Louis CarterFounder and Chief Executive Officer, Best Practice Institute · Founder and CEO, Best Practice Institute - Most Loved Workplace® | Organizational Psychologist | Creator of AI Workplace Intelligence and Employer Branding Platform

"You can’t buy a culture from the supermarket," Simon explains. "You have to earn it."

11 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief dialogue, Speaker A emphasizes that organizational culture cannot be purchased like a consumer good; it must be earned through sustained, collective effort over several years. He notes that his team has been working for two and a half years and that genuine cultural transformation typically requires around five years of daily commitment from all levels of the organization, not just a single leader. Speaker B reinforces this point by linking it to the concept of “Most Loved” workplaces, stressing that true cultural change demands both top‑down leadership and bottom‑up love, with everyone participating together.

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You're right, you can't buy a culture from the supermarket. You can't buy a culture, and you can't do it. You have to earn the culture. You have to work hard for the culture. I've been working so hard with my team for the last 2 and a half years, and with the help of my team, we're getting somewhere. But to change the culture, you need 5 years. When you want to buy a phone, you can go and buy a phone today, but you can't go buy a culture from the supermarket, say, okay, I want to buy this culture. You go home and you're happy. No, it's not going to happen. We have to work every day with that culture because it doesn't work with me alone. It works from top to bottom. Everybody is there, you know, with the help of the team.
That's exactly aligned. And people sometimes misunderstand what Most Loved workplaces are really all about. It's exactly what you're describing. It's not just top-down. It's not just bottom-up, top. It's, it's not just top-down. It's bottom-up love, right? Because everybody together, everyone together.