As part of its cultural transformation, Ford created 'street teams' of middle managers and VPs to act as internal ambassadors for the CEO's vision.

Microsoft successfully executed a cultural transformation by training 27,000 of its managers on the new expectations.

The CEO of Bayer is also implementing a strategy to make the company leaner and faster.

The previous consensus-driven culture at Novo Nordisk was internally referred to as 'novo nice'.

The CEO of Novo Nordisk, Mike Dow Star, cut the company's ranks of senior vice presidents in half.

Mentions of 'performance culture' are rising on corporate earnings calls and in annual reports.

Companies including Nestlé, Unilever, Novo Nordisk, and 3M are increasingly adopting 'performance cultures', a trend previously associated primarily with Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Some CEOs are using AI as a justification for layoffs, a practice described as 'AI washing', when the real reasons may be to remove underperformers or correct for previous overhiring.

An estimated 85% of corporate cultural transformations are not considered successful internally.