Our Vision., Mission., Purpose., Strategy., Story.,Calling.

 

We envision a world where workplaces are hubs of emotional well-being.

 

We believe that when people are emotionally fulfilled at work, they have a positive impact on everyone around them. We therefore seek to enhance our communities by empowering the organizations we serve to send the best versions of their employees home to those communities each and every day.

Don’t Miss A Minute of The Journey.

If you like where we've been, you'll love where we're going. You may even want to come along for the ride. 

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CultureSmith Inc. was never meant to be a company.

 

In 2005, we started Surch Recruitment Group Inc., experiencing ten straight years of growth. We confronted the same challenges our CultureSmith clients face today. The same growing pains. The same entrepreneurial pitfalls. Felt the same strain on our family lives. We tried the usual advice. The standard 'solutions'. When none worked we felt abandoned. Once we realized help was not coming, we helped ourselves.

Frameworks that made our brains work.

 

We needed to find a way to make our emotions work at work. So we researched. Learned everything we could about emotional intelligence. Started building frameworks. Those frameworks...worked. Things got better. A lot better.

 

We felt like we had a cheat code. An unfair advantage over all our competitors.

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Opportunity knocked. We answered.

 

Friends and clients saw us thrive. Asked what we were doing. So we showed them. They returned with questions. Questions became favours; "Can you teach me?". Favours became paid assignments; "Can you teach my team?". Assignments turned into referrals; "Can you help my friend's company?".

 

Within 6 months of our 'first favour', Surch Recruitment Group was gone and CultureSmith Inc. was born.

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Empathy Met Expertise.

 

Consultants helped us build our first tools. Our expertise has grown in-house since then. Our CEO refined the framework while earning his Masters in Psychology of Leadership. We have logged over 10,000 executive coaching hours, rebuilt more than 100 teams across North America, and revolutionized the traditional hiring process.

 

All in pursuit of a world without loneliness. A future where work serves as the catalyst for emotional well-being for all people.

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The wake-up call.

 

When we say all people, we don't just mean your colleagues. We're more concerned with the people you return home to. That's where this journey began for us. A 360 review one of our CEO's kids gave him. A 'fun activity' he read about on a blog. Learning how his relationship to his work affected her emotions turned out to be anything but fun.

 

He holds that 360 in his wallet to this day. Its lesson is held in every tool we've built since.

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Our Vision.

 

It created a vision of the world we want. One where work is a source of emotional well-being for all people. Growing emotionally at work to reap the benefits once home.

 

We do not see the workplace as the primary cause of emotional distress. It is however the largest and most undeniable lever for change.

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Our Mission.

 

We pursue our vision by challenging leaders to abandon rules-based cultures emphasizing short-term results, fault-based accountability, and punishment as a motivational tool.

 

We reduce their dependency on these tactics by simplifying the adoption of choice-centric cultures that promote autonomy, vulnerability, continuous learning, and personal growth.

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Our Purpose.

 

We believe that when people are emotionally fulfilled at work, they have a positive impact on everyone around them.

 

Consequently, we seek to enhance our communities by empowering the organizations we serve to send the finest versions of their employees home to those communities each and every day.

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Our Strategy.

 

Our strategy is simple. Working with others causes emotions. Using these emotions, we help people better understand themselves, unlocking gains for the organization in the process.

 

The prevalence of emotionally draining rules-based organizational cultures combined with the enormous impact of work on a person's psyche, motivate us to transform workplaces into hubs of emotional literacy and psychological well-being, one organization at a time.

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Our Ideal Client.

 

We work with scale-up organizations experiencing rapid growth. Large enough to face the miscommunications, trust issues, conflict, and turnover our solutions target, these organizations remain lean enough for their executive team to own the delivery of our programs.

 

Leaders who are parents are a special focus, given the added complexity emotion brings to both roles.

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Our Podcast.

 

As a suffix, 'hood' describes a state of being. 'Ship' conveys the act of navigating.

Dedicated to demystifying emotional intelligence, Leaderhood and Parentship is the CultureSmith Inc. podcast.

We make it for leaders who see leadership as more than a title, and parents who see parenting as their most meaningful journey.

New episodes drop each Tuesday.

Key Episodes:

Episode 01

Discover Your Behavioural Colour and How It Applies to Life at Work and at Home.

Episode 02

Emotional Intelligence 101: Applications at Work and at Home.

Episode 16

A Candid Conversation About Bullying.

Episode 38

What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us at Work and at Home.

Our Founders.

 

Entrepreneurs. Experts. Leaders. Recruiters. Coaches. Parents. Our founders wear many hats. Which is why you can trust them to help you better wear each of yours.

Our archenemy.

 

Loneliness carries the same health risks as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Loneliness is more than being alone, though. Loneliness is feeling empty while alone.

 

Through deconstructing and explaining emotion, we can help people understand what makes them feel fulfilled. In doing so, we seek to offer tools to combat loneliness, even when work requires people to be alone.

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Our Battlefield.

 

And we are nearing 'peak alone'. Demographic shifts, technology growth, and the move to a knowledge-based economy have created a perfect storm. Each force amplifies the next, creating a self-perpetuating flywheel effect, that has forever disrupted how work gets done.

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Our Collective Reality.

 

From finding a date to fixing dinner, choice defines the modern economy. To win marketshare you must offer more of it, faster, and with less friction than anyone else. If you fail to do so, someone else will. Autonomy - operating from choice - is a basic psychological need. The perfect storm has flooded all markets with choice.

 

Choice powers our lives. What makes you think it doesn't power your workplace? Changing jobs used to be labor-intensive and risky. Now it's just a click away. Rules remove choice. They don't compel compliance. They create the choice to leave.

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To survive the modern economy, leaders need to replace outdated rules-driven cultures with choice-based ones. They turn to us when they realize how complicated 'choice' can be.

Our Secret Weapon.

 

'Decide' comes from the Latin 'de' meaning 'off' and 'cide' meaning kill. To decide is to kill off a consequence. Choice is Intentional (one wants to do it), Informed (one knows their alternatives and the risks and benefits of each), and Independent (no pressure or coercion is brought to bear).

 

Without awareness of one's unconscious traits, the ability to regulate impulses, the empathy to understand all outcomes, and the ability to hold all this under pressure, choice cannot exist. Choice requires emotional intelligence. No one delivers emotional intelligence like us.

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Organizations dependent on outdated rules-driven methods lack scalable emotional intelligence. Five defining characteristics prevent them from joining their industry's most admired and successful firms.

The 5 Pillars of Rules-Based Organizational Cultures:

The 5 Pillars Of Choice-Based Organizational Cultures:

Our Services.

 

We've channeled our empathy and expertise into three essential services, allowing us to combat loneliness and create emotional well-being by replacing rules with choices:

Not sure which to choose? Book a free demo. Regardless of whether you work with us, we will discuss your needs and formulate a plan that places your organization on the path to emotional stability. It’s a choice you won’t regret.

Our Choices.

 

As organizational culture experts we know core values are rarely valuable. Therefore, rather than compiling a list of aspirational words that fail to guide behavior, we determine what easy choices people make when confronted with the problems we solve, and contrast them with the tough choices we commit to in their place. Our identity is shaped by the rigour of these daily choices. You will benefit from this same rigour should you choose to work with us.

Influence over Inspiration.

 

To achieve our vision, inspiration would be an easy tool to use. To paint a picture of an ideal world. To resort to emotional appeals to convince leaders to listen. Inspiration, however, ignores the trust and concrete strategies required to deal with the complexities and uncertainties that arise when navigating culture-based organizational change.

 

So we choose influence over inspiration. We use our own experiences and expertise to foster trust, encourage vulnerability, and guide action that promotes our vision while also guiding the behaviours required to reshape cultures. This is the only way we will transform the workplace into the crucial catalyst for emotional well-being we know it can be.

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Empathy over Acceptance.

 

It is easy to fall into the trap of acceptance as we fulfill our purpose. To work with anyone captivated by our vision. To avoid confronting outdated leadership tactics for fear of losing clients. But without confrontation, the fear, resistance and uncertainty that foster rule-based structures will persist.

 

So we choose empathy over acceptance. We listen beyond the problems we solve to understand the fears that prevent embracing our solutions. Our toolbox includes both patience and pressure, with empathy as the guiding hand that tells us when to use each. Only through this can we contribute to the well-being of the communities we live in by empowering the organizations we serve to send the finest version of their employees home each day.

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Simplicity over Creativity.

 

It would be easier to embrace creativity as we build our strategies. To see novel problems as requiring novel solutions. However, this only adds complexity and uncertainty instead of effectively addressing core struggles.

 

So we choose simplicity over creativity. We focus on straightforward, easy-to-understand solutions that directly address real struggles. We create clear frameworks that are easy to adopt. As a result of simplifying processes and solutions, we can transform workplaces into emotionally intelligent environments, aligning with our strategy to use work-based challenges to promote lasting change.

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Expertise over Ambition.

 

It would be easier to embody ambition as we pursue our mission. Becoming so consumed with our cause that we challenge leaders and push for rapid change so we can take it to as many organizations as possible. In addition to alienating those who require more support, this approach overlooks the nuances of cultivating a choice-based culture.

 

So we choose expertise over ambition. We deliver lasting change. This is not about acquiring expertise, but imparting it. To turn our client leaders into experts so they may continue to use the tools and systems we provide, long after they graduate from us. In this way, we'll see rules-based approaches permanently abandoned and replaced with the more nuanced and effective choice-based approach to organizational culture our expertise first revealed.

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You’ve learned who we are, who we serve, and why. You’ve learned about our quest to turn work into a source of well-being and how we’ll combat loneliness as we do so. You’ve learned about choice and the power it has to transform everything. Now you're left with a choice. Book a demo call with us and learn if you should join us, or click away and rejoin the status quo. 

 

It’s not the only choice you’ll face today. Stanford researchers discovered we make roughly 35,000 each day.

 

Just think of the last time you drove somewhere only to forget how you got there. Now think how many choices you made while driving. When to tap the break. When to change lanes. What to have for dinner.

 

The bulk of our choices are unconscious. Which is largely why teams fall apart. 

 

Think about the most recent mistake you made. Did you choose to make it? Did you sit down and map it out? Did you survey all your options so that when you made the mistake it caused maximum stress for others?

 

Of course not. But that does beg the question. If we don’t choose to make mistakes ourselves, then why do we react to others as if they do?

 

These are the types of simple problems we solve for leaders each day. Simple problems that carry massive consequences.

 

So while the choice in front of you is just 1 out of the 35,000 you will face today, we argue it is one of the biggest. So we’re going to offer one last bit of perspective.

 

1% of 35,000 is 350. If you were given insight that improved 350 more of your choices tomorrow than you will have today, would your life improve? 

 

If you were given insight that improved 350 more choices each day for the rest of your life, how much would your life improve?

 

If every person in your company was given insight that improved 350 of their choices each day, how much would your company improve?

 

Maybe one of those 350 choices would be to show empathy in the face of another’s mistake. Maybe that would inspire others to ask a question they otherwise wouldn’t out of fear it would be seen as a mistake. What would happen if that took hold and spread?

 

The only way to find out is to book a call. The only thing that should keep you from booking that call is if after everything you’ve seen to this point, you don’t feel we can help you get 1% better. 

 

The choice is yours.