Building Culture-First Companies: Insights from Culture Amp's CEO, Didier Elzinga
episode
“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
24 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 16 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
For today's Essential Heretics one oh one feature, Kelly and Nolan talked to Culture AMP CEO DDA El Zinga, revealing data driven insights on building culture first companies, balancing psychological safety with accountability, and prioritizing growth as engagement's foundation.
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of HR Heretics. Today we have a special guest, Didia Elzinga, who is the CEO of Culture Amp. Everybody knows what Culture Amp is, who listens to this show. You guys are an employee experience platform. As I was doing my research though for the show, I learned that you actually worked in film and most specifically on Harry Potter movies. So, Didier, how do you go from working on Harry Potter movies to being the CEO of Culture Amp? Nolan, um Kelly, I'm delighted to be here.
Yeah, um and that's obviously a question I get asked a lot.
What is the guest’s journey from working on Harry Potter to becoming CEO of Culture Amp?
So Little quick background. I'm a software engineer by training. I fell into a small post production company. I was employee number four or five. And over thirteen years I was software engineer, was actually sysadmin, software engineer, artist, CTO and then CEO, and I ran that company. I got to this point where I'm like I don't know if making The next version of expendables. is really the difference in the world that I want to make.
How does Didier define a “culture‑first” company and why does it matter?
I became good friends with Mike and Scott at Atlassian, watching them build their business. And I'm like, you know, their business model looks a way better than my business model. And I kept coming back to people in culture because I realized that was actually the thing that drove me the most, which is how do you bring a group of people together and try and do something really difficult and do it in a way that you can be proud of. And so I I used to joke and still do joke that as a CEO you're a glorified psychiatrist. I wanted to build software to help that. And Culture Amp was born. And so that's the mission for us, which is to create a better world work. And here, almost
thirteen years later, I'm still here. I want to talk about uh you you call it a culture first company. You said the real test of culture is when things don't go to plan.
What is the Coherency Matrix and how does it balance trust with mission orientation?
Why should you invest in your people? Because when things don't work, they will invest in you. Can you tell our audience, like what do you think are the important ingredients in a culture first company? Culture first
doesn't mean Culture over everything else. There's a phrase my wife uses which I really like, which is a culture-first company validates the human being while asking more of the human doing. And so organizations that you would probably say aren't culture-first may be amazing because they demand really high things, they have really high standards, they push really hard, but they break people. Because they literally don't see the person as a fundamentally important component. They don't see the culture as a fundamentally important part. Equally places that are like we're just a really nice place to be, we're all good friends, they don't produce great work either. So there is the culture first piece is in the middle.
And it's about understanding In the long run, performance is Is your culture. I learned something from there's a MBA player, Shane Battier, and he has this thing which he calls a coherency matrix. And so you have on one axis trust, psychological safety, you know broad sense of what we would consider to be a good culture. And on the other axis you have mission orientation and you know, you everybody being focused on achieving an outcome. And similar to what I was saying before, If you are fully focused on achieving an outcome but there is no trust, it's a miserable place to be and people break.
Why does growth remain the single most important driver of employee engagement?
If you are fully focused on creating all the trust, but there's not enough mission orientation, you get a slipping standards where even good people aren't producing at the level they used to produce because not everybody's actually pushing in the same direction. But his insight that really resonated with me is that top right that we all want, where those two things are both in train.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:13–1:09
2
What is the guest’s journey from working on Harry Potter to becoming CEO of Culture Amp?
1:09–1:37
3
How does Didier define a “culture‑first” company and why does it matter?
1:37–2:21
4
What is the Coherency Matrix and how does it balance trust with mission orientation?
2:21–3:49
5
Why does growth remain the single most important driver of employee engagement?
3:49–5:24
6
What does the data reveal about the relative impact of leaders versus managers?
5:24–7:08
7
Why should you stop trying to convince people who don’t buy into a culture‑first mindset?
7:08–9:38
8
How did structured performance reviews close the gender gap in employee perceptions?
9:38–24:07
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from “HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
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