As our new release Culture Blooming explains, a company’s culture is not just about keeping people happy, it literally determines marketplace outcomes and success for the entire organization. Here are five examples of leaders who addressed a significant aspect of their organization’s culture and the incredible results that followed:
1. Alan Mulally — Ford
Culture Problem: Ford was fragmented by internal fiefdoms and a fear of admitting problems. Leaders routinely showed “green” status reports even while the company was losing billions.
CEO and what he did: Mulally instituted a weekly Business Plan Review built around shared data and candor. When an executive finally reported a problem as “red,” Mulally applauded and asked who could help. He made transparency, cross-company cooperation, and “One Ford” the operating culture.
The Change: Problems surfaced earlier, collaboration replaced concealment, and Ford returned to profitability within three years without entering bankruptcy during the financial crisis. Read more here.
2. Paul O’Neill — Alcoa
Culture Problem: Alcoa was financially sound but operated with the industrial assumption that injuries were an inevitable cost of production.
CEO and what he did: O’Neill made zero injuries the company’s defining priority—not a slogan. Leaders had to report serious incidents quickly, investigate root causes, and fix systems rather than blame workers. Safety became a test of whether managers respected people and told the truth.
The Change: Lost-time injuries fell from 1.86 per 100 workers to 0.2 during his tenure; profits and sales reached record levels. The deeper accomplishment was proving that safety, operational discipline, and financial performance could reinforce one another. Read more here.
3. Anne Mulcahy — Xerox
Culture Problem: Xerox faced a severe financial and credibility crisis, with employees understandably anxious, distrustful, and unsure whether the company would survive.
CEO and what she did: Mulcahy spent her first 90 days traveling to listen to employees and customers. She treated communication as the CEO’s central job: state the bad news plainly, explain the recovery plan, and make clear what each person could do to help. She combined brutal financial discipline with continued investment in R&D.
The Change: Xerox raised needed cash, cut debt roughly in half, reduced costs, and restored a workforce aligned around a believable future rather than denial or panic. Read more here.
4. Satya Nadella — Microsoft
Culture Problem: Microsoft had become hierarchical, internally competitive, and overly invested in proving who was smartest—a “know-it-all” culture that inhibited learning and cooperation.
CEO and what he did: Nadella pushed a “learn-it-all” culture grounded in growth mindset, curiosity, empathy, and customer listening. He modeled greater openness, encouraged collaboration across divisions, and moved Microsoft away from its old reflex to make Windows the center of everything.
The Change: Microsoft became notably more collaborative and reinvigorated its cloud and AI businesses; during Nadella’s first decade, its market value reached $3 trillion. Read more here.
5. Hubert Joly — Best Buy
Culture Problem: Best Buy looked like the next retail casualty of Amazon. “Showrooming” was hollowing out stores, morale was low, and the company had begun to think of itself as a seller of electronics rather than a source of help.
CEO and what he did: Joly reframed the company’s purpose as enriching customers’ lives through technology. He asked employees to connect their own sense of purpose to the work, made customer assistance central, and treated stores and the Geek Squad as relationship-building assets rather than liabilities.
The Change: Best Buy stabilized and rebuilt its business rather than following Circuit City and RadioShack into collapse. Its turnaround became a leading example of how purpose and employee energy can support a hard-nosed commercial recovery. Read more here.
Organizational culture is not just culture but the very lifeblood that determines futures.
