This has been a long time in the making. On May 12, it’s ready to be shared.
I’m excited to share my forthcoming book Connected Culture: The New Science for Thriving Teams and Culture.
Over the past year, through my work with executive teams and in partnership with Principles, I introduced the 5Cs model. The 5Cs is an evidence-based model designed to help leaders understand what truly drives team health, performance and culture. This model grew out of rigorous research and lived experience—years of watching what actually helps organizations move from burnout and fragmentation to connection and sustainable performance.
Connected Culture brings the 5Cs together in one place. The book pairs science with stories, and insight with practical tools leaders can actually use. This isn’t a theory book. It’s a guide. A roadmap for leaders who want to lead differently and build teams where people can perform at a high level and cultures can thrive.
My hope is that this book feels accessible, human, and immediately useful. I hope it becomes a resource you can return to as you navigate the real challenges of leading teams in today’s world.
Preorder your copy here.
Jamie Shapiro
Founder and CEO of Connected EC
Why Culture is a Company’s Operating System
Culture is one of the most misunderstood concepts in business today. Many executives and leaders still underestimate culture’s impact to drive results and business outcomes. Here are the top three misperceptions about culture I see repeatedly:
- Culture is only defined as the visible elements, meaning the company’s mission, vision, values and purpose.
- Culture is an HR initiative.
- Culture is secondary.
Sadly, this status quo view of culture is not only incorrect, it often leads CEOs and senior leaders to overlook culture as a top critical business priority. This can become a continual de-prioritization around humans in the workplace.
The truth?
- Culture encompasses both the visible and invisible elements; culture goes deeper than the visible elements.
- Culture is everyone in the organization’s responsibility; culture is not an HR initiative.
- Culture is the company’s operating system; culture isn’t secondary.
Three Core Culture Principles:
- Culture encompasses both visible and invisible elements
What’s missing around the culture conversation first is how executives and leaders define culture.
When I ask executives about their organizational culture, they typically reference the mission, vision, purpose and core values. These are the visible elements, which are important and foundational to culture. However, it’s not the complete picture. The extreme of only looking at the visible aspects is they become a list of statements on a wall that are separate from leaders and workers’ daily behaviors.
Leaders often miss the culture’s invisible elements of the norms, beliefs and practices. These are equally as important. The invisible elements drive how work gets done. The culture must be experienced day-to-day to be most impactful.
This includes rewarding people for demonstrating behaviors that align with it. When individuals aren’t living the culture and being rewarded for the associated behaviors, there is a disconnect.
- Culture is the responsibility of everyone in the organization
Culture is shaped by how people behave every day. That’s not something to outsource to the HR department. It’s something for every leader to embody.
For example, when culture is considered an HR initiative, I see executives ask HR: “What should we expect from our leaders?” Instead, it’s everyone’s responsibility to understand how to show up and lead every day.
It’s a strategic imperative for every single leader to understand their role in owning the culture.
- Culture is the company’s operating system
For too long, culture has been considered secondary and not the foundation for how business operate.
Culture can feel elusive and intangible, which can make it hard to understand why it’s so critical. There haven’t been enough tools to provide a roadmap of how to measure and track culture transformation progress.
Leaders and executives focus significant effort on their business processes, meaning how information flows through processes and systems. They don’t focus enough on how they’re developing the type of culture that creates an environment where people are executing against the strategy.
In truth, culture determines how work gets done: how people make decisions, coordinate, and recover from setbacks. Culture transformation can be systematized with a roadmap.
The cost of the status quo view of culture
When CEOs and executives operate with a status quo view of culture, they often don’t realize a weak culture is the root of stalled results or transformation. They believe something is off with the strategy. They blame the resources or process.
The underlying issues are commonly cultural, not structural breakdowns. Consider these common challenges teams and organizations face:
- Disconnection and silos: the underlying issue is weak connection
- Decision latency: the underlying issue is poor communication
- Duplicated Effort: the underlying issue is low clarity
- Execution bottlenecks: the underlying issue is fragmented collaboration
- Declining innovation and ownership: the underlying issue is lack of contribution
The 5Cs Framework
The 5Cs framework is a scientifically validated framework. Specifically, it is a psychometrically validated system that makes the culture visible, quantifiable and actionable. It brings a level of structure and a systemized approach to improving team performance and culture. The 5Cs model captures the five critical elements to create high performing teams and thriving cultures. The elements are:
- Connection: Quality of interpersonal and organizational bonds, grounded in trust and well-being.
- Candid Communication: Open, honest, constructive dialogue that surfaces truth early.
- Clarity: Clear roles, goals, and processes that focus energy and cut ambiguity.
- Collaboration: Working together with shared accountability and excellence, reinforced by team support, accountability, and excellence norms.
- Contribution: People feel their work matters and reflects core values, creates impact, supports meaning & mattering, and connects to shared vision & purpose
How leaders can start owning the culture
Leaders can focus on strengthening Connection, which encompasses trust and care right away. It’s the heart of the model because building trust and care within an organization is foundational to all other elements.
To start, shift your mindset when interacting with others from transactional to relational. Instead of focusing solely on getting work done, prioritize creating real connection and relationships.
One of the most powerful ways to build trust is also one of the simplest: to listen. When people feel seen, heard and acknowledged, it fuels stronger relationships and better results.
Reflection: What’s one way I could show up more relational and less transactional with others this week?
Here’s what changes when CEOs, executives and all leaders start embracing culture as the operating system:
- Humans are prioritized in the workplace: people are recognized as the greatest access point to accomplishing business goals.
- Leaders stop outsourcing culture and start owning it: recognizing it’s not HR’s job alone, but a responsibility embedded in everyday behavior across the organization.
- Behavior becomes intentional: goals are no longer only focused on the “what,” but about the “how” that aligns with the culture.
- Change becomes actionable, not abstract: by focusing on one cultural lever at a time, teams avoid overwhelm and build momentum through small, meaningful shifts.
- Trust and care are the foundation: starting with Connection, leaders shift from transactional interactions to relational ones, listening to understand and making others feel seen and valued.
Leaders who embrace culture as the operating system don’t just change behavior, they change outcomes. Because how people work together is what determines whether the strategy drives the business forward.
