📣 Rosetta Williams, Sr. Director, People Talent & Culture @ Immigrant Justice Corps:
I hear you - and you're naming something a lot of us are experiencing right now. The good news is you don't need a big budget or a complete overhaul to start making meaningful progress. You need strategic focus on what actually moves the needle.
Start with diagnostic clarity: What specifically is broken? 'Outdated people leaders approach' could mean anything from managers who can't give feedback to decision-making bottlenecks to lack of role clarity. Get concrete about the 2-3 most critical dysfunctions that are actually impeding work.
Prioritize ruthlessly: You can't rebuild culture while you're drowning. Pick ONE high-impact, low-cost intervention that addresses a core trust issue. Examples:
Decision rights clarity (who actually decides what)
Transparent communication about realistic expectations
Manager skip-level conversations (costs nothing, builds connection)
Simple recognition practices that acknowledge real contributions
Reframe your role: You're not the last line of defense - you're a strategic advisor who helps leaders make better decisions. That shift matters. You can influence without owning every cultural problem.
The budget reality: Most meaningful cultural work doesn't require budget - it requires leadership commitment and follow-through. If your leaders won't prioritize culture without a price tag, that tells you something important.
What's the most urgent trust gap you're trying to close? Let's talk through what might actually work in your constraints.
📣 Lilya Vicencio, People + Culture Manager @ MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation:
Culture doesn’t need to be rebuilt right now, it needs to be made believable again.
That happens when leadership becomes consistent, accountable, and clear enough that people can stop surviving and start contributing AND it doesn't cost a penny!
If I were the last line of defense, I’d focus on three things first:
1. Stabilize before you inspire.
When teams are siloed and defensive, it usually means roles, expectations, and decision rights are unclear. Before talking about values or engagement, leaders need to be aligned on how work actually gets done, what “good” looks like, and what behaviors are non-negotiable.
2. Make managers the culture carriers (without giving them more work).
Culture lives or dies in day-to-day manager behavior; how schedules are handled, how feedback is given, how conflict is addressed. Instead of launching new programs, I’d tighten the basics: consistent expectations, simple people practices, and manager accountability for how they lead, not just what they deliver.
3. Rebuild trust through consistency, not initiatives.
When trust is low, employees watch actions, not announcements. Even small things; fair scheduling, clear communication, predictable consequences, leaders modeling the behavior they expect, do more for culture than any engagement survey ever could.
This isn’t about fixing everything at once. It’s about earning credibility back one decision at a time, especially in an industry where margins are tight and burnout is real.
Culture rebuilds when employees stop asking, “Is this going to change again?” and start believing, “At least I know what to expect here.”
That’s where I’d start.
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