Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

Will Smith: Your Culture Is a System

29 Oct 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:08

A single-speaker YouTube monologue arguing that organizational culture—like a computer operating system—is foundational to company performance. The speaker emphasizes servant leadership, modeling service from the top, and the formula “time + trust = influence,” illustrated by hands-on behaviors (clearing plates, helping clean rooms, contacting upset customers) as ways to build trust and influence regardless of company size.

Chapters

It doesn't matter how successful the man or woman is. They put their pants on one leg at a time. I understand that I'm in an elevated position, but to me, if I want people to serve our customers the way that they need to, then I need to model that behavior from the top down. And this speaks to the culture of any organization in servant leadership. And so from that culture perspective, culture is the operating system on a computer. A computer is you can buy the best and fanciest computer out there, but without the operating system behind it, the computer doesn't work. And culture is the same, in my opinion. So for us, the first thing I ever did in starting this company was built the structure for the culture. And it's time plus trust equals influence. So the more time I spend with my team, the more they trust me, the more I can influence them to do the things I do. So that is simply clearing a plate, helping them clean a room, contacting those customers that are upset. That to me, is super important, and I'll never change that. I don't care of the size of the organization or not those kinds of things. To me, it comes from truly the ability to be a servant leader.