You can put ‘People First’ on the wall. You can put, ‘Our people are our greatest asset!’ on the website. You can even give everyone a company mug that says, ‘Teamwork Makes the Dream Work’.

Eventually somebody must actually create a culture where people want to work.

In this episode, Rona Lewis and Jeffrey Hansler take on five warning signs that your company culture may be heading south.

And Jeffrey, apparently heading south himself, arrives looking like culture has already won.

The conversation starts with engagement or, more accurately, the disturbing lack of it.

Gallup’s latest global workplace research says only 20% of employees worldwide were engaged in 2025, while low engagement was associated with an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity. Managers aren't exactly thriving either: manager engagement fell to 22%.

So, basically, congratulations! Your employees aren't engaged, your managers aren't engaged, and Jeffrey is so exhausted he may be engaging primarily with his pillow.

The five warning signs:

1. Engagement is alarmingly low

2. Managers shape culture far more than the mission statement does.

3. Managers themselves are struggling.

4. Curiosity may be one of our last human advantages.

5. Leaders may say they love curiosity—right up until somebody gets curious.

This may be the great cultural paradox. Leaders say they love innovation. They say they love creativity. They say they love people who ‘challenge the status quo.’ Right up until someone challenges their status quo.

Then suddenly curiosity becomes, ‘Why are you questioning this?’, ‘Who approved this?’, ‘Can't you just follow the process?’, and ‘Is there a reason you keep asking questions?’

The result is a culture where people learn very quickly that the safest employee is the employee who keeps their head down and their questions to themselves.

And then there's Jeffrey. Somewhere along the way, Jeffrey appears to have become the living embodiment of Episode 204, The Great Exhaustion.

Rona is discussing culture. Jeffrey is discussing culture. Jeffrey is also apparently conducting an unauthorized longitudinal study on what happens when a human being records too many podcasts.

At one point, the conversation wanders through Sarbanes-Oxley, middle management, AI, curiosity, Steve Jobs, Bear Bryant and the general human tendency to make things unnecessarily complicated. Which is, frankly, exactly why we have Biz-Souls.

The hosts eventually land on the real issue: Good culture isn't what you say. It's what people experience.

And the interesting part? Bad culture can be remarkably durable. The episode points to examples where the personality and behavior of a founder or leader can continue influencing an organization long after the person is gone.

The takeaway… If you want people to engage, don't just tell them to engage, give them something worth engaging with.

Have you ever worked somewhere where everyone knew the culture was terrible except the people in charge? Rona and Jeffrey would love to hear about it.

In the meantime, make their day by sharing, following, and subscribing to Biz-Souls.

A few facts worth weaving into promotion

The Gallup numbers make the episode particularly timely. Its 2026 report says global engagement fell to 20% in 2025, the second consecutive annual decline, with manager engagement falling to 22%. Gallup estimates the resulting low engagement cost the global economy roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity, or about 9% of global GDP.

There's also a useful AI connection: Gallup's July 2026 research says U.S. employee engagement remained flat in the first half of 2026 even as AI adoption accelerated, and employees were more likely to be engaged when AI was introduced with clear expectations, thoughtful implementation and manager support.

The SEC notes that the 2002 law strengthened management's responsibility for internal controls and financial reporting following scandals including Enron.