You already have a culture.
The real question is whether you designed it, or you’re just living with the one that built itself while you were “too busy.”
Episode #95 with Brittany Drozd is a wake-up call for leaders who swear they have a business problem when, in reality, they have a people problem disguised as a business problem. Spoiler alert: your team already knows.
Here’s what we unpacked and why every CEO, founder, or team lead needs to read this before their next meeting.
Brittany said it best:
“Your organization has a culture… whether you built it intentionally or not.”
Translation:
You’re either designing culture on purpose or drifting into dysfunction by default. If your team feels like a runaway train, it’s because nobody is at the controls.
Most leaders wait until something hurts.
Turnover. Drama. Mission drift. Exhaustion.
Only then do they go searching for “employee engagement strategies.”
By that point?
You’re treating symptoms, not the root cause.
When they call Brittany, leaders say things like:
Cute.
But wrong.
The real problem is usually something deeper:
As Brittany put it:
“What’s the pain point behind the pain point?”
The best leaders stop guessing and start diagnosing.
One of the most powerful moments in the conversation:
“Lay your head on your pillow and ask yourself: am I in integrity with who we say we are as a business?”
If the answer is no, your people already feel it.
Team members always know when leadership is out of alignment.
Customers eventually know too.
And the market?
It adjusts your reputation accordingly.
Integrity isn’t fluffy.
It’s operational.
It affects performance, trust, retention, and profit.
Companies will tolerate nightmare clients in the name of revenue. But when you operate outside your model:
The “wrong” client is not revenue.
It’s debt: in time, trust, and human energy.
Brittany sees this constantly: chasing money leads to mission drift.
Chasing alignment leads to growth.
Let’s be clear: Culture isn’t a laminated value card or a poster in a break room.
Conscious culture means you intentionally define:
No more “we have great values on paper.” The question is: Do people actually experience those values on Tuesday at 3 pm when something goes wrong?
AI is useful.
Automation is helpful.
Tools amplify what already exists.
But tools can’t:
As Brittany said,
“Real change happens in conversation.”
Human leadership is not replaceable.
CEOs want to automate, delegate, and streamline.
Great. Do it.
But do not outsource:
Culture is built in the moments people feel seen. Everything else is infrastructure.
Here’s the thing most consultants miss: culture work is not an off-site retreat, a survey, or a slogan.
Brittany brings a rare combination of psychology, organizational behavior, and business strategy that lets her see what leaders can’t. Her process is part science, part intuition, part pattern recognition.
Here’s how she helps leaders rebuild culture with intention:
✔ She diagnoses the real problem, not the loudest symptom
Most leaders talk about communication issues or morale.
Brittany asks: “What’s the pain point behind the pain point?”
That’s where the real work begins.
✔ She measures what no one else is measuring
Leaders track revenue and performance, but not what their people actually experience.
Brittany collects data, surveys teams, and quantifies the “unsaid” so leaders can finally see the full picture.
✔ She reads the room (literally)
With 80 percent of communication being nonverbal, Brittany observes executive teams in action (the tension, the avoidance patterns, the interpersonal blind spots) and surfaces them with clarity and compassion.
✔ She aligns business strategy with people strategy
Most companies have one or the other.
Brittany forces the two into the same room and doesn’t leave until they match.
✔ She helps leaders operate from integrity
Her pillow-test question becomes a new leadership lens.
Once leaders see their own misalignment, change accelerates.
✔ She resolves the unspoken
Because what’s not said controls the company.
Once the truth is surfaced, culture can finally be designed intentionally.
✔ She sets the conditions for lasting change
No silver bullets.
No shortcuts.
Just behavioral science, clarity, and consistency — the real foundations of culture.
This is why her clients see transformational results: not because she “fixes culture,” but because she teaches leaders to finally see themselves.
If you take nothing else away from this episode, take this:
You can’t scale chaos, misalignment, or avoidance.
But you can scale clarity, integrity, and culture built with intention.
Listen to the full conversation and start designing the culture you actually want BEFORE the one you have designs you.
Listen Now: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vlXREiRdwXfEaizeosSpk?si=qRoXOwIpTaiePEw_OUIBPQ