The Culture Turnaround: 9 Proven Ways to Create an Undeniable Culture
Jeff Hilimire and Adam Albrecht
Ripples Media (2022)

“People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  Theodore Roosevelt

This is the latest of four volumes in the “Turnaround Leadership” series; the other three focus on turning around an organization (2019), a major crisis (2020), and a great team (2021).  I highly recommend all of them. For reasons that are best explained by Jeff Hilimire, the order of publication has little (if any) relevance to the timeline of the business narrative he develops.

Hillmire suggests this order when tracking this story’s timeline: The Culture Turnaround, The Crisis Turnaround, The 5-Day Turnaround, and The Great Team Around. He and his co-author, Adam Albrecht, are superb raconteurs, anchoring key business concepts within real-world situations, based on their wide and deep experiences. The protagonist (Will)  as well as his company and its board members are fictitious, but almost all of those who read this book can readily identify with the issues to be addressed, the questions to be answered, and the conflicts to be resolved. Adhering to the story’s timeline, however, is far less important than focusing on the given situations in each volume. The business format is eminently appropriate for the doing that.

This book has two authors and one narrator, Will, among its cast of characters.  If the company he heads continues on its current course he will lose his job and the company will be acquired by another. My objective is not to provide a plot synopsis. Details are best revealed by Hilimire and Albrecht in context, within a frame of reference.  My purpose, rather, is to suggest why the material in this book could be of substantial value to C-level executives (or their equivalent) as well as to those who aspire to become one. Also, to anyone who enjoys reading a good story, whatever its subject may be.

Here are three reasons:

1. All organizations have a workplace culture, for better or worse. As Hilimire and Albrecht suggest, there are specific reasons why the healthiest cultures cannot be “denied” success. HOW? They offer a three-step process to achieve and then sustain an authentic foundation, a trusting workforce, and an inclusive environment.

2. Hilimire and Albrecht have solid storyteller skills that bring the narrative to life. There is a fine line between drama and melodrama and they never cross it.

3. From the beginning, I was certain that Will would succeed but he couldn’t do it alone. Two questions captured my attention: “How to decide what to do and how to do it?” and “How to get everyone not only involved but engaged to get it done?” Read The Culture Turnaround and find out.

While you reading this book, I suggest that you highlight key passages, and, record your own comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), and page references as well as your responses to questions evoked and to lessons you have learned. Pay close attention to the “plot” developments as well  as to sets of key points strategically inserted throughout the narrative. These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of the most important material later.