Eight steps to achieving a high-performance culture

Most high-performance culture advice is about implementing systems and metrics. This misses the point. The shift that actually matters is moving from Level 3 (command and control, autocratic) to Level 4 (collaborative, enthusiastic) mindset and culture. That's when everything changes—performance, engagement, innovation, profit.

Professor Vlatka Hlupic researched 58 company leaders who combined passionate employees with excellent business results. What she found: they weren't managing from left-brain rational paradigms. They were "orchestrating from the heart." They built cultures on eight pillars of what she calls Humane Capital—treating people as human beings, not resources.

The critical move is aligning personal values with company values. When people's work connects to who they are outside work, they don't just get things done—they love doing it. Work becomes integral to their lives, not separate from it. Companies that get this right let employees self-organize in communities, experiment with new ways of working unconstrained by hierarchy. Remote teams try fluid office spaces with no fixed desks or hierarchies; people choose different seats based on mood or privacy needs.

The tell is whether your organization actively cares about employees. Not performatively—actually. "Enthusiastic" organizations have embraced an ethos of caring. They've adopted strategies that show they value people as human beings, not just means to an end. That's what creates the culture where employees voluntarily go above and beyond.

The article lays out the eight pillars and explains the five-level model, but the insight is simpler: if you're still managing with command-and-control assumptions, you're operating at Level 3. The leap to Level 4 isn't about better processes. It's about fundamentally rethinking how you see the humans doing the work.