Culture Starts Here, Ep10: What If Culture Didn’t Eat Strategy? [podcast video]
Special Guest: Joey Williams, Engagement & Development Specialist at Healthpeak Properties
For years, leaders have repeated the familiar idea that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
But what if that only happens when culture and strategy are misaligned?
In this episode of Culture Starts Here on the CultureCon Podcast, ADVISA CEO Heather Haas and leadership consultant BJ McKay sit down with Joey Williams, Engagement & Development Specialist at Healthpeak Properties (NYSE: DOC), to explore what it looks like when culture becomes a strategic advantage.
Joey shares how Healthpeak brings its WE CARE values to life through onboarding, recognition, leadership communication, engagement listening, mentorship, and the everyday behaviors that help people feel connected across offices, roles, and time zones.
The conversation is a practical look at what organizational resilience and agility require today: leaders who continually monitor, reinforce, and align culture with the strategic aims of the business.
Culture and strategy are two sides of the same coin
Joey offers a useful reframing of the old “culture eats strategy” line: culture only eats strategy when the two are fighting each other.
If the strategy says one thing, but daily behaviors say something else, culture will win. The best plans stall when people do not trust the direction, understand the why, or experience the stated values in real ways.
But when culture and strategy are aligned, culture does not eat strategy. It feeds it.
Joey describes strategy as the “app” and culture as the “operating system.” If the operating system is glitchy, the app will not run smoothly. That is why organizations cannot treat culture as a side project or a set of aspirational words. Culture is the environment in which strategy either gains traction or breaks down.
“When culture and strategy are aligned, culture does not eat strategy. It feeds it.”
Values need to become daily behaviors
Healthpeak’s core values are captured in the acronym WE CARE:
- Winning Mindset
- Empower the Team
- Communicate & Collaborate
- Act with Integrity
- Respect the Relationship
- Excellence in Execution
But what stands out in Joey’s story is not just the values themselves. It is how they were developed and activated.
Rather than handing down values from the top, Healthpeak invited input from across the company, including frontline employees, managers, partners, and leaders. That involvement created ownership – and ownership matters because values are not only something to celebrate. They are also standards leaders must be willing to coach and protect.
At Healthpeak, those values show up in onboarding, recognition, leadership communication, town halls, employee listening channels, mentorship, and everyday conversations about how work gets done.
Instead of saying, “We need better communication,” leaders can name the specific value: “We’re struggling with communicate and collaborate. Here’s how we fix it.” That level of clarity helps values move from posters and slide decks into shared language and daily expectations.
“We were really intentional about not letting WE CARE live only in a slide deck or a sign in the lobby.”
Culture is built in the systems people experience
One of the strongest themes in this episode is that culture does not become real through slogans. It becomes real through systems.
For Joey, culture shows up in the design of everyday employee experiences: how people are welcomed, how they are recognized, how they are mentored, how leaders communicate, how feedback is gathered, and how decisions are explained.
Healthpeak’s onboarding experience is not about checking boxes and completing forms. New team members hear about the company’s values on day one and learn what those values look like in real decisions and expectations.
The company also assigns new employees a navigator to help them plug in relationally. That kind of support may seem simple, but it serves a strategic goal: helping people get productive, connected, and confident faster.
Healthpeak’s WE CARE mentorship program follows the same logic. Matching mentors and mentees across teams builds skills, confidence, and connection. That is culture work – but it is also business work.
Recognition can become culture training
Recognition is often treated as a morale booster. At Healthpeak, it is also a way to reinforce the behaviors that support the business.
Joey explains that the most effective recognition is specific. Instead of a generic “You’re awesome,” leaders and teammates name the value, the behavior, and the impact.
For example: “You showed excellence in execution by streamlining the handoff, and that helped us close the loop for the client.”
That kind of recognition does more than make someone feel appreciated. It teaches the organization what matters. Over time, those repeated moments create a shared understanding of what “good” looks like.
When leaders consistently celebrate the right behaviors and refuse to tolerate behaviors that undermine trust, culture becomes easier to see, coach, and sustain.
Listening only works when leaders act
Healthpeak uses several listening mechanisms, including engagement surveys, pulse checks, live Q&A in town halls, focus groups, anonymous feedback options, one-on-one conversations, and monthly stay interviews.
Joey started conducting stay interviews by reaching out to employees and asking simple questions: How are you doing? What is working? What could use work? What ideas or suggestions do you have?
He then looks for recurring themes and shares those insights with leadership.
But the real lesson is not simply to ask more questions. It’s to close the loop.
As Joey notes, if employees keep answering the same questions and nothing changes, the process quickly loses credibility. Acting on feedback – or at least explaining why something cannot be addressed right now – is what keeps listening from becoming performative.
“If we’re going to ask the questions, we’ve got to do something. Otherwise, we’re just wasting folks’ time.”
The top team sets the ceiling for culture
Heather points out that many people listening may want a role like Joey’s – one focused on supporting and fostering a healthy culture – but struggle to get executive buy-in.
Joey is clear that Healthpeak’s culture work is possible because the commitment starts at the top. The CEO regularly reinforces the core values, begins with them in company communication, and models their importance in how leadership engages feedback and explains decisions.
That matters because culture cannot be delegated to HR or communications alone. Leaders carry it, protect it, and reveal it through what they celebrate, what they coach, what they tolerate, and how they respond when conditions get difficult.
When the executive team is aligned around the value of culture, the work becomes easier to operationalize across the organization.
Culture steadies the organization when things get messy
A healthy culture does not eliminate uncertainty. But it can act like a keel on a ship when the waters get rough.
Joey uses that metaphor to describe the role culture plays during change, including reorganizations, system transitions, market pressure, mergers, budget cuts, and other difficult business realities.
The culture does not calm the sea. But it can help keep the organization upright and moving forward.
That is especially important when employees are watching how leaders respond. Do leaders communicate openly? Do they explain the why? Do they own mistakes? Do they treat people with dignity? Do they continue to reinforce the values when it would be easier to abandon them?
As Heather notes in the episode, authentic culture is often revealed in the messy moments.
“Culture’s built when things are hard.”
Translate strategy into behavior
One of Joey’s most practical recommendations is for leaders to translate strategy into behaviors.
It is not enough to say, “We are focused on growth.” Leaders need to define what growth looks like for the team. Does it mean trying small experiments? Sharing what was learned? Taking smart risks? Collaborating across functions? Communicating more clearly?
The more specific leaders can be, the easier it becomes for people to understand how strategy connects to their daily work.
Heather connects this to a common challenge ADVISA sees with clients: values require behavioral clarity. Without it, “teamwork,” “communication,” or “ownership” can mean different things to different people. Once those expectations are defined in behavioral terms, leaders can coach, train, recruit, recognize, and hold people accountable with far more consistency.
You do not need a giant overhaul to start
For leaders who care about culture but feel overwhelmed by the scale of the work, Joey offers an encouraging reminder: start small.
You do not need a huge transformation to begin aligning culture and strategy. Start with one team, one ritual, one conversation, one clearer expectation, or one better listening mechanism.
Culture is built one moment at a time. And those moments add up.
Joey’s own leadership philosophy reflects that mindset. He describes his work as helping create the same sense of voice, safety, and support that other leaders once gave him.
“Strategy is the destination. Culture determines if and why people want to make the trip with you.”
Key takeaways for leaders
- Culture only “eats strategy” when the two are misaligned.
- Values become powerful when they are translated into specific, observable behaviors.
- Recognition works best when it names the value, the behavior, and the business impact.
- Listening builds trust only when leaders act on feedback or explain why they cannot.
- Executive alignment sets the ceiling for how healthy and intentional a culture can become.
- Culture is revealed most clearly during messy moments, not easy ones.
- A healthy culture can act as a shock absorber during uncertainty, change, and market pressure.
- Leaders can start small: one team, one ritual, one conversation, one behavior at a time.
ATLAS framework for cultural competitive advantage
To help organizations create the culture they need to succeed, ADVISA developed the ATLAS framework – five critical drivers that, when aligned, create cultural competitive advantage:
- Activation from Above – executive ownership of culture
- Trust and Shared Purpose – clear mission, vision, and values
- Leader Effectiveness – equipping leaders to model the right mindsets and behaviors
- Actionable People Data – putting people insights in leaders’ hands
- Systems that support leaders – aligning processes, tools, and norms with the desired culture
In this episode, Joey’s examples from Healthpeak touch every part of the ATLAS framework: executive alignment, trust-building communication, leadership development, stay interviews and engagement data, and systems that make values easier to practice in daily work.
When those five drivers work together, culture stops being abstract. It becomes a practical engine for business performance.
Take the free, 5-minute culture check
Find out where your organization stands today – in just minutes. ADVISA’s online ATLAS Navigator tool gives you a snapshot of strengths and opportunities across the five drivers.
It is a practical conversation starter for leaders, managers, and teams who want to begin aligning culture with strategy.
👉 Take the ATLAS Navigator five-minute culture check here
About Culture Starts Here
Culture can be an organization’s biggest threat to growth – or its greatest opportunity for competitive advantage.
In Culture Starts Here, a special series on the CultureCon Podcast, ADVISA CEO Heather Haas and leadership consultant BJ McKay share insights and tactics you can use to jump-start your organization’s optimal culture. This and every episode of Culture Starts Here includes the answer to the most common question ADVISA’s leadership consultants hear: Where do we start?
All episodes of the Culture Starts Here podcast series
- Ep1: Meet ATLAS
- Ep2: One thing your C-Suite absolutely can’t delegate
- Ep3: Do Mission, Vision, and Values Really Matter?
- Ep4: Do Your Leaders Know What to Say and Do To Be Effective?
- Ep5: For Leaders, This Can Make the Difference Between a Guess and a Smart Decision
- Ep6: Leaders Are Only as Effective as the Systems That Support Them
- Ep7: What we learned from attending CultureCon
- Ep8: What Culture Change Actually Looks Like Inside Organizations
- Ep9: To Lead Is Human
- Ep10: What If Culture Didn’t Eat Strategy?
Related resources
Healthpeak Properties
ADVISA
CultureCon
PeopleForward Network
- Other podcasts from PeopleForward Network, the producers of The CultureCon Podcast and Culture Starts Here