Unlocking Excellence: How Culture Drives Success in Nonprofits

With nearly fifty years of experience shaping high-performance leaders, teams and organizations Steve Gandara has made quite an impact. As Co-Founder and Managing Director of Excellent Cultures, Inc., he and his team of professionals have partnered with global brands—including Toyota, Microsoft, Costco, Caterpillar, and Subway—to help build workplace cultures recognized for unity, excellence, and industry dominance.

Steve’s Message: Why most non-profits and ministries believe that they have excellent cultures but don’t. Scientific proof that the Creator hardwired Excellent Culture into human DNA. The Power of Corporate Culture is like the power of corporate worship: It changes everything. How to intentionally transform any culture to excellent using scientific instruments to read the soul of a leader or organization and Biblically based process to transform it.

For more information go to – https://excellentcultures.com

Take advantage of Steve’s free culture assessment at – https://excellentcultures.com/business-culture-mri/

Interview Summary

In this episode of The Nonprofit Exchange, I had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Gander, a seasoned expert in cultural transformation and leadership development. With over four decades of experience, Steve has worked with a diverse range of organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits, helping them build high-performance, values-driven cultures.

We delved into the critical role of culture in organizational success, emphasizing that culture drives everything. Steve shared insights on how beliefs govern behavior, both individually and collectively, and highlighted the importance of understanding and measuring culture to foster excellence. He explained that many leaders unknowingly create barriers to a positive culture, often leading to defensive behaviors among their teams.

Steve also discussed the concept of “culture engineering,” which involves a structured process to create and sustain high-performing cultures. He provided practical advice for nonprofit leaders, stressing the need for self-awareness and the importance of confronting the reality of their organizational culture.

As a takeaway, Steve encouraged listeners to utilize the resources available on his website, excellentcultures.com, particularly the MRI tool that helps organizations assess their current culture against desired benchmarks. This episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable steps for leaders looking to transform their organizations and create a thriving culture.

I invite you to reflect on your own beliefs and behaviors as a leader and consider how you can take that first step toward cultural transformation. Thank you for joining us, and I hope you find this conversation as enlightening as I did!

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou

This is Hugh Ballou. Welcome to the nonprofit exchange. Today, I have a great guest. We’ve always had great guests, but this is no exception. And it’s a really different dynamic. And Steve Gander and I have an affinity for leadership and really excellent culture. So he’s got some specific information. Sit down, take notes, share this with other people. You will be glad that you spent the next 25 minutes working on yourself and thinking about what you can do differently to reach the goals that you have in your mind. So about Steve, for more than four decades, Steve has coached leaders, transformed teams, and helped organizations build high-performance, values-driven cultures. His work focuses on measurable cultural transformation, leadership excellence, and sustainable organizational growth. With experience spanning Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and non-profit organizations, Steve is well known for his practical wisdom, cultural engineering systems, and deep commitment to developing leaders who inspire leaders. So this episode is titled Engineering High-Performing Cultures in Nonprofits. Steve, welcome, and tell us what inspired you to do this work of cultural transformation and leadership development.

Steve Gandara

Yeah, great question, Hugh. I describe it as a divine vortex. 47 years ago, I just got sucked into doing this work. by a series of circumstances that I had no idea, wasn’t something I ever planned, but just got sucked into it, experienced it, and ended up in a business that was about transformation for people. And, you know, the first time, you know, I actually did a workshop, I was like the guy in chariots of fire. You know, I felt God’s pleasure when I ran only this case, it was I felt God’s pleasure when I did this workshop and saw the transformation and the results in people’s lives. And from then on, you know, I knew that’s where I was supposed to be. And we’ve just kind of developed and worked and unfolded and learned things from our clients and learned things from scientists and experts now for 47 years and have a wonderful team of people who are experts in their fields and different components of our process that have come along and taught us and we’ve served everything from, gosh, individual leaders, young leaders. We’ve got curriculum now that universities are licensing for their college and MBA programs, all the way to small businesses, to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve served Toyota for 35 years, Microsoft, Subway Sandwiches, Caterpillar, lots of big companies as well, very simply because most people don’t know it, but culture drives everything. When you know what it really means and how it works, it drives everything. It’s like the water coming into the harbor. Every boat goes up when the water comes into the harbor and when the culture goes down, every boat goes down. Peter Drucker told us that culture eats strategy for breakfast and the Harvard Business School stole it and decided that culture eats strategy for lunch. You know, what I would say is Yeah, if you don’t understand culture, it’s the most misunderstood concept you could ever be around, because everybody talks about it all the time. But nobody’s ever looked up the definition, because they think they already know. Why would you look up a definition for something you already know? And the problem is, everybody does, they know it. But it’s a different definition. So it’s like everybody’s always talking about fruit and one sees an apple and another orange a banana if you’re Latin America, it’s an avocado or a papaya. And it’s like trying to get your arms around jello, and the great news is is that when you know what it really is how to measure it how to understand it science behind it. the data-driven tools that are available now, you can not only understand it, you can manage it, you can transform it, and you can use it to create excellence if that’s what you have passion for.

Hugh Ballou

Yeah, people have their own definition. And if it’s wrong, it’s deadly. So as a career musical conductor, I understand how performing culture is in a choir, in an orchestra. But I don’t think people really understand culture. So I got a two-part question. Define what you mean by culture. And then I have on my music stand this musical score. It’s dots on paper. So, the integration from that, like we have a strategic plan sometimes, and that’s words on paper. So, the integration from the strategy into performance is what I do. But without the culture, you’re dead from the start. So, you got leadership skill and culture. So, define culture. And why is it, you know, the real driving energy for success where strategy is just the platform?

Steve Gandara

Yeah, great point. You said that word strategy. And as I define this and answer your question, what I want folks to realize is that there is in fact a proven strategy for building an excellent culture. But like any strategy, if you don’t understand the strategy and how to implement it, and you don’t implement it properly, then you don’t end up where you want to be. But if you looked up, if you just Googled the words corporate culture, you’re going to get two definitions, one from Harvard, one from Cambridge are the two top. When you put them together, they’re the beliefs that govern how people behave. So if someone believes my boss is a jerk, they’re going to behave totally different than someone who believes the opposite. My boss is great. If you have a teenager who believes all my parents want to do is control my life, they’re going to behave totally differently than the teenager who believes my parents want the best for me. So it’s the beliefs that govern. And then that word corporate doesn’t just mean companies or corporations. Corporate is any unified body of people. Like you’d have corporate worship in a church. Corporate. So it’s the beliefs that govern how people behave individually, and then collectively as groups or teams. Now, the problem with beliefs is if you believe the scientists, the International Masterson Institute will tell you that our human brain process 11 million bits of information a second, but we’re only consciously aware of 40 bits, not 40 million, but 40 bits versus 11 million. And what Dr. Bruce Lipton at Stanford tells us that 95% of everything that we do is driven by our subconscious, these beliefs that we don’t know that we have, that are driving everything. And according to Dr. Lipton, most people don’t even know that they have a subconscious or that it exists. And again, last piece of the puzzle, that teenager who believes that her parents are, all they want to do is control her life, could have just read that on Facebook from one of her friends, adopted that belief, and now she’s behaving totally differently. Or the guy who believes his boss is a jerk, could have a great boss. But if he had a boss two bosses ago that was a jerk, he is subconsciously viewing the world and all of his future bosses through that lens and behaving accordingly. So it’s the beliefs that govern how people behave individually and collectively. And 95% of those beliefs are subconscious. So we don’t know what they are. And until we can find out what they are, measure them, understand them, define them, identify them and change them, we’re stuck.

Hugh Ballou

we are stuck. That is the point. And, you know, it’s what we don’t know that’s so damaging to us. So, you talk about culture engineering. And then, so talk about what that is. And then how do you define a high-performing culture?

Steve Gandara

Well, let me take the last question first, and then we’ll get back to culture engineering. There’s two scientists who we partnered with for many years, Dr. Rob Cook and Dr. Clayton Lafferty at the University of Michigan, who, you know, nearly 50 years ago, started studying the subject of corporate culture and developed a suite of instruments that you can measure it. And it’s now become the global standard of measuring corporate culture. So you can see with data what your culture actually looks like. And we’ve been around it long enough and have done enough of these with literally thousands of people and hundreds of organizations, maybe even thousands of organizations probably now, that there’s a science as well. It’s both a science and an art. It’s much like your orchestra work. There’s a science behind it and there’s art to doing it. And there is a structured process. So, the key is that, you know, excellence is not a goal, you know, it’s a process and a skill. And it’s a strategy, if you will. And when you can identify what the benchmark of an excellent culture is, and compare it against with real data tools, like a doctor uses an MRI to see what’s below the surface or an x-ray, find out what’s going on below the surface and compare it against what you want and what’s ideal for you. And even the global standard of what an excellent culture is, which is a culture that is high performance. It’s a culture that, you know, the people work together in a manner that is continuously improving and embraces four different behavioral styles that are all driven by beliefs. So let’s just take those four behavioral styles. One is achievement. That’s people setting and achieving goals. Another is called self-actualization. It’s continuous improvement. It’s being all that you can be. It’s fulfilling your God-given potential. Another one is humanistic encouraging. It’s respecting and honoring people. It’s loving your neighbor as yourself. And then the last one the scientists call affiliative, which basically is unity. It’s a team together, everybody pulling together, not non-competitive team, but a team that’s the NFL team in the postseason, where it’s all of us together competing against the other guys, or against our goals, or against our market share, or against our mission, compared to the NFL team in the preseason, which is everybody stabbing each other in the back to get the coach’s attention. So yes, the strategy of how you get there, very proven. Been doing this for 47 years. After you do anything that long, you kind of figure out what sort of works, what kind of works, what never works and what always works.

Hugh Ballou

I love it. I love it. You know, I’ve been doing my work about that long, too. And, you know, I’m an expert in the things I do because I made all the mistakes.

Steve Gandara

Amen to that. Battle scars can be very wonderful learning experience if you process them correctly.

Hugh Ballou

you know, what doesn’t work. So despite our best intentions, leaders often set up problems and we are sometimes the barrier to the culture we want to build. So the saying with the conductor is what they see is what you get. And so we can’t yell at people for playing what they see. So there’s a parallel in all cultures to that, right?

Steve Gandara

Yeah. So for example, let me change one word in what you just said, that leaders are sometimes. Our science and our data has proven that leaders are not sometimes the barrier. Leaders most times are the barrier. In fact, 72% of all leaders who lead people create the opposite of those four constructive behaviors and styles and mindsets. They create the opposite of people setting and achieving goals. They create people who are underachieving and don’t know that. And the 72% of the leaders who lead in a manner that creates defensive behavior, people resisting change rather than embracing it, people being driven by approval, their job, you know, they’re like Washington, DC, where your approval score is more valuable than your job effectiveness score. People that are avoiding conflict rather than solving problems. Most leaders create that and they don’t know how they’re creating or what to do to create it. And until they learn how, it’s literally impossible to change it. Now, if you look at the recent data, I think it was either Google or Amazon, I forget which, you guys can look this up, I think it’s called the Einstein study, not too long ago. And what they found was something like, our data says, what, 72% of leaders who lead people create defensive behavior, which works against the outcome that they want. I think it was the Einstein study said something like, and look it up because I’m not sure if this is exact, something like 24% of leaders create what they call psychological safety, which is an environment as a direct result of their leadership. that people, you know, want to be all that they can be, they set and achieve goals, they’re continuously improving. They’re unified as a team, they have each other’s backs, they care about each other. And and they perform at a level of excellence that continuously improves. That’s the difference. It’s leaders that cause that, for the most part, it’s not all on leaders, but at least 72% of it is on leaders.

Hugh Ballou

Brilliant. Oh, those are hard statistics. I agree with that. I was understating the problem. So to our listeners and viewers, you heard a lot of great stuff. Don’t fret. There will be a transcript at thenonprofitexchange.org. Find this episode about excellence cultures. All of these great tips will be in writing for you. So do not fret. Make notes about what you’re going to do about this. more than the quotes themselves. So Steve, let’s talk about, I see in college degree programs, they call it management. I agree with Covey, you manage things, but you lead people. So how do we make the pivot from trying to manage people’s behavior to transforming belief systems and performance?

Steve Gandara

Yeah, great question, Hugh. And the fact is that, I agree with Dr. Covey as well, But the problem is, most leaders never get past management into leadership. My definition of leadership is really simple. Look over your shoulder and if people are following, then you are one. If they’re not following, you’re not. you know, one of my good friends and former partners, PhD, ran the largest industrial organizational psychology department at a university in history for a large part of his career. I remember there was one semester that he took all of his, I think it was about 80 master’s and doctorate level candidates in industrial organizational psychology, and they studied one proverbial problem. It was the question of, are leaders born or are leaders made? And 80 doctoral and master’s level candidates studied this, every bit of information, every book that was ever written, every assessment that was ever done, everything they could find for a whole semester. Guess what they found out? It’s both. Leaders are born and leaders are made. There are some folks that just have natural charisma and they have talent, you know, Gallup calls it a strength, which is a combination of your talent and what you’ve learned, you know, your God-given talent you’re born with and what you’ve learned, they call it a strength and measure it with a strength finder. Some leaders just folks naturally follow them. But just because folks naturally follow you doesn’t mean that you’re as good as you can be. Those leaders can always improve. And it also doesn’t mean that you cannot learn the skill because leadership is a skill. It’s not just, you know, a natural God-given talent. It’s just like some people are natural athletes and they can go to the golf course and pick up a golf club and, you know, and hit the ball beautiful. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a good golf coach who can give you instructions and teach you how to become a good golfer. because it’s a learnable skill as well as it’s natural. So it’s both. And if you’re fortunate enough to be one of those who looks over your shoulder and people naturally follow you, then great, you’ve got a gift. But don’t stop there because you can get much better. And imagine what you could do if you could help people learn what you know in a way that they can impact others as well inside your organization. And if you can build a culture that it’s easier to be that way, the kind of leader that people naturally follow and want to follow, then it is the opposite.

Hugh Ballou

Yes, yes, yes, well-spoken. So nonprofit leaders are entrepreneurs. We’re social entrepreneurs. We’re not corporate. We don’t have to follow the corporate pattern because we’re doing something very different because the world needs it. It doesn’t mean we have the skills to do it. And so there’s a crisis now and has been for a while in burnout in leaders. So part of that is, well, a big part of it is our own making. We’re running a nonprofit business but it’s a lot harder than a business, because you got A, all the regulations, and B, you’ve got volunteers.

Steve Gandara

Absolutely, absolutely.

Hugh Ballou

So how do we make the pivot? Sometimes teams say, oh, this is how it should go. How do we make the pivot for teams that resist change, that don’t see your vision? And how do we help them get ownership of what the vision is?

Steve Gandara

Yeah, great, great question, Hugh. Great, great question. What we found in the work that we’ve done with nonprofits, you know, the government word for a nonprofit is a tax-exempt organization or a tax-exempt corporation. And what we find is that they’re actually more apt to not have an excellent culture than a for-profit business. And the reason for that is because, as you said, social organizations, you know, the purpose of a of a nonprofit or a tax exempt organization is to make a social impact, to do good for people, to do good for humankind, to do good, you know, for the planet, you know, to do good for God if you’re a faith based nonprofit. But what happens oftentimes is that the people that are attracted to that kind of work are there for the mission. And when it’s all about the mission, there’s a tendency to ignore the culture, because when you feel bad, you don’t change your feeling of feeling bad about what’s going on at work every day, by correcting the mistake or finding out or researching what’s wrong, what do we fix it, you correct it by saying, Oh, we’re doing this wonderful work for people. Oh, we’re doing this wonderful work for God. And we start feeling really good about something that’s really bad and don’t know we’re doing it. And so and when you’ve got a culture of that, where everybody’s doing that, you are not just stuck, you’re really stuck, and you don’t know you’re stuck. And really, I mean, the tax exempt organizations, you know, if anybody, you know, are the people who are making the biggest positive impact on humankind, you know, even then for profit businesses, because when you’re in a for profit business, you know, their challenges, they slip into well, it’s all about the money instead of it’s all about the people. But but the key is that, you know, you can do both. And again, you know, it is a strategy. It’s a proven process. It’s a skill. And it’s it’s very both science and an art. And it’s very, very learnable if you’ve got the right concomitance in the organization, especially with whoever your senior leader is, you know, to want to do it and be willing to do it because they want to improve themselves, not just by something that they can make the people do and not practice it themselves.

Hugh Ballou

You are a wealth of very useful and implementable information. So, we’ve got a few more minutes in the show here, but I want to tell us where your website is. What’s the URL?

Steve Gandara

Yeah, it’s excellentcultures.com.

Hugh Ballou

Very simple. Excellentcultures.com. I’m going to pull it up for people on video, but there’s people on audio. So talk about what people will find there.

Steve Gandara

Well, so when you go to the website, probably the thing you want to look at first is if you go to the about. And if you look at the about, there’s a menu called client stories at the bottom. And if you’ll go to that client stories page, you’re going to see a bunch of short videos of real world stories from leaders of organizations, everything from Microsoft to Toyota, like the first two that you see down to smaller organizations and businesses. for-profit, non-profit, you know, these are like small, short, five-minute or less video case studies. One of them, the one you see now, is the world champion triathlete talking about how he applied excellent culture to become the world’s champion triathlete. Everything from sports to business to for-profit, non-profit, I mean, watch those videos And they’re free, just go look at them and you’re gonna learn lots from other people. The one on the right that you see now is a case study of a General Motors plant that went from labor management conflict, people wanted to kill each other, bullets being fired through the window of the VP of HR at midnight, to a unified culture that put five and a half million dollars in scrap production on the bottom line. in just 20 months. So look at those videos. You can learn a lot from them.

Hugh Ballou

Great. Great. So I’m going to give the website again at the end. So as we’re wrapping up here, what tips do you have for immediate steps that nonprofit leaders can take now to begin transforming their cultures right now?

Steve Gandara

Yeah. So the first thing you need to do is you need to snap the fake reality out of your culture. You can’t let yourself be believing a lie about how wonderful your culture is. just because of something that you’re measuring or paying attention to that is not the truth. So what we’re giving you, again, no strings attached, no financial commitments. Hugh’s gonna give you a URL, excellentcultures.com slash MRI, that’s just like a medical MRI. And in 10 minutes, you can go online and answer 10 questions twice, Once about the culture that you desire, a second time about the culture that you actually have or you experience. You can go online, do this in less than 10 minutes and get a data profile that benchmarks the vision for the culture that you want. against our database of the best, highest performing cultures in the world, so you know if you have the right vision, and it will also tell you in the same 10 minute exercise because we’ve done this lots of times, thousands, literally thousands of times for many people, many leaders, many organizations, The algorithm does all the work for you. So the first thing you need to do is stop believing a lie about the culture that you have and look at reality. It’s just like, you know, you can tell yourself you’re not overweight all you want to until you have a heart attack. And the doctor says, you need to go on a diet. You know, you need to get your cholesterol down. I mean, how many people do we know that have had that awful experience? You know, stop telling yourself everything’s wonderful, you know, when it’s not. Let’s look at the data. You know, people could lie about numbers, and they do all the time, but numbers never lie about people. You know, when you get on the scale and see how much you really weigh compared to what your New Year’s resolution is, the truth that you know. Someplace I read that it’s not the truth that set you free, it’s the truth that you know will set you free. And if you can know the truth about your culture, it’s the first step to being set free. Did that answer your question okay, Hugh?

Hugh Ballou

That’s good. And that’s a really good place to close. You’ve given us, Steve, thank you for your insights and the wealth of information. And with this exoncultures.com slash MRI, you’re giving us data. Edward De Bono writes books on thinking skills, and he says, having data is important for making decisions. And so self-awareness is a challenge and it’s something ongoing. Also, here in your narrative here is that you’ve given us tools, you’ve given us insights, now it’s up to us to step up. So you can find Steve and his work at excellentcultures.com. And Steve, your work reminds leaders that culture is not accidental. It must be intentionally designed and lived daily. You’re the example, you’re the leader for our listeners. Take time to reflect on one belief, value, or behavior you can strengthen to elevate your own leadership cultures. Transformation begins with one step, that first step. So, don’t forget the resource. Steve, thank you so much for being here today on The Nonprofit Exchange.

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