Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This talk, co-sponsored by the Berkeley Culture Initiative and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, features with Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, Senior Advisor, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & Google Ventures.
Dr. Sue Desmond Hellmann is a physician scientist who has spent the past four decades as an innovator and leader in life sciences. She has been a leader in a variety of past positions - CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, President of Product Development at Genentech, and Chancellor of UCSF.
In conversation with MBA students, Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann will discuss leading cultural change, creating high performing teams, her experience as a woman in leadership, and lessons learned throughout her wide-ranging career from medicine to philanthropy.
Following the discussion, there will be time for time for audience Q&A. Note that those guests who attend the event in Spieker Forum will be given priority for questions.
This talk, co-sponsored by the Berkeley Culture Initiative and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, features with Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, Senior Advisor, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & Google Ventures.
Dr. Sue Desmond Hellmann is a physician scientist who has spent the past four decades as an innovator and leader in life sciences. She has been a leader in a variety of past positions - CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, President of Product Development at Genentech, and Chancellor of UCSF.
In conversation with MBA students, Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann will discuss leading cultural change, creating high performing teams, her experience as a woman in leadership, and lessons learned throughout her wide-ranging career from medicine to philanthropy.
Following the discussion, there will be time for time for audience Q&A. Note that those guests who attend the event in Spieker Forum will be given priority for questions.





![Episode 1: The Key to Keeping a Culture Strong
Welcome to The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer, a podcast created by the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation.
In this inaugural episode, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava—two Berkeley Haas professors who have dedicated their careers to studying and advancing workplace culture—answer a question from WD-40 CEO Steve Brass about how to create and maintain a strong workplace culture.
What does it mean to have a strong culture? According to Jenny:
“A strong organizational culture is one where people both agree about whats important and care. And so if you think about in your head a two-by-two box here, which is what academics love to think in terms of, you have one with agreement, low-high, one with intensity, low-high. If youre high on both, you have a strong culture. If youre low on both, you have a weak culture. But if youre high on agreement but low on intensity, you have what we call a vacuous culture. Everybody agrees, but nobody cares. And you could be high on intensity but low on agreement, and there youll probably have a lot of conflict, or what we call warring factions. So those are the possibilities for how strong culture can array.”
Jenny and Sameer also discuss the dark side of strong culture. According to Sameer:
“I think its also important to keep in mind that strong cultures can also have a dark side, and an organization with a culture that is too strong can quickly become stifling and fail to recognize the value and importance of non-conformists who are often really central to efforts to innovate and change the culture over time. In fact, if an organizations culture becomes too strong, it can actually take on the qualities of a cult. And so theres a risk of having a culture that may be just too strong.”
The two also discuss Jennys take on Netflix and Genentechs cultures and how leaders even know how strong their culture is.
Do you have a vexing question about work that you want Jenny and Sameer to answer? Submit your “Fixit Ticket: https://forms.gle/mxt7gBpRFqy4e52z5
Find the full transcript and learn more about the podcast at: https://haas.berkeley.edu/culture/culture-kit-podcast/.
Jenny & Sameer’s 3 Main Takeaways:
1. Define – understand what a strong culture is and its purpose
2. Assess – understand how to assess and track it over time so you know if there are gaps between what your current culture emphasizes and what you need to be emphasizing strategically
3. Reinforce – recognize that culture needs to be consistent and comprehensive so that people believe it’s real and are willing to support itShow Links:
• Leading by Leveraging Culture (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B-IPY07BTvUquL3im82SeH-mK5PUjxZJ/view)
• Genentech Case Study A (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UImr6Rug-PoboDksNnIqpyJvyu9lpcdU/view?usp=drive_link) and B (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LvmBqzfIj7u-QhXAX0Nf5j34BVwEGARh/view?usp=drive_link)
• Company Culture Soars at Southwest Airlines (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffthomson/2018/12/18/company-culture-soars-at-southwest-airlines/?sh=1eeb662f615f) [Forbes]
• New Analytics of Culture (https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-new-analytics-of-culture) [Harvard Business Review]
• Language as a Window into Culture (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0008125617731781?casa_token=NPsC8wsTOqMAAAAA%3AozYqAF60wjvs q0Y3mTdze4f_0f2QPpJad3bKqop9tJtl7AczEYxz2pjGU0XusVcXVWZd66t-U) [California Management Review]
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1u6_DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=netflix+culture&ots=vXk03N3DNd&sig=uZgdncIQbS-Sgt4vcFHopq7-Hbc#v=onepage&q=netflix%20culture&f=false)
You can learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at https://haas.berkeley.edu/culture/culture-kit-podcast/.
*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.* Episode 1: The Key to Keeping a Culture Strong](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RiFlFTlcbMA/mqdefault.jpg)




