Local author Carol Ring believes in the power of workplace culture, and has developed a framework to both build it and measure it. Ring is an Ottawa-based author and the CEO of HR firm The Culture Connection. Before starting her firm in 2007, Ring spent 24 years with Rogers Communications in various roles. “When I […]
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Local author Carol Ring believes in the power of workplace culture, and has developed a framework to both build it and measure it.
Ring is an Ottawa-based author and the CEO of HR firm The Culture Connection. Before starting her firm in 2007, Ring spent 24 years with Rogers Communications in various roles.
“When I was regional president of Rogers in Ottawa, we had a very successful business unit and I recognized then that creating a great culture was an important piece of that success. Then I was promoted to Toronto, where the customer satisfaction was poor, the operating costs were too high and the employees were demoralized. I knew culture would be a big part of that turnaround,” she explained to OBJ.
During her time in Toronto, she met Richard Barrett, founder of the Values Centre, who had developed a method to measure organizational culture through values. That interaction had a profound impact on her approach to culture in the workplace, Ring said.
“It was like the clouds lifted because, until then, much of what I had been doing around culture was more intuitive. I knew it worked, but now I had a way of measuring culture and identifying it was getting in the way of performance and I was able to make more informed decisions on what needed to change. It was a turning point.”
And so during her time with Rogers she developed a framework for measuring culture as a quantifiable business lever. Her experiences helped her build The Culture Connection, and now form the basis of a new book, People Problems Solved: 9 Accelerators the World’s Top CEOs Use to Drive Results.
With a mission to “bring more joy into the world,” Ring said she was inspired to bring more joy into the workplace by offering business leaders the tools they needed to build better cultures. Her book outlines key issues affecting business results.
“For decades, business leaders have been told that engaged employees deliver great business results and that’s what I call ‘the big lie.’ When you think about what CEOs really want, it’s sustainable growth. They want fiercely loyal customers and, obviously, the ability to attract and retain great talent. Just think of great local examples, such as Ross Video and Shopify,” she told OBJ.
Although employees may be engaged in the workplace, they may not deliver the best business results if culture falls by the wayside, she added.
“We’ve spent decades trying to improve employee engagement, assuming that business results will follow. Engagement matters, but it’s not enough. I believe that what drives exceptional business outcomes is a great culture and a great culture is an employee experience that enables people to do their very best work.”
The biggest barrier to a healthy workplace culture is ignoring the issue completely, Ring said. And since culture is often overlooked by leaders due to its “nebulous” nature, if not taken seriously, it can end up costing the business.
“Leaders don’t really understand what culture is costing them, because culture can either enhance and drive your business forward, or it can hold your employees back,” Ring said. “To the degree that it’s holding your employees back, it’s a cost to the organization. It doesn’t show up on the balance sheet or the income statement, but it’s there. There’s a cost to culture, but I think that’s challenging for leaders to get their hands around.”
Still, a good workplace culture is not one-size-fits-all, Ring said.
“Culture and strategy need to go hand-in-hand, so that’s why culture will look different depending on the business you’re in. For example, Disney is all about creativity, innovation and customer experience. If you’re running a nuclear power plant, you’re going to have safety and accountability very high in your culture and the Disney culture won’t work everywhere. You certainly wouldn’t want your nuclear plant technician to be putting innovation on their maintenance checklist.”
The book’s framework includes nine “accelerators,” or pieces of advice to help leaders create a better workplace culture.
One is “unwavering commitment,” Ring said. While some executives may work to make their own department shine, Ring said leaders should have “unwavering commitment” to the company’s culture and values to help the whole team win.
“It’s not about having the perfect culture, but it is about creating the culture that your business needs,” she said.
Another important accelerator she highlights in her book is “unvarnished discovery.”
“I worked with this one organization where their (values-based workplace) assessment revealed that confusion was the No. 1 (feeling) that employees were experiencing. When we dug deeper into that, we discovered that the organization was introducing more change than employees were able to absorb. Leadership reacted by reducing the amount of change they would bring in at one time and they aligned their approach … Without that discovery, those leaders might have just assumed that the employees were resistant to change and they would’ve gone to solving the wrong problem.”
Ring also speaks about “premier talent” and how hiring and promotion decisions can make or break a culture.
“So often we focus on whether someone has the technical skills and experience to do a job and it’s tough when the labour market is tight. But we also need to consider whether their personal values align with the values of the organization,” she said.
She expands on this in her book by speaking about “culture ambassadors” versus “culture vultures.”
“Culture ambassadors are the people whose values and behaviours reinforce the culture you’re trying to build and culture vultures, on the other hand, are the ones that undermine that culture. Still, culture vultures aren’t bad people. They’re often just round pegs in square holes from a values perspective and would thrive in a different organizational culture,” she said.
As Ottawa businesses wade through the uncertainty brought on by AI and tariffs, Ring said that some of the accelerator solutions could help businesses weather the storm.
“We’ve got federal government cuts that are reshaping the talent market. We’ve got defence and technology companies that are growing rapidly. And, at the same time, Ottawa businesses are not immune to all these growing pressures on their margins. In an environment like this, organizations can’t afford the inefficiencies that come with a culture that’s holding people back. Culture can either help a business navigate these challenges or make them harder to overcome.
“My advice to Ottawa CEOs is to start with one question: is my current culture capable of delivering my future business strategy? Then, measure it. Find out what’s helping people perform and what’s getting in their way. That really gives you the evidence that you need to make deliberate decisions and not just tweaking little items that come back from engagement surveys,” she added.
She feels this was the perfect moment to launch her book.
“If you can get rid of all that friction, you’ll have happier, more productive employees and businesses hum. I wanted to share this with the rest of the world. The reason I wrote the book now was because I realized that the work I’m doing is more than just an assessment tool and building an action plan. It’s looking at the organization more holistically and sharing a practical approach for CEOs on how they can get a great workplace culture.”
