice.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. When you don't have a very clear point of view about the world, it becomes really hard to say, well, how do we engage with the world? You know, one would say, if you don't know where you're going, all roads will get you there. That's a pretty big challenge for companies, but we have a very clear point of view about the world. You go, Oh, I weigh in when sort of pricks or pokes at my worldview. And if I don't have an opinion about it, I don't say anything. It seems pretty clear to me, right? Because. Having a point of view enables you to be disciplined about when you weigh in, when you jump in, and with what you have permission to be a part of. ELF can be a part of anything, any conversation when there is not democratized access. And when it's not about democratized access, ELF won't say anything. Same thing with, Patagonia believes in climbing clean, reducing our baseness on the planet. If it has to do with the planet, Patagonia has a point of view. Yvon Chouinard may have a point of view about abortion, but Patagonia won't weigh in on that topic. Because it's not within the frame of how they see the world. And it's that level of specificity. Acts as a North Star that guides everything, not just the products you make, how you communicate yourself, but how you hire and who you hire. It becomes really, really clear, but that requires a tremendous amount of discipline.

Damon Klotz: It really allows everyone to be a brand steward in many ways, because it doesn't matter if you're the first person that you interact with, or if you're the CEO of a company, when there is those strong fundamentals in place, it allows for that decision making to not be, like, I think that was actually, I had Seth Godin on early this year as well. His question for Vincent was, how do you make decisions? What do you say no to? And I think it goes back to your point around when there's the strong fundamentals in place about who we are, what we stand for, what we believe, and the types of behaviors that we expect to be part of this culture. Decision making actually isn't something that slows you down.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. It's like REI saying some years ago that if we believe that life outdoors, life well lived, why are we open on Black Friday in the States? Does it make any sense? It goes against what we say we're about. And someone would say, well, because we make a lot of money on Black Friday. But yeah, but what are we about? What do we believe? It becomes really, really simple. It's not easy. No way is it easy, but it becomes really, really simple. And at that level of simplicity, it makes it very clear you become much more capable of indoctrinating, bringing more people in, interpolating people in to know where they fit in and where they contribute. It's difference between like having a compass culture and a map culture. Like a map culture is very much that this is our destination, just get in line and follow the directions. If you go left, go right, go left, we'll get to our destination. And when you do that, sure, you get uniformity. Sure. But you don't get a ton of creativity. And you get a ton of people fired up about being there. But when you have a compass culture, you're just pointing to a North Star, saying, this is what we believe. Who believes that? And those who believe that say, come join us. And then you say, help us get there. You have the heterogeneity of all your ideas provides so many more solutions than we the leadership of the organization, the founders of the organization,could ever muster. And therefore we have more path to get us to the place that we're trying to go. And the people who show up there, they're not there to follow the rules. They're not there to follow the lines, they're there to contribute to something great. And, you know, when we do that, the endowment effect alone, just, it fires off so many neurons, so many dopamines that we feel that much more fired up about being at the organization and good Lord, the benefit of that is, is far greater than having a pizza Fridays.

Damon Klotz: yeah, there's just so much there about really authentic storytelling and, um, yeah, I'm loving this conversation so far. I'm not sure if you've heard this, but certainly throughout my time sort of working in and around the HR industry, as well as sort of the marketing industry, is that there's this kind of unofficial rule that marketing is usually 10 years ahead of HR. And like, if you think about, you know, marketing campaigns and then like how that sort of ends up in like how HR thinks about concepts, but even marketing technology from like a investment perspective and where VC money goes. And. the way that marketing sort of really went really fast on deep data analytics, and then eventually culture and HR sort of, you know, caught up and hence why companies like Culture have been around for a while. But you, spoke about how company culture drives things like engagement and performance while brand culture drives or influences customer perception and loyalty. So if we can sort of maybe think about where this is going, what do you think of the measurements that will matter moving forward when people start thinking about these concepts?

Dr. Marcus Collins: Ooh, that's a good question. I think that I would actually sort of reframe the premise of the question in that. I think that in some cases, marketing has been ahead of HR, but in many cases, HR has been ahead of marketing. Light years ahead. And by that, I mean, you know, HR has historically done a very good job of thinking about the human, the humanity of people where marketers have long and still unfortunately put people in nice, neat little boxes that make the world easy for us to describe them, but not very accurate about who they are. HR, they find candidates, they try to find who they are, what lights them up and where they might be able to fit well to the organization, where many marketers look at people as machines who eat messages and craft cash. And we go, you know, who's going to eat this message and who's going to pay some money for it, which almost kind of robs them of their humanity and as a result, marketers go, why are not connected with these people? So to that, I say, there's a lot that each one can learn from each other. Ultimately, the way we measure these things, just like marketing, whose job it is to get people to move. I think HR's job and all the many jobs you see of HR is to keep people engaged. Whether you're engaged in the recruitment process, whether you're engaged, as a new employee, whether you're engaged as a more tenured employee, as you're engaged as a leader, engaged as a manager, engagement. And I think that both of those are predicated on this idea that people feel committed enough to take action. And we are in the behavioral adoption business. And when I talk about marketing, I always say that like, even if you don't have marketing in your title, we're all marketers. Like we're all bringing something to market. Hoping that people adopt behavior, right? Whether it's, I hope that my boss gives me a raise. I hope it's that this person hired me. I hope this person, you know, gives me her phone numbers. I can take her on a date. Like we're constantly going to market. I hope my kid, you know, will eat their vegetables. Like we're constantly trying to get people to adopt behavior and we're able to identify success once behavior is adopted. So that's always the key metric. Getting people to move. Now, what is the KPI, the indicator of that movement? That depends on the movement, and the context, but by and large, it's about getting people to move and what gets people to move. What is the most influential external force on human behavior? It's culture. Which is why marketers who engage in culture increase the likelihood of people adopting behavior and HR folks who are able to activate the culture and organizations such that people feel engaged. They're more likely to get people to move also.

Damon Klotz: Yeah, which is why they're kind of really honing in on what are the types of behaviors that we think makes for great teammates, great leaders. When we talk about behaviors, we talk about like sort of golden side of your values and the shadow side. So like, if we just say that like, here's our values, but we don't really quantify the types of behaviors that we would expect. On a golden side of those things versus the shadow side, then you start to go, okay, well actually, is there some level of influence happening here where someone is putting these, you know, these behaviors are being accepted and then they're sort of spreading because other people are seeing that they're being accepted where actually that's not the type of behavior that we meant when we put this mission out to the world. So if you don't get down to the granular, it can be hard to then sort of bring it back as well.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah. And for me, I feel like, many times we sort of exchange, beliefs and values, make them interchangeable, but I think that your values are what's important to the organization because of your beliefs, but it starts with like, what do we believe it's the anchor identity and belief are the anchors of culture. What do we believe? And because we believe this, these things are important. You know, when my wife and I are, you know, our children are getting in trouble. You know, we always say that we're Collins's and we believe this. And that's why we like we're Collins, aren't you a Collins? And therefore we do these things and we anchor it in our identity and the beliefs associated with that identity. People have to ask yourself, do I believe this? Well, first of all, am I one of them? And do I believe, and in the cases where people say, Oh, I work here. I don't believe that's where you go. Well, maybe you're not one of us. And at that point, that person is probably the wrong person to be at that organization.

Damon Klotz: I want to create a connection point between the we are Collins's, which means that, you know, you have a shared sense of identity, but also. The understanding of individualism within culture. So obviously when a brand expands into a new market, you know, you want some of those brand consistency because it's like they already have maybe some association with us. So when we go into this market, it's like, here's our logo and here's our thing. But then you contextualize your story sometimes to a new market so that it resonates with people who you want to go on that journey with. And then obviously from a company perspective, you know, when we think about things like diversity, equity, and inclusion, and ultimately, whether someone feels like there's a sense of belonging and people can feel that very early on when they start at a company, like they will promise one thing and then they go in, they're like, I'm not sure if I really do belong here. how do you think about balancing taking people, saying you're, we are part of something, but also having enough. Fluidity within a system that allows for the individual to still feel like themselves.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah, I love that. To me, I think about it like memetics, like memes, where it's the same communicative node, but it is contextualized based on you. It's like music covers, you know, I heard to tell myself here, I heard yesterday performed first by Boyz II Men, not the Beatles. Boyz II Men, right? There's only two albums, Boyz II Men. I heard yesterday, I was like, this song is amazing. Oh my goodness. Someone was like, that's a remake, Marcus. I go, no way. When I heard the Beatles version, I was like, eh, it's okay. Boyz II Men's is better. And what it means is that Boyz II Men's, their recontextualizing of the song created a door that brought me into the idea. In a way that Beatles cannot. I think that's the way storytelling works within our organization is that the way you tell your story about working here. Not only attracts people that maybe someone else's story didn't, but it helps people find where they sit inside the organization as well. And having a diverse, heterogeneous way by which we tell stories about one particular theme, it creates derivative work. Just like a meme does, you know, same image, different context. And while the way you, the text that you put on top of the, The image didn't really, I don't really understand it. It really appealed to me. But that version of it, oh, I get that totally. And because that person recontextualized it, created a meme, or their version of the meme, or their cover of the Beatles yesterday, it brought more people in. Similarly,Roberta Flack sang a song called Killing Me Softly, which actually was a cover of a song before her. and it was number one, it came out in the 70s, number one record, this was like, you know, this had a sappy, you know, quiet storm, love ballad, beautiful. It was then covered by Al B. Shore in the 80s, but then the late 90s, three folks from New Jersey called The Fugees remake it, and it is a massive hit. There's three or four different iterations of this song that brought different people in. And it only helped bolster the song's popularity and its impact. That's how storytelling goes. We have diverse storytellers in an organization, in society, within communities. It brings different people in who normally wouldn't see themselves inside of it.

Damon Klotz: You know, you do a lot of public speaking and I have done a lot over the years as well. And sometimes people come up to you and be like, Oh, like that was incredible. I would love to host a show. Like, you will give a talk like you're in, like, okay, I can give you some fundamentals about what I believe could make for a good talk or could make for a good presentation, but But at the end of the day, the only thing that's really going to, you know, allow you to give an incredible presentation is you delivering it in the way that best makes sense for the way you see the world, because you do not see the world the same way that I do. So when I use humor here or do this there, it's only because it makes sense to me. And yes, there might be some sort of the science of a great 20 minute presentation, but the only lever I get to pull is the lever that makes sense for Damon in that moment.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. it's your lens on the world. I mean, this is why I think stand up comics are the best. I mean, I just love stand up comedy because they can talk about the exact same thing, the exact same thing happening in the headlines, but their take on it, their timing on it, sort of tonality, it makes all the difference in the world. And while I may gravitate to A Dave Chappelle, a Sarah Silverman like object, someone else, you know, Bill Burr may tell the joke and I go, not really for me though. Like Bill, he's great, right? The idea there is that it's our unique way of telling stories that act as invitations where people see themselves in the story. And as a result, they lean into it, which is why storytelling is so powerful for communities and so powerful for brands and corporations.

Damon Klotz: There might be, you know, people who typically listen to his show, you know, company leaders, people responsible for, you know, managing teams of people and things like that. Then there's probably people listening who are saying, I work at an organization where there's actually four or five organizations side by side that all look quite the same. We're selling the same service. The same widget, the same thing. you know, what is your take on culture as a competitive advantage? If everything else looks the same, what role does culture play as one of those levers? And I think I've sort of seen you sort of talk about this before where you're like, it is like an underplayed strength that like people do not spend enough time thinking about.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah. I mean, you hit it right on the nose. I mean, in most cases, the products we sell are parody. I know that like, that is a tough pill for companies to swallow because you go, no, we invest so much in and we, we focus so much in making sure that our product is the best of the best of the best. It's like, well, yeah, you know, your blade may be a little sharper than his blade, but the layman, they can't tell the difference. It's not that big of a difference. You know, think of all the bottles of water there on the market. It's all two hydrogens and oxygen. You may say, no, no, no, Marcus, mine has, you know, greater pH balance. And I go, girl, please, you know, for most people, those things don't, don't matter. Those value propositions don't matter as much, but what matters more is when the brand, the mark of ownership is congruent with who I am and how I see the world. When those things happen, there is catalyst of cognitions and ethics to which we apply associations and our identity to things. You know, I talk about this in the book, you know, if you were hard pressed to buy some headphones quickly on the way to the airport, because you forgot you always need noise canceling headphones, you may buy Bose headphones and go, I know it's going to be fine because it's Bose. We trust it. They're leaders. They have good quality. And therefore, we go, great, Bose is great, but juxtapose Bose to Beats by Dre. Bose is an empirically better product. It is superior to Beats by Dre, yet Beats by Dre continues to mop the floor with Bose year over year over year. How is that? How can an inferior product perform superior product in the marketplace? That's because of what the brand means to people. It's the associations, the cognitive associations that the brand catalyzes within us. And when the brand becomes a receipt of my identity, good night. like I'm an Apple guy. I mean, I've worked at Apple and I've had an iPhone in my pocket since 2007. Right.but I have enough wherewithal to be honest and say, listen, I know that, Android devices, Have been superior with comes to value propositions than iPhones. I can say that I have enough word with all to say that having said that you'd never catch me dead with the Samsung in my pocket. Never, ever, never. It's not going to happen. Why? Because I'm an Apple guy. It's a part of my identity, right? Because of what the brand means and what it means to me and how it helps me Signify who I am to the world. That's far superior than any value proposition could be. So to your point, this is an untapped, it's almost too soft a word to say. It's an untapped resource. I would say this is the greatest. Cheat code known to man when it comes to commerce that many of us are not leveraging or not engaging because we don't understand it. And that's why I have dedicated my scholarship to not only studying the impact and influence of culture on us, but also helping evangelize what culture is. Scaling our knowledge of it so that we might be better practitioners in it and arguably better contributors to it.

Damon Klotz: Well, you're very much speaking to the converted as one of my several titles at CultureAmp is work culture evangelist. So I am there with you trying to get people to go on that journey. And if you're wondering, you're like, Oh, this Marcus guy sounds like he's really got his stuff together. I wonder whether he practices what he preaches, just go to his website and see that you can buy the merch that says, you know, culture is a cheat code. Like is all there for you.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Amen. Amen.

Damon Klotz: So I've got a couple of questions that I want to really land the plane with one is around, you know, I've spent 15 plus years looking at how HR and people and culture strategies have sort of changed and emerged. And one of the biggest projects that a company can ever really try to undertake is this whole idea of a culture transformation or a culture change project. So what strategies or recommendations from the work that you've done at both a macro level as well as from an academic perspective, what advice do you have for these leaders who were like, you know what? The culture is like, I understand it, but it is not the culture that's going to help us win. It's not the one that's going to keep us in market. What advice do you have for that leader?

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yep. Culture change is very, very challenging. Those transformations are very, very challenging because it requires undoing what has been once a muscle memory, learning new things. And we are, in many ways, neophobic. You know, we like comfort. The brain loves comfort, right? We love familiarity. And while we lack a little novelty in our familiarity, we typically rely on things that are, sort of in our schema. And we'll talk about transformation. We are talking about change and change is hard. Change hurts, change is painful, but it requires that pain to get to where we want to go. So when we do these changes, we have to be very specific. We have to be very disciplined and we have to make very tough decisions in a consistent fashion. So the clarity starts with what do we believe? Everything is that. What do we believe? That is the North Star. Anytime I work with a brand or a company, but let's just say brand just to be more concrete. Anytime I work with a brand, I always start with, what do you believe? And people say, hey, we're not getting enough, you know, Gen Zs. We're not, whatever, you know, our sales are down or people don't love the brand anymore. Yada, And I start, okay, great, great, cool, cool, cool. What do you believe? How do you see the world? That's the start. Right? Because it's the ideology that the brand has, that becomes the North Star is going to guide everything. And when that North Star is clear, we can then be disciplined so that if we say, Hey, we believe, we believe that we should be challenging conformity, that conformity stalls progress. And therefore conformity is our enemy. Great. Love that. Now, the question becomes, how do we exercise that? That any time there is. a thing that we normally do around here. We should be challenging it right away. Why do we do this? Why are we doing that? We should be calling out conformity every single time. There's a great scholar. He used to be at the University of Michigan. He's since passed. Probably one of the brightest minds in strategy. Of our time, a gentleman by the name of CK Prahalad that would talk about this idea of the dominant logic and his idea of the dominant logic is that every organization, every institution, every, category, every industry is dominated by a logic and that dominant logic becomes the muscle memory by which we operate. In fact, we value the dominant logic such that if you're starting an automotive company. Today, you may go, well, maybe we should headquartered in Detroit. If you are in the States, of course, then you say, let's hire people who've worked in automotive because they'll know how to operate and then we'll sell cars and dealerships. Why? Because that's the dominant logic until you say, well, what if we built cars in Silicon Valley and what have we hired people who worked in tech? And what if we sold cars in the mall? Like those things subvert the dominant logic and therefore disrupt the orthodoxy. It requires starting with, here's how we see the world. And because of how we see the world, we're going to use that clarity to have discipline by challenging the dominant logic of what we normally do around here, that is crucial. It is necessary. It's painful. It's taxing, but it's that level of specificity that helps us build new muscle memory. You know, I'll say it this way. You know, we often use that phrase, practice makes perfect, but that's not true. Practice makes patterns and patterns make routine. So we're going through transformational change. We are trying to create new routines that requires creating new patterns. And that pattern requires constant, consistent, disciplined practice.

Damon Klotz: I think it's such a powerful question that leaders could be asking of other leaders around them when they're trying to do these changes, you know, what is the dominant logic that we believe to be a hundred percent true and unmovable, you know, like a company like this. There is this that says everyone must do it this way. And let's, let's say that it has to be, we have to use this type of material because it's the only way this product could ever be made. And then you go, if that's the only thing that's a hundred percent true, what are the other underlying assumptions we've been operating under for forever and go, can we start pushing these back as we start saying, what do we believe moving forward?

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. You have to ask questions of heresy. That normally people go, what? I can't believe you even asked that. No, no, you ask those questions because those questions create, they create the discourse that leads to meaning making. They create the discourse that leads to the negotiation of what's on the other side of the pain, where we want to get to. And we don't get there through comfort. It just does not happen. It requires us to push ourselves in places that we haven't been and ask questions that we have been. Either afraid or at the very least, reticent to ask.

Damon Klotz: I would be completely remiss if I didn't have a chance to ask you this question. This is completely selfish because I'm just very intrigued by this. But, I think one of the most dominant news storytellers in the world of business over the last few years has been Ryan Reynolds. When we think about what he's done for both the way he delivers messages from his content strategy, from the brands that he's associated with, from the way that he's working with a football team, which is like football's my chosen religion. So like seeing what he's doing with that is so interesting. You know, like I've had the chance to sit down with some incredible people and people was like, Oh my God, it's so amazing. Then I'm like, Marcus sat down with Ryan Reynolds and you got to ask him questions. So that is pretty cool. What is the state of view from that conversation about how he sees the world?

Dr. Marcus Collins: I thought that, well, first of all, he is amazing. He's probably like my newest man crush. Truly. He's amazing. And what I thought was so powerful about our conversation was the simplicity of it all, you know, like, like he, for him, he looks at a situation and then he just tries things and you go, that's it. Yeah. That's it, you know, just like someone with their iPhone, creates a response, something that happens on the internet. He was doing the exact same thing. Like the thing that blew me away was the launch of Deadpool. the marketing for it came on necessity that he'd worked years trying to get Deadpool made and all the money that the studio gave him to make the movie, there was nothing left for marketing. So he stole a costume. At the end of shooting brought it home and he and his friend shot content for Deadpool by themselves, just like every one of us makes content on the social web, which says to me that this isn't about like had the special lighting and the right this and David Fincher directs it. And it's not that at all. You know, this is a level of curiosity. And ability to move quickly and fail quickly. Cause he goes, you know, I get, celebrated for things that do well. There's a lot of things we didn't do so well either, you know, and it's that level of like humanity and who he is as an individual that I think reverberates in all that he does as an actor, as a business person, as a content creator, as a marketer and all the things. And for me. It sort of just boils down to what we do is all about people. And when you can see the humanity in things, your ability to connect with people just gets a lot better.

Damon Klotz: And it comes down to like, one of the ways that large organizations kind of get caught up is they have all these really convoluted systems around how work ends up getting done. You know, people know what to do, but the how ends up becoming quite misconstrued or complicated. And it's like, how many approval processes do we need to go to? And if you go down to the bare necessity of just like, if someone was to do this today with what they have in front of them, what could be possible and just going down to who can make a decision and can we execute.

Dr. Marcus Collins: And, you know, we end up seeing people not as the humans that they are, especially in a big organization. We see them as the bots they represent in the org chart. And then we go, all right, so what are the processes by which things happen based on the org chart? Not what are the processes by which things happen based on how markets work. Behaves and how Marcus likes to work and how this team works together. That level of proximity, that level of intimacy makes all the difference in the world.

Damon Klotz: I know that most people do not make it to the end of podcasts. So if you are still here with us, Marcus and I deeply appreciate you listening and you're getting a secret question just for people who've made it all the way to the end, Marcus, let's imagine that in four or five years time, having a conversation again about culture and what's happening in the world of work and storytelling, what do you think we're talking about? Bring us home.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Ooh, man, that's a really good one. What a hard one to leave me with too. I

Damon Klotz: That's why it's that bonus question for everyone who's still here. We're getting all of that, powerful brain work right now.

Dr. Marcus Collins: Yeah, that's great. That's great. I would say five years now, the conversation we're having. Is a be more so not just about how our companies work together, but how we work together with other companies. Cause I think more and more, we just see in consolidation in industries, we're seeing more partnerships. Across the board. And it requires a greater relationship between how we function and how we engage in social trade with other organizations, not unlike, you know, merchants around the black sea back in the sixth century, you know, that, we have to be able to work together, but also be able to work together with other entities. So that might be able to reach our, our shared outcomes. I think five years from now, there'll be much more of that greater consolidation, a truncation of the marketplace, at least the players in the marketplace, which requires more frenemies than foes.

Damon Klotz: Yeah, I think it's pretty common that we know like, you know, LVMH is like a group of companies that all believe one thing, but they only believe it because they're all owned by the same group versus a group of companies who believe in something as a collective, because they've got a shared mission, not a shared financial statement. So.

Dr. Marcus Collins: That's right. That's right. Big difference.

Damon Klotz: Yep. Marcus, this has been an absolute joy and pleasure. I highly like if you've been listening to the show for one episode or for five years and you like care about company culture, please dive into Marcus's work because yeah, you really are writing and sharing incredible insights about culture at this macro level in terms of how we interpret it, how we present it. Partake in it and how we experience it. But there's so much, like you said, it is a cheat code inside of companies. It's something we deeply believe here at Culture Amp. So thank you for bringing your world of work into ours and sharing your insights with us today,

Dr. Marcus Collins: I'm super grateful and glad to be in the fight with you all.