Co-Creating Culture: How to Build Cultures with Your People, Not for Them

In a world where professionals are more mobile and organizations less stable, the role of culture has become more essential, and more misunderstood, than ever. Too often, culture is treated like a static blueprint: top-down, rigid, and resistant to change. But as Gianpiero Petriglieri, INSEAD professor and our Nordic Business Forum 2025 speaker, explains, “A ‘strong’ culture, for me, is one that is vital.”

Vitality means life. A culture that is alive is one that is owned, practiced, challenged, and constantly evolving—not by leadership alone, but by everyone who’s part of it. Not one that is admired or ignored. We asked Gianpiero a few questions to find out how to build strong cultures in the time of nomadic professionals and unstable organizations.

Here’s how leaders can build a culture with their people, not just for them.

Start with Values

According to Gianpiero, the first essential component of a strong culture is “a set of clear values, demonstrated through consistent actions, and transmitted through compelling stories, which foster alignment.” However, leaders cannot dictate these values alone.

Leaders must go further and offer “enough freedom for individuals to bring those values to life in different ways, and to challenge them at times, which fosters empowerment.” This freedom isn’t a threat to alignment—it’s how people make meaning of culture for themselves, creating true ownership.

Culture becomes powerful when people don’t just comply—they contribute. When individuals are invited to live the values in their own way and to question them thoughtfully, the culture is able to grow. This invites people to be not just participants, but co-authors of culture.

“I believe we are all after the same Grail. We hope to find leaders who help us feel committed but not captive.”

Find Freedom in the Sense of Belonging

Gianpiero’s second essential component of a strong culture, freedom, needs to be balanced with a sense of belonging. Leaders often face a tension between offering autonomy and fostering commitment, especially when so many professionals have become mobile.

As Gianpiero says, “For an organization to survive, to be vital, it needs to align people to its culture, and also free them up to change it. Too much of the former, and the culture ossifies. Too much of the latter and it dissolves.”

To find that balance, Gianpiero argues that “you need to have a viable answer to the question, ‘how does belonging to this organization make me freer than I would be elsewhere?’” That freedom could come in the form of acquiring unique skills, expressing oneself authentically, or building meaningful connections they couldn’t find elsewhere. These, he says, are all features that “make belonging not confining, but liberating.”

When culture makes people feel more like themselves, not less, commitment becomes voluntary and lasting.

Build Emotional Ties

Leadership, for Gianpiero, is “primarily about emotion and human connection.” He believes that emotional awareness and sensitivity don’t come from theory but from real relationships. This is also his third and final essential component of a strong culture: “Opportunities for people to connect across differences, which fosters community.”

He advocates for cultivating friendships at work; “relationships that help us refine our humanity, not only improve our performance.” If leaders can build these kinds of bonds for themselves, they’re more likely to extend them to others and foster a culture where people genuinely feel seen and supported.

“People trust leaders who tell them about a different future, and show them a different present.”

Co-create with the Right People

“My research leads me to believe that the most mobile professionals, who can and often do pick between organizations that can potentially host their work, pay a great deal of attention to those organizations’ cultures,” says Gianpiero. And to create an attractive culture, he offered us two more tips: prioritize learning and lead by example.

Gianpiero finds that a genuine focus on learning in the workplace is the most attractive feature of an organization for nomadic professionals. He urges leaders to find a “genuine balance between instrumental and humanistic principles and practices, between performance and learning.” Paradoxically, he says, “The more portable an organization makes us feel, the more likely we are to want to stay there a little longer.”

Finally, he reminds us that culture is caught more than taught. Leaders must model the vitality they wish to see and start with their own behavior. His principle is clear: “If you want to change the world, be prepared to change your world.”

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As Gianpiero shows us, strong cultures don’t ask for conformity. They offer connection, meaning, and the freedom to grow.

By inviting your people to interpret, challenge, and grow the culture with you, you’re not giving up control—you’re building something no leader can sustain alone: a community. A culture people believe in because it belongs to them, as much as they belong to it.