Stop Talking About Culture. Start Building Performance.
Culture without standards is just vibes.
Let's get something straight: leadership and culture aren't ends in themselves. They're means to an end. And that end is performance.
I spent years in Baseball Operations, where we didn't talk about culture for culture's sake. We talked about winning games, and how to go about doing that. We built systems, developed people, and refined processes—all with one metric in mind: wins. The scoreboard doesn't lie, and neither does your bottom line.
Operators, Not Philosophers
In special forces communities, elite soldiers are called "operators" for a reason. They don't just train. They don't just embody values. They deliver outcomes in the most demanding circumstances imaginable. When the mission depends on it, philosophy takes a back seat to performance.
Your business operates in similarly competitive terrain. You need leaders who can operate; who understand that their job isn't to craft inspiring mission statements but to drive measurable results. Wins. Profits. Investor returns. Market share. Whatever your scoreboard shows, that's what matters.
Culture Is Your Operating System
Hold on, all of a sudden the culture & leadership guy is putting results over process?
It's not all of a sudden: you can't sustain high performance without the right culture. But culture isn't about foosball tables and casual Fridays. It's about creating an environment where performance is expected, enabled, and relentlessly pursued.
Think of culture as your organization's operating system. A great OS makes everything run faster and smoother. A poor one creates friction at every turn. When I worked in Baseball Operations, our culture wasn't about being nice—it was about being rigorous. We questioned assumptions, demanded data, and held each other accountable. That culture produced wins because it was designed to.
The Leadership-Performance Connection
Too many organizations treat leadership development as separate from performance management. That's backwards. Leadership development should be measured by one metric: does it improve performance?
The leaders you need are those who:
Drive results, not just activity. There's a difference between being busy and being productive. Operators focus on outcomes, not inputs.
Build systems that scale. Individual heroics are great, but they don't build dynasties. Your best leaders create processes and develop people who can replicate success.
Make performance non-negotiable. They set clear expectations and hold people accountable—not through fear, but through standards that everyone understands and commits to.
Sustain excellence over time. Anyone can win once. Elite operators find ways to win consistently, adapting to changing conditions without compromising standards.
The Sustainable Performance Equation
Here's what sustainable high performance looks like in practice:
You cultivate a culture where excellence is the baseline, not the aspiration. Where people know what winning looks like in their role and have the tools to achieve it. Where feedback is immediate and constructive. Where resources are allocated based on impact, not politics.
Then you empower leaders who can operate within that culture. Leaders who understand that their primary responsibility is to remove obstacles, develop talent, and drive execution. Who can make tough calls when performance falters. Who celebrate wins but immediately refocus on the next challenge.
This isn't about being harsh or creating a pressure cooker. The best operators I've known in both military and sports contexts are often thoughtful, even kind. But they're absolutely clear on the mission and what it takes to accomplish it.
Stop Apologizing for Wanting to Win
Somewhere along the way, it became fashionable to downplay performance. To suggest that focusing on results is somehow less evolved than focusing on purpose or people. That's nonsense.
Wanting to win—needing to produce returns for investors, provide jobs for employees, create value for customers—isn't shallow. It's essential. And the kindest thing you can do for your people is create an environment where they can perform at their highest level and be recognized for it.
Your job as a leader is to be an operator. To build an operations culture. To develop other operators who can deliver results when it matters most.
Because at the end of the day, no one remembers the team with the best culture deck. They remember the team that won.