#528 Building A Great Organisational Culture – Christy Pretzinger interviewed by Niels Brabandt
Building A Great Organisational Culture – Christy Pretzinger interviewed by Niels Brabandt
Article by Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Corporate values have become one of the most familiar features of modern business. Posters in reception areas, slogans in onboarding materials and polished statements in annual reports frequently promise respect, integrity, collaboration or innovation. Yet, for many employees, the uncomfortable truth remains obvious: values often exist in theory rather than in practice.
In this week’s leadership interview, Niels Brabandt speaks with workplace culture expert Christy Pretzinger about one of the most pressing questions for decision-makers: how organisations can intentionally build a great organisational culture that genuinely works.
The discussion begins with a hard truth many executives prefer not to confront. Values initiatives frequently fail because leadership teams misunderstand how culture is built. Too often, organisational values emerge from executive isolation rather than collective understanding. Senior leaders retreat into workshops, decide what the culture should represent, launch internal campaigns and expect behavioural transformation to follow. It rarely does.
As Christy Pretzinger explains, the absence of organisational buy-in is one of the greatest cultural failures in business today. Employees cannot meaningfully commit to principles they had no role in shaping. When values are imposed rather than developed collaboratively, cynicism inevitably follows.
The alternative is deliberate organisational design.
Rather than treating values as branding exercises, organisations must embed them into everyday practice. Values only become meaningful when translated into behaviours, decision-making and accountability structures. They must be woven into recruitment, leadership development, performance conversations and team interaction. Organisational culture is not what is written on the wall. Organisational culture is what happens when pressure increases.
One particularly powerful insight from the conversation concerns emotional intelligence and leadership maturity. While emotional intelligence, often described as emotional quotient or EQ, has long been recognised as foundational for leadership, Christy Pretzinger introduces an additional concept: the Better Quotient, or BQ. If emotional intelligence helps leaders identify emotions, BQ challenges leaders to decide what they do with those emotions.
This distinction matters profoundly.
Modern organisations increasingly operate in emotionally complex environments. Leaders encounter stress, frustration, uncertainty and interpersonal conflict daily. The question is no longer whether emotions exist in the workplace. They always have. The real question is whether leaders possess the maturity to regulate behaviour rather than exporting frustration onto others.
For executives navigating multigenerational workplaces, this challenge becomes even more complex. Younger generations increasingly seek authenticity, psychological safety and genuine human connection from leadership. Hierarchical command structures and purely transactional leadership styles struggle to resonate in environments shaped by uncertainty, technological disruption and social change.
Leadership today demands adaptability.
As Pretzinger notes, excellent leadership requires time, listening and intentional communication. Leaders who insist that “this is simply how I am” often misunderstand one of the central realities of professional maturity: behaviour is a choice. Effective communication is not about abandoning standards. It is about maintaining standards while preserving dignity and trust.
Equally important is the understanding that leadership growth cannot be forced indefinitely. Not every individual possesses the same readiness, emotional capacity or willingness for development. Outstanding leaders recognise the balance between challenge and compassion, accountability and respect.
The central lesson from this conversation is clear: building a great organisational culture is never accidental.
It requires intentional leadership, behavioural consistency, meaningful values and leaders willing to model the standards they expect from others. Organisations that succeed in doing so create cultures people genuinely want to belong to. Organisations that fail merely produce another poster for the wall.
For decision-makers seeking sustainable performance, organisational culture is no longer a secondary discussion. It is strategy.
To hear the full conversation with workplace culture expert Christy Pretzinger, search for Niels Brabandt on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
Is excellent leadership important to you?
Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Values. You probably heard that before. And when you now say, yeah, I heard the values, we had the posters on the wall. However, that was basically all of it. We can do better than that, can't we? And yes, we can. We have an expert on the matter with us here today. Hello and welcome, Christy Pretzinger.
Christy Pretzinger
Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Thank you very much for taking the time. And we get straight into the topic. You often, you have an expertise on building a workplace culture with intentional values. Let's face it, many people are, I don't want to say tired, they are almost over the whole discussion of values. They always say, look, we have some sort of workshop, we make our input, suddenly the management decides something, then we get posters on the wall and we wonder, so when these are our values, why it says respect on the wall, so why don't I have respect in my workplace? So why does this happen so often and how can organizations be better?
Christy Pretzinger
I think that's a multilayered, complicated question, but I'll try and be simple in my answer. I think part of the reason is, depending on the size of the organization, if it's a smaller owner business, like a small business, the owner founder tends to sit in a room and come up with values. I've heard many times people do that, which is a huge mistake because you get no buy-in. And then people decide to— the CEO decides to change them because they're not working without any input whatsoever. So that's flaw number 1.
Christy Pretzinger
Flaw number 2 in huge organizations organizations frequently, to your point, they're on the wall, they might be on some paper somewhere, but they haven't really incorporated it into the organization. I've seen ones that do. There's a very large university near where I am, it's called The Ohio State University, and they have complicated, long values. You know, it's not like ours are empowered, curious, kind, and fun. Theirs are complicated, but they really do, they are woven into their workplace.
Christy Pretzinger
And all the different departments have different ways that they incorporate them and that they apply them, and they have the freedom to do that, but they are urged to do it, and they do. And I thought that was really well done, and it shows in the tenure of their employees, in the way that they treat one another, and, you know, in all of that workplace happiness thing too. It really does show up.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Excellent. What would you say when now someone says, look, I'm a mid-sized business, we, we, we never thought of that. We, we just have values. I think that just happened, but we don't have it anywhere in writing or formalized them.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
How do we actually find out that we don't create something where people say, well, that feels a bit off to have these things suddenly? How do people actually get to the point that they say, we create this and we have it somehow that it's really woven into what we do here? Because that's the goal many organizations have. And let's face it, many fail to achieve that.
Christy Pretzinger
If you are a midsize organization and you don't have values, I would— my experience of that would be to get a small cohort, a small team of people who are highly engaged, and say, let's get together and let's decide how we do things here.
Christy Pretzinger
And let's come up with— the term is values, but we want a mission too. Like, what is it that we're here for? What's our why? So let's collectively agree on our why, and then our values can fall out of that.
Christy Pretzinger
And then we can decide how to make sure that we weave it into the tapestry of our culture in a way that is meaningful and actionable for all people.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Excellent. And of course, this is all about people, as you say. And when we talk about teams, you have something which is called the EQ or the EI. What do you mean with that, and why is it important?
Christy Pretzinger
Well, you know, EQ is obviously— everybody knows about emotional quotient. It's been around for over 40 years. There's a lot of information there. And EQ is something that's
Christy Pretzinger
going on in the field, in a meeting, who's, who's doing what and whatnot. I also developed something— excuse me— that I call BQ, your better quotient.
Christy Pretzinger
And what that is, is the capacity we all have to become better So when you have your EQ, it's about naming and claiming emotions. EQ is really kind of foundational in helping people access emotions, which we're not very good at. Most people have 3 words to describe how they're feeling: mad, sad, glad. That's it. And so that's how they describe— Yes, that's it, right? And that's— Right? And that's the lens through which they see the world.
Christy Pretzinger
Well, there's nuance there. We all know the difference between sadness and anguish. You know, that's a different thing. And so really, EQ is the practice of naming and claiming your emotions. Emotion.
Christy Pretzinger
And then BQ, your better quotient, is how— what are you going to do with that? Okay, I know I'm in a meeting, I'm frustrated. What's the choice I'm going to make about what I'm going to do with that emotion now that I know that I have it? And it's, you know, it's okay to be frustrated. It's not okay to dump it on everybody else. So you learn— the BQ is learning how to manage those things, to make the choice to avoid behavior that's going to require an apology later.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah, excellent. And when now people say, look, we have so many different people in our organizations, what's your take on how much and in which ways can actually leaders adapt to different personality types? How do you— because many people say they are all so different, I have to choose one style for me, and I think people have to align to me, or what maybe is the better approach, how to deal with personality types?
Christy Pretzinger
Well, you know, we always say everything would be easier without the people, right? And also, you could do nothing without the people.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
I'm not going to offer another here.
Christy Pretzinger
This is—
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Right?
Christy Pretzinger
Well, I think that, you know, there's several ways of doing that, right? I mean, I've often said that it's much easier to be a general than to be a leader of consensus. A general, you're like, here's your orders, go do it. If you don't do it, there's consequences, you're gone, and I'm gonna go figure it out. You can do that, and that can be very effective. It's kind of the Jack Welch school of leadership, which really isn't flying with the younger generation now because they want authenticity.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Not flying is very politely said. Not flying is very politely said.
Christy Pretzinger
Yes.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah.
Christy Pretzinger
Yes, I mean, I think that there's a reasonable expectation given the environment in which these younger, Gen Z in particular, have been grown up and served up to them, which has not been anything great with social media and all of the things, and then AI taking so many things. It's reasonable to be able to meet these people where they are, and they are yearning for human connection and community, and they don't know how to do it. So you as a leader need to model that.
Christy Pretzinger
And I've had other leaders say to me, well, they've asked me how I've handled something, and when I tell them, they're like, well, I don't have time for that. I'm like, okay, Well, that's fine, you don't have to have time for it, but don't pretend like you care about culture then. You know, they're mutually exclusive because it takes more time to listen than it does to give orders. And that's the first key to being an effective leader and recognizing other people's personalities.
Christy Pretzinger
I know that I can talk too fast and take over and get very kind of pushy. I'm a bias to action. So I have to really discipline myself to not speak and to let people speak and to hear what they have to say. You know, and that's different personalities, you know, understanding that and really moderating your behavior, 'cause you are a grownup. You can moderate your behavior.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah, absolutely. And when it now comes to exactly that, let's say someone says, maybe you heard leaders to say, look, Christy, I just wanna tell you upfront, when things come, things can become a bit stressful, I can become reasonably loud, you know, that's not personal. I don't mean it against you. This is just how I am. My communication is just— that's just my communication style.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And you hold expertise in excellent communication and writing and speaking for leaders. However, how do you deal with people who think, look, Christy, I'm in the business for 25 years, I know how it goes here, don't tell me you know better how to run this business, I know how this works.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
But people are becoming so difficult today. So how to— how can someone practice effective communication in writing and speaking when you have so many people out there who say, look, I know how it goes, but people are the problem?
Christy Pretzinger
Well, I, I'm not one who is going to tell everybody you're doing everything wrong and here's how you should do it. I can only speak from my own experience and say that I know in my own experience that I am not a fixed being. I am constantly changing, and I can choose to change, or I can choose not to change, but it is a choice. And it is never simply, that's the way I am, because you aren't the same person you were 5 minutes ago because things have happened to you and changed.
Christy Pretzinger
It's up to you to decide if you wanna adapt your behavior or you don't. You do not have to adapt your behavior. If you like the results that you're getting and you are fine with everything going the way that it is, then have at it.
Christy Pretzinger
If you are having issues, then I'd be happy to talk to you about how you can lead and lead your organization by Leading with vulnerability, you're not gonna like that one, but when you lead with vulnerability, then that encourages the vulnerability of the people that report to you, which means you get to really more honest issues around what's actually happening. But you have to be the one to model that behavior. And if you don't want to, you don't have to. That's fine. You're just gonna keep going down the road you're going down, and that's okay. That's a choice.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Excellent. Two more questions. When we now want to make people grow, as a leader, you want to help people grow. However, that also means you, you sometimes have to ask pretty tough questions. You sometimes have to ask the right questions. And let's also face it, not everyone is happy about facing these questions. So how do you actually ask the hard question that helps people and companies grow without crossing the line where they say, sorry, that was it for me?
Christy Pretzinger
That's an interesting one. And I don't know that I, again, only in my own experience, I don't know that I have the answer for all of that because it, It's— some people don't wanna grow. And also some people, I think it's important to recognize as a leader that some people only have so much capacity for growth.
Christy Pretzinger
You know, I always say that nobody gets outta childhood without wounds, right? We all have them. They show up differently. Some of us carry them well into adulthood. Some of us process them and, and try and put them in their proper place, but everybody has them.
Christy Pretzinger
And sometimes you'll, you'll run up against people who are simply like, This is how I am, and I cannot open up any further than this because— I used to say stuff like about my mom. I always said that I never saw her cry in her whole life, and I think it's because she thought if she started, she'd never stop. And that's a wound, you know?
Christy Pretzinger
And I think that recognizing that people— and having respect for that, that you might be able to be open to change or to being vulnerable, but you have to be respectful of the boundaries that other people set. And some people just can't do it. And that's okay.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Absolutely. When people now say, well, this is amazing and we really need help in our organization, they might wonder, hmm, I think Kristi could help us as a trainer or coach or a keynote speaker for our events. The question is, how can they get in touch?
Christy Pretzinger
The easiest way is kristipretzinger.com, and you can also find me on LinkedIn, or you can just Google me. I am easily found, probably too easily found.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Brilliant. So you see workplace and organizational culture, help is available, and you better get in touch right now. So at the end of this podcast and videocast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Kristi, thank you very much for your time.
Christy Pretzinger
Thank you. I enjoyed our conversation.