Culture, Conviction & Change: Choosing Alignment Over Chaos | Stories With Traction Podcast

In this episode of Stories With Traction, Matt Zaun welcomes back Ricardo Gonzalez, founder and CEO of Bilingual America, to dive even deeper into culture, beliefs, values, norms, and the accelerating impact of AI on trust.

Ricardo breaks down what culture actually is (beyond the buzzwords and posters), why so many companies don’t have a real culture at all, and how leaders can either create and curate culture… or passively allow it to be created for them. They also explore how AI is reshaping work, eroding trust, and what wise leaders can do right now to harness its benefits without sacrificing humanity or credibility.

Other Podcast Episodes mentioned: 

Company Culture: Definition, Benefits, and Strategies 

Company Culture and Trauma 

Company Culture Statement Needed

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

Ricardo, welcome back to the Stories of Traction podcast.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

Thank you, Matt. Good to be back. It's been, what, two or three years, I think, since we were has been.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's been a few years. I really appreciate your time. And I really appreciate what you do, Ricardo. Your work has had a really big impact on me.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

You know, the first time you were on the podcast was July 1st of 2022. That was a year into my podcast journey.

 

Matt Zaun 

That was episode 25. And we did an episode called Company Culture Statement Needed, where you dove into what a company culture statement is, how can leaders implement that.

And then you came back January 27th of 2023, and we did a two-part series. This was episode 55 and 56.

This was Organizational culture through what you mentioned, those five really important categories, beliefs, values, norms, language, and symbols.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

Sure. So in the macro, you have a couple of questions that need to be answered. First, what is culture?

And that's what you're referring to. It is a series of beliefs, values, norms, norms, or expectations. You know, how do we expect people to behave within that culture, right?

So beliefs, values, norms, symbols, and language, right? And so normally when we look at from the external, from the form standpoint, and we look at culture, mostly we're looking at symbols.

So we're looking at things like dress, music, food, you know. So every time you go to like a culture festival, right, it's almost all symbols, you know.

So people in folklore dress, traditional music, recently. The big thing about the Super Bowl halftime show, it was filled.

Whatever one's view of Bad Bunny, who's Puerto Rican, same country I'm from, whatever view of whether you like his music or not, that really wasn't his point.

The point was a cultural statement, and it wasn't a statement against America. It was a statement mostly for Puerto Rico and for Latin American culture.

But if you really understood all of the symbolism within that show, you would go, oh my gosh. And so people typically externally present their culture through symbols, okay?

Sometimes externally through language and how we talk about that, right? Or maybe how we sing about that. But those are kind of the two external kind of things that we typically do.

Okay. Or perhaps, how does it get created? Because we have both possibilities. We can create it, or it will get created for us.

Right?

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

And those are the two big macros. And I know that I mentioned this, because I typically will. Every time I do, like, meet with an executive C-suite group, and we're discussing, and they want to talk about their organizational culture, which is just culture.

Right? And so, I always ask at the beginning, so let's say you have a CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, CSO, C-whatever, right, in that meeting.

So let's say there are eight people. Ten people in that meeting. And I give them a blank piece of paper, and I ask each one of them to write down their definition of their organizational culture.

And this has been true every time. I've never had one outlier on this. All of them define it differently.

So I always go, okay, so if within this group of high-level leaders, we're not even fully aligned on what our culture is, how in the world could the people and the associates throughout the organization have a clue as to what our culture is, right?

Yeah. So there's a huge lack of clarity all through the organization. Thank On, first of all, what culture even is, but secondly, what ours is, right?

So that's big, big picture.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, appreciate you mentioning that. I do want to dive a little bit deeper into that clarity piece, because you had mentioned, like, I'm envisioning this as you're speaking, right?

You're in a boardroom, you give out the instructions for this exercise, and you're starting to read them, and they're all different.

But my question to you regarding that, Ricardo, is how important is unity as it pertains to the definition of culture versus flexibility?

Meaning, you know, if you have different departments in a company, like larger departments, could each of those departments have their own cultures within a broader culture?

So wouldn't they naturally be a little bit different, or do you highly recommend that there is unity regarding the definition of that culture?

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

So if you do not have a clear and compelling macro culture... To which everyone within an organization aligns, then you will get the creation of subcultures or microcultures within the organization.

Is that dangerous? Yes.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's dangerous?

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

Yes. It is not culturally healthy to have that, especially to have that where that is driving the culture of the company almost by proxy.

I believe, and we talked about this when I talked about a culture statement, I believe that everyone within an organization should agree on certain non-negotiations.

Beliefs, values, norms, symbols, and language. If you look, and I think the best example we have of this... They're two separate things.

We have to be aligned on certain non-negotiable beliefs, values, norms, language, symbol, or frankly, we don't have a culture, or we have a very weak one, or we have one that's just being produced for us almost on the fly.

Yeah. Does that make sense?

 

Matt Zaun 

Absolutely. 100%. And I appreciate you mentioning that. And that makes a lot of sense from the beliefs perspective. So that's a really powerful statement regarding you can't have a large diversity of beliefs within a healthy culture.

I can see how that would be to the organization's detriment. I do want to talk a little bit about the values piece for a moment because a lot of companies will tout their values.

And often they speak to the words of those values. know, one of the things that I do in all of my

workshops is I challenge my listeners to not focus on the words of the values. Don't focus on company core values.

Focus on company core stories that exemplify the values that you say you have. And the reason why this is really important for me is if you have a leader talking about integrity, right?

There's a textbook definition of what integrity is. We can all look up what it actually means. But it could mean different things to different organizations based on the story of what integrity means to them, like very specific examples of how that organization has that integrity.

And I think that really ties well into the culture piece because as they do this, they build a company culture of storytelling and they continue to share stories that fit into that integrity piece.

And you can pick any value that's out there, right? I think it's also important because the words are not sticky.

It's the stories. And I like to... You mentioned an exercise that you do. I like to do a simple exercise, and I ask everyone, write out all your company values.

Very few people in a room can actually write out all of the values because the words aren't sticky. So I want you to speak to the value piece and why it is so important to understand the values from a story perspective and how this can enhance someone's culture.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

So I concur and agree with you on the importance of stories, that they're critical, right? But they're the outgrowth.

Everything is inside out, right? And so take your word integrity, which is a great word. I bring a little additional meaning to that, if I may.

So in Spanish, like if you have... What's important to us, okay? So, for example, if I say, I believe that all people deserve to be treated with, treatment would be, be treated with dignity, or all people have intrinsic dignity and worth, if I say that as a belief, then that is going to touch my value, right, of how I treat people.

Which will drive me into the norm, my expectation of, there is an expectation in this organization, because we believe this, we value this, that you're not going to yell at people, you're not going to degrade people.

That's part of our norm system, because it's coming out of values and beliefs. And so you can kind of take that that way.

How you create stories around that exemplary, I think, is critically important, because it illustrates, stories illustrate. Right? But at its core, culture is not story-based.

The stories are the external reflection of what's really going on. Just like the story of our lives, what people see in us is just a reflection, you know, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

Right? And the same is true in organizational culture. As we think, as we believe, that outgrowth will begin to happen.

I don't want to get too convoluted on it, but I do think order, I think it's important, especially for an organization that's struggling through their organizational culture, to get this granular with it and to really think through each particular step of it, if, in fact, our goal is to create the culture that we so desire.

Whatever that happens to be.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, those are really good points, Ricardo. really appreciate you mentioning that. I do have a question on timing regarding beliefs and values.

The speed at which the world is changing is unbelievable. And a lot of values that I've seen from companies is they go through maybe an exercise at some point, or maybe it happens organically from that value piece.

They don't think a lot in terms of beliefs and everything that you're talking about. They end up putting values on their website, and then a decade will go by, and they still have the exact same values.

So even though we should constantly be thinking about our values and our beliefs, and as we interact with people from a business perspective, or even nonprofits as well, what do you recommend for organizations from a timing perspective on them evaluating if the values are still the values that they should have for today?

Meaning, should they be thinking about this, or at least sitting down with their leaders and thinking about this on a yearly basis, quarterly basis?

Or do you think it is appropriate for people to have the same values for decades?

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

So I'm just thinking through the nature of the question. I'm trying to think of some stories that would illustrate what you're asking.

Okay. So take a company like, say, Chick-fil-A. Okay. So whatever one's viewpoint of Chick-fil-A, it's not the point of this conversation.

Okay. The point is culture, right? So Truer Cathy had a belief that Sunday was Lord's Day. That was his belief.

Again, irrelevant. If you share that belief or not, this is strictly a conversation in how culture and values get created.

Right? Okay. Okay. So the belief is Sunday is... It's the Lord's Day in his belief. That's the way the company was founded.

To this day, on Chick-fil-A signs, right underneath their sign says closed Sundays, right? Okay. So if you take that belief and you go, okay, well, what's the value that's coming out of that?

Okay. Well, the value is there's one day a week that we're going to give off to our associates. Uh, so they can be in worship with their families, whatever they choose to do with that day.

That's, that, that's important to them. The norm is every franchisee is not asked, right? Is not suggested you close Sundays.

They're required. It is an expectation. And that creates part of that Chick-fil-A story. It creates... creates... A tremendous amount of loyalty within a certain segment of society, right?

They know who their clients are. Okay. Now, could it change at some point with different leadership? Sure. But in order for it to change, and this is the key, in order for it to change, the underlying belief would have to change.

Does this make sense?

 

Matt Zaun 

Absolutely. Absolutely.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

So the Chick-fil-A story, yeah, you know, I mean, it's amazing, you know, again, I've been to their offices, we have clients with Chick-fil-A, I see what they've tried, you know, they're very intentional about their culture.

Okay. And, but I think that's the story, you know, it's the outcome. But it's all rooted in a very specific belief, right, which creates the values.

And again, people hear terms like values and norms, and maybe it doesn't, you know, just think in terms of what's important to us and what we expect people to do within our world.

Okay. That's what, and if that's not happening, it's not a culture. It's just a very loosely tied group of people who happen to work together, to make money together, to promote a product together or a service together.

But that's not a culture. There are many organizations, many, I might say most, who actually, they don't even have an organizational culture.

There's just a bunch of people getting together around the idea of making enough money. a people people have have have a

Being viable in the marketplace and selling a product or service that they believe in, but they're not a culture.

And that may hit difficult for some leaders to hear, okay, but it's true. And sometimes truth is uncomfortable. You know, okay, but step it back a little bit.

But, okay, so we can either create a culture, right? So there are three things that you can do. You can create a culture, right?

And that can be created intentionally by leadership, which I prefer, okay? But most leaders, it takes a great deal of thoughtfulness and intention and commitment to do this, okay?

And symbols that, you know, companies try to get around this, like their logo is their symbol, which may or may not mean something, you know.

I think you take a company like Nike, you know, just do it. There is a certain cultural story behind that that goes with their running, you know, the past that, you know, they started for runners and, you know, and all of that stuff.

So there's that story, you know. But most organizational cultures, I'm going say this, most organizational cultures aren't. Because we're afraid today, especially today, we are afraid to, quote unquote, impose a certain set of beliefs, values, because we value diversity above that.

And Peter Drucker has this famous quote. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Diversity is a strategy. It is not a culture.

And I'm all for diversity. As long as within that diversity, there is a macro culture that we all align to.

It doesn't matter what color we are. It doesn't matter what race we are. We can all have aligned beliefs.

We can all have aligned values. I mean, if we're defining those things by color, we're in bad shape.

 

Matt Zaun 

For sure. For sure. Or race, ethnicity. Those are really, really good points. Can I say something? Yeah, absolutely.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

So this is fascinating to me. So I saw yesterday, you know, I try to stay up on, you know, news.

And also, I don't like it, but I try to stay up on people's social Social media posts, know, different leaders, 0% and, and, and this is the, this is the dichotomy of what we see and, and perhaps even hypocrisy.

don't know. So I had, I saw a Latino leader yesterday on one of his social media feeds. I won't say who, doesn't matter.

A friend of mine, and he's saying, we need to make sure we get more Latinos in elected office and so on and so forth.

Sounds great, right? And then I'm looking at news in Latin America and I see that Peru, the country of Peru, has just removed from office their sixth president in a row.

And you're going, well, wait a minute, do we want? Because that's what's happened so much of Latin America with our leadership and levels of corruption in our governments.

You see the academy that happens, right? So I'm not going to vote. I'm Puerto Rican, background. I've lived half my life in Latin America.

I'm not going to vote in the United States for a Latino just because that person is Latino. I'm going to vote for that person based on a set of beliefs, values, norms, things that align with me as a human, not things that align with a specific level of my identity.

And I think that we have to be, when there's culture that is defined and refined, that culture is bigger and beyond any subgroups of people.

And that's why I think it's so important to establish the macroculture proper. why vote. Thank Properly, you can create it.

After you create it, you have to curate it. Yes, it takes work to keep it, right? And if you don't, it's just going to get loosely created for you, and you're going to have all of these different subgroups, and there won't be a clearly defined culture.

It's a choice. I'll stop right there. It's a choice. It's a choice.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I appreciate everything you mentioned, a lot of value. So speaking of choice, as you know, right now, a lot of companies are making a choice to lean in as hard as possible to AI, right?

And I'm sure this is going to open up all kinds of different potential discussions, but I am interested to know what you might be seeing regarding AI, how it's impacting culture, how it's shaping culture, any differences in the last few years based on, you know, because you've been teaching this stuff for quite a while.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

What has happened regarding beliefs, values, norms, as it pertains to AI technology? So it's a fantastic discussion, Matt. A lot.

First of all, a lot. So if you take a look at it, and you go, gosh, there's so many different routes we could take this.

Okay. But let me preface with this. I love AI. I embrace it. We have Bilingual America now. We now have virtual tutors who I think are honestly almost as good as our real ones.

They're incredibly trained. They're programmed to do coaching. They're programmed to do conversations. They're programmed to give feedback. I mean, it's amazing what we can do with AI when it's used responsibly.

Here's the problem, or the challenge we have. Oh, I mentioned to you off recording that I was doing some...

I consulting for a couple of companies in Sacramento, so I was flying out, and when I was flying out, they paid for my trip, so thankfully I was flying business class, and it turned out that the person right next to me ended up being the global head for Amazon Prime.

So we were in this discussion about AI, and I asked him, and the company I'm consulting with, one of the companies I'm consulting with in Sacramento is a very, very large construction company that employs thousands of Latinos, okay?

So we're doing culture, leadership development, you know, all that good stuff in that company, okay? Because that's another part of culture, and that is how do we train and develop leaders in the American business culture who have been acclimated to a Latino business culture or leadership model?

Those models are, in fact, different, so we have to recalibrate that, right? Okay. Anyway, so I asked this guy, this is...

... I asked this guy, I won't say his name, how many years before you think we will see robots doing some of the field work that is now being done by a heavy Latino workforce, things like maybe concrete or roofing or things of that nature?

And you're going to get different opinions, but the guy looks at me without batting an eye, without even thinking about it, says, three years.

What are the cultural implications of the United States if you have a displaced Latino workforce of millions of people over time?

I don't know, but it can be huge, right? And one of the things I'm doing with Latino leaders is starting to say to them, hey, as leaders, we have a responsibility to our people to start preparing people for this next world, right?

And if not, people are going to be incredibly displaced. Look, I think the biggest challenge to... With AI, as it relates to culture, is trust.

Because we no longer know if, literally, people will not know. If they watch a video of you and I, they will not know today whether or not it's actually you and I or whether they're clones of you and I.

It's that good right now. Now, we have an erosion of trust. So cloning is a huge challenge with AI as it relates to societal trust.

Am I speaking with you? Is this video I'm watching of you doing something you shouldn't be doing actually you or not you?

Right? So we thought it was bad before when a hit piece would come out in a newspaper. What about when you actually see the video of someone doing something, looks just like them, talks just like them, acts just like them?

But it's AI. You don't know. So I think that our biggest challenge right now with AI, culturally, will be a continued erosion of trust.

Same thing is happening on social media, which you're well aware. You know, how do we know even if news is true, right?

And how do we know if this so-called expert is actually, you know, they're teaching you how to make a couple million dollars a year putting up your online course.

Where's the credential? Did they really do it? You know what mean? So I think one of the things we're seeing with all this is there's an erosion of trust that's happening, which I used to say, you know, Latin America is kind of a zero-trust society where people don't trust you unless you gain it over time.

Where America used to be, we would trust people until they showed us they couldn't be trusted. But that's changing rapidly.

And that is a very definitive change in our cultural construct. It will impact business significantly because it will take, when trust is low, it will take more time to do business together.

Does that make sense?

 

Matt Zaun 

Absolutely. So speaking of that erosion of trust piece, is it possible to get some of the really good advantages of AI but still keep trust intact?

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

And if so, what would you recommend to companies that might have experienced a little bit of an erosion of trust?

Well, I do this, like in my writing or, you know, things like this. I will always say, you know, this is, this is my, I have like an ethic.

That's a as it relates to my use of AI. I think as leaders, we can do that, just to preclude a little bit.

I'm happy to openly share with people how I will leverage AI in my writing, but I won't let it write for me, and it doesn't come up with my ideas for me.

I think those have to be totally observational. know, what's vision and leadership? So most people, when they think of vision and leadership, they think about somebody who's able to see kind of into the future.

I think there's a different way to see that, and that is vision as a leader is, can you see things in the present that other people aren't seeing?

Right? So I think we have to be more proactive. present public, want to be very proactive in And letting people know, here's why you can trust me, right?

Because there is a definitive erosion of trust that's going on. And some of that has happened because of our politics.

You know, we're in a very deep swing of extremes, you know, in our country. And so there's a pull this way, and then there's a pull this way, and then there's a, you know, there's a counter pull.

And every time we seem to be pulling a little bit farther and harder, you know, and so that erodes public trust as a culture, as a society.

And I think we have lost, in the United States at least, and I assume that, you know, at least a good portion of your listenership is probably in the U.S.

Because we have lost trust, to some degree at least, and I think it's accelerating in some of our systems of checks and balances, you know, because...

Like it used to be, we would all go, you know, our government is safe because we have all these checks and balances, but it feels like more and more, it's more about checkmate than it is checks and balances, right?

And I think, you know, I'm not a futurist, I'm not Alvin Toffler, but I think we're heading for a day in the United States, just like Peru is recalling their sixth president in a row.

I think we're heading for those days if we don't correct our culture. I think it's scary. I think we're running, we're running a real risk right now of moving that way.

And we need a, we need a significant movement of leaders who will pull us back to the center and somehow where we can create together a more clear macro.

You know, I've dealt with this ethically as we implement virtual tutors in our program. And what we did, Matt, was, and this may help leaders, I don't know, you know, I mean, it's just this stuff we all struggle, we're all going to have to struggle through.

I think maybe I'm a little further down the curve than some, but just because of my background and what I've worked with, but when we realized that we could accomplish from a results standpoint, very similar results with properly trained and coached virtual tutors who do coaching and writing and revision processes and conversations, like real conversations.

Like if you ask one of our virtual tutors where it's from, it will tell you. It will tell you what kind of food it likes.

It'll be able to have those conversations almost like a real person.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow.

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

Okay. But what we did, I think, to kind of buffer that, and I think that's a good word for leaders today is to buffer these.

It's something we never had done before in our programs, and that was we now have everyone who comes into our language programs is assigned a success coach, a human success coach that they can message directly if they feel stuck, they don't understand something, or they have a need.

So we have these wonderful opportunities with leveraging AI, which is this, you know, every one of us has a genius in our pocket, you know, at the same time, we still have this opportunity now for humanity, right?

So I heard this quote the other day from the CEO of 7-Eleven, and he said, CEO means change equals opportunity.

Right? That's pretty good. And then I started thinking about it, just because I'm a word guy, and I thought, challenge equals opportunity.

Right? Challenge equals opportunity. Change creates the challenge. Problem isn't change. That's a given. It's the challenge that challenges us, right?

So that challenge creates the opportunity to do something different, to something unique, to something special. So when we started going into this whole virtual tutoring thing on language, at the same time, go, okay, we do believe in the value of human connection.

Well, what do we create? Create a success coach who can be out there, everybody can connect with. So now we have direct messaging within our portal, all that good stuff.

I think companies should start thinking, and I'm working with three companies right now on doing this, is every company I think should start thinking in terms of creating an app for their company that is specific to culture, communications, and development, and human connection that will allow groups of people within the organization to connect directly.

There will allow us to see these relationships properly because we, in our culture, are becoming so disconnected, Matt, that if we don't proactively create connection, it won't happen.

So we have to decide, do we want a connected culture? Well, you can't have a culture that's not connected.

I think that's one of the biggest challenges of AI and all of the technology that we're seeing is it creates this incredible opportunity.

I mean, look, you and I both know this. There are people who have already ordered their robot girlfriends, right?

Because they don't question. They don't challenge me. Right? And so we're moving into. To an age in which if people want, they can be disconnected, but the very technology disconnects us as well, and you combine that with the erosion of trust, I think that's a big thing.

Now we have a greater cultural challenge. Does this, I don't know, does this make sense?

 

Matt Zaun 

100%, 100%. I really appreciate everything that you mentioned. I really appreciate this conversation, Ricardo. You offered a ton of value.

You mentioned that word challenge. I challenge everyone that listened to this episode, I really challenge you to focus in on the two questions, Ricardo, that you brought up in the very beginning, and I challenge every listener to ask those questions and how they would have responded to the questions prior to listening to this episode and now after.

And the questions were, what is culture, and how do you create culture? And Ricardo, I really appreciate a lot of what you said.

But there are some clear takeaways for me that I'm going to remember long after our conversation concludes. The first one is when you talked about that unity, that clarity piece.

You dove into, you know, if you don't have a clear and compelling culture, people will define their own culture in an organization.

And then you stressed to us the danger in this because there's no clarity. That's really important. The second piece that I thought was really important that I want everyone to evaluate for themselves and think about this as it pertains to your own organization is you cannot have a large diversity of beliefs within a healthy culture.

Do you have a ton of people in your organization that have different beliefs? I think that was really important what you mentioned there, Ricardo.

The third piece is you said my beliefs will create my values. I think this is a really important exercise for us to just think about, right?

If you went through every C-suite executive in your organization, would they give... And then the fourth thing that you mentioned that's a big takeaway for me is what you mentioned regarding AI.

You said that there's an erosion of trust. And I really appreciate you mentioning that you have an ethics statement as it pertains to how you're utilizing AI.

I think every organization should think about that in a big way. That's really important. So, Ricardo, again, I really appreciate our conversation today.

If people want to get more information on you, what you do, they want to reach out to you for your services, where's the best place that they can go to get that information?

 

Ricardo Gonzalez (bilingualamerica.com)

Send me an email, Ricardo at bilingualamerica.com. I'm on LinkedIn. I think my handle is RicardoGonzalez1, I believe that's it.

And connect with me on LinkedIn. It'd be great. Of course, bilingualamerica.com is a company website, primarily promoting our language courses.