Leaders who struggle to prove culture ROI tend to focus on process over people, often missing the signal in changing employee complaints.
Willie Griffin, Walmart People Partner and HR Manager, explains how a servant leadership approach can help by treating changes in feedback as a metric that matters.
To measure culture ROI, Griffin runs quarterly associate-only meetings without managers, logs every concern, and measures progress by tracking complaints.
What if proving the ROI of company culture has less to do with eliminating employee complaints and more to do with tracking how they change? From concerns about trust to requests for new tools or questions about company steak night, even a slight change in feedback can tell leaders a lot about their people. Now, that seemingly insignificant information is helping teams solve bigger problems, like measuring progress on an asset many leaders consider intangible.
For an expert’s take, we spoke to Willie Griffin, SPHR, LSSBB, PMP, a People Partner and Human Resources Manager at Walmart. With a 21-year career in the United States Air Force, Griffin’s perspective was forged in what he calls a “rougher, hierarchical environment.” After leaving the military, he decided to lead in the opposite direction, building his career on the belief that people are a company’s true competitive advantage. For Griffin, it starts with servant leadership.
“I’m a hands-on leader. I’ll sweep the floors, and I’ll file the paperwork—the same things that my subordinates do. That’s what earns me respect from frontline workers. And once I have their respect, honestly, it’s easy. Everything else falls into place,” Griffin says. But the task isn’t always so effortless for other leaders.
For many, the problem is a form of tunnel vision, he explains. Under so much pressure, some leaders get so fixated on “processes and procedures” that they neglect what matters most: their people.
A missing ingredient: A key part of this philosophy is a leader’s willingness to abandon hierarchy, Griffin says. “When you don’t flip that pyramid upside down and you don’t involve the people who are actually doing the work, you’ll get the mission accomplished, but at some point, you’re going to probably run into a roadblock because you missed a key ingredient for that recipe.”
While culture is often dismissed as a “soft” asset, Walmart has long relied on tangible mechanisms to keep it measurable. One of the most enduring is its quarterly grassroots meetings, where associates meet without management present to share and document concerns. The method provides a new metric and perspective—the kind experts say is needed to find the missing link between purpose and performance.
The steak night metric: For Griffin, signs that the culture is improving become apparent not when complaints disappear, but when they evolve. Once the trust issues are addressed, the conversation can turn to more pressing matters, he explains. “I told somebody in a meeting one time, ‘Well, if having steak on the weekends also is the biggest concern that you all have right now, then we are doing good! You know? We can do that. We can ensure you get steak on the weekend also.'”
However, such a thriving business culture doesn’t spring up overnight, Griffin continues. Instead, it’s an ongoing process that requires constant communication, especially as technologies and generations evolve. The companies investing in this area now already have a stronger foundation for continuous adaptation moving forward, he says. “I’ve been out of the military now for three years. But I still have people that I mentored who reach out to me. The process worked. It actually worked, and it will give you results.”
Ultimately, Griffin’s perspective boils down to a single priority: before companies can gain a competitive advantage, leaders must realign their primary focus. “The culture is huge. I think culture is everything within a company. And I think that we sometimes lose sight of culture being one of the primary focuses of a company, with people being the main driving factor of culture.” But his last piece of advice was also the most straightforward: “It all comes down to simple human interaction: kindness, empathy. Let’s not overthink it. Let’s just get back to the basics.”
Leaders who struggle to prove culture ROI tend to focus on process over people, often missing the signal in changing employee complaints.
Willie Griffin, Walmart People Partner and HR Manager, explains how a servant leadership approach can help by treating changes in feedback as a metric that matters.
To measure culture ROI, Griffin runs quarterly associate-only meetings without managers, logs every concern, and measures progress by tracking complaints.
Walmart
What if proving the ROI of company culture has less to do with eliminating employee complaints and more to do with tracking how they change? From concerns about trust to requests for new tools or questions about company steak night, even a slight change in feedback can tell leaders a lot about their people. Now, that seemingly insignificant information is helping teams solve bigger problems, like measuring progress on an asset many leaders consider intangible.
For an expert’s take, we spoke to Willie Griffin, SPHR, LSSBB, PMP, a People Partner and Human Resources Manager at Walmart. With a 21-year career in the United States Air Force, Griffin’s perspective was forged in what he calls a “rougher, hierarchical environment.” After leaving the military, he decided to lead in the opposite direction, building his career on the belief that people are a company’s true competitive advantage. For Griffin, it starts with servant leadership.
“I’m a hands-on leader. I’ll sweep the floors, and I’ll file the paperwork—the same things that my subordinates do. That’s what earns me respect from frontline workers. And once I have their respect, honestly, it’s easy. Everything else falls into place,” Griffin says. But the task isn’t always so effortless for other leaders.
For many, the problem is a form of tunnel vision, he explains. Under so much pressure, some leaders get so fixated on “processes and procedures” that they neglect what matters most: their people.
A missing ingredient: A key part of this philosophy is a leader’s willingness to abandon hierarchy, Griffin says. “When you don’t flip that pyramid upside down and you don’t involve the people who are actually doing the work, you’ll get the mission accomplished, but at some point, you’re going to probably run into a roadblock because you missed a key ingredient for that recipe.”
Walmart
While culture is often dismissed as a “soft” asset, Walmart has long relied on tangible mechanisms to keep it measurable. One of the most enduring is its quarterly grassroots meetings, where associates meet without management present to share and document concerns. The method provides a new metric and perspective—the kind experts say is needed to find the missing link between purpose and performance.
The steak night metric: For Griffin, signs that the culture is improving become apparent not when complaints disappear, but when they evolve. Once the trust issues are addressed, the conversation can turn to more pressing matters, he explains. “I told somebody in a meeting one time, ‘Well, if having steak on the weekends also is the biggest concern that you all have right now, then we are doing good! You know? We can do that. We can ensure you get steak on the weekend also.'”
However, such a thriving business culture doesn’t spring up overnight, Griffin continues. Instead, it’s an ongoing process that requires constant communication, especially as technologies and generations evolve. The companies investing in this area now already have a stronger foundation for continuous adaptation moving forward, he says. “I’ve been out of the military now for three years. But I still have people that I mentored who reach out to me. The process worked. It actually worked, and it will give you results.”
Ultimately, Griffin’s perspective boils down to a single priority: before companies can gain a competitive advantage, leaders must realign their primary focus. “The culture is huge. I think culture is everything within a company. And I think that we sometimes lose sight of culture being one of the primary focuses of a company, with people being the main driving factor of culture.” But his last piece of advice was also the most straightforward: “It all comes down to simple human interaction: kindness, empathy. Let’s not overthink it. Let’s just get back to the basics.”
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