In 1999, NS Group was dying financially and the pride of its employees had been sapped by poor operating performance. The board took action and pushed the founder and CEO, Cliff Borland, to bring in an outside executive and potential successor.

I was named the CEO of Drobo in 2015 and one of the biggest challenges was creating a culture of trust. The team had always been in the dark about what other departments were working on, the financial condition of the company, etc. There was no transparency. I quickly realized that to get the buy in from a team, we as a management team had to be open about what was happening and only then can your team help you be successful.

So here we go with this lesson from The Entrepreneur’s Essentials. It was first shared at Lucky7 (by original blog) on Jan. 31, 2013.

It is no secret that culture is defined, driven and reinforced by the senior leaders, but how do you activate that culture throughout the organization-- from the boardroom to the front line? And who brainstorms events and/or programs to connect and energize employees and embed the values throughout the organization? Who evaluates what is working, what is not working and where the gaps are?

The answer: A culture committee