Conquer office culture
When C-suite executives create an inspiring work environment, says David Komar ’87, it’s better for employees and the bottom line.
“You have to plan for communication,” Komar says. “It doesn’t just happen.”
Photograph courtesy of David Komar
David Komar understands culture is more than a buzzword.
The retired brigadier general, who got his commission through Army ROTC at Lafayette, spent more than 30 years on active duty in the U.S. Army. During the second half of his career, he worked at the corporate level of the Army, including two years as director of Army business operations in the Army’s Office of Business Transformation.
After retiring in 2018, he started a business coaching CEOs and began deploying insights he had learned from decades in the Army, whether it was how to build trust among team members or be strategic about communications. Then, in 2022, he was hired as president of a human resource technology company called EDA Inc., in Kansas City, Mo., where he’s been helping companies learn how to build exceptional cultures.
All the while, Komar, a business and economics major, was working on a book called Conquer Your Culture, which was published in May. He wanted to create a concise, practical guide—something that executives could read on one domestic flight—that offered a tailored “road map” to identify ways to improve what was happening in the workplace. “There’s a lot of phenomenal literature out there, whether it’s by John Maxwell or Ken Blanchard, about why culture is important and why we should care,” Komar says. “But there’s still not a whole lot about how to actually do it.”
As he explains in the book, no two winning cultures are identical: Goals, philosophies, and methods are as different as the company. To that end, Komar inserted worksheets in the back of each chapter, serving as a place for CEOs to write down specific goals and next steps. “The book doesn’t describe what I think the ideal culture would be, because that varies depending on the organization,” Komar says. “The culture of a company that runs a nuclear power plant is significantly different than an advertising agency—and I take great comfort in that.”
Here’s how to avoid toxic office culture and keep the workplace thriving.
Spell out beliefs and institutions
Defining a company’s culture is the first and most critical step for any organization. “In order to achieve your objective, you have to be able to describe it,” he says. “Otherwise how do you know if you’re on the right path?” Throughout his career, Komar has met only a few CEOs who have been able to clearly explain their company’s culture to him. “We aren’t just talking about platitudes of being ‘empowering’ and ‘inclusive,’” Komar adds. “What does it actually look, sound, taste, feel, and smell like to work in that organization?”
Investing in culture is good for business
“Oftentimes, people think there’s this false choice between having a great culture and being profitable,” Komar says. “It’s really the opposite. If you don’t have a great culture, your employees aren’t going to be as engaged or committed to achieving the goals of the organization.”
Measuring culture can feel difficult to capture, but there are workplace metrics that can indicate underlying issues. In organizations with low employee engagement scores, he explains, there is also lower productivity, profitability, job growth, and earnings per share over time. Plus, costly issues are more likely to add up: accidents, absenteeism, and employee turnover.
Methods matter
Knowing what to say is just as important as understanding how to deliver the message. “A small tech company of 10-12 people is going to have different modes of communicating than a very large corporation,” he says. While an employee-wide email might be the appropriate vehicle for one message, another company might find an in-person meeting more effective.
On returning back to the office
After the pandemic, many companies mandated working back in the office to reestablish culture, but Komar says the move could affect employees on a deeper level. “It’s a very complex problem,” Komar says. “For a lot of employees, the call for the return to office makes them feel like employers don’t trust them doing their work.” Regardless of a company’s position on working from home, the CEOs should make sure to share the reasoning behind the decision. Komar says the majority of problems that happen in organizations stem from a lack of clear communication.
He adds that while working remotely comes with certain barriers, employers should appreciate—and consider—the generational factor: “Younger generations are much more comfortable collaborating in a virtual manner. It might not be senior leadership’s favorite or most comfortable way of communicating, but for many in the workforce, it is.”
