From Values to Behaviors: How to Build a Culture of Candor

People Managing People

Candor is easy to value and hard to operationalize. It takes more than writing "feedback" on a poster and hoping people magically feel safe being honest. In this episode, I talk to Valentina Gissin, Chief People Officer at Garner Health, about how her team institutionalizes candor and turns culture into lived behavior—not empty slogans.

We dig into radical practices like publishing peer and upward feedback company-wide, cultural onboarding through case studies, and pushing back against the illusion of "culture fit" during hiring. Valentina also shares what she carried over (and what she left behind) from her time at Bridgewater, one of the most studied and controversial company cultures in corporate America.

This conversation is a blueprint for any leader asking the hard question: how do we make our culture real at scale?

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Chapters

1. Institutionalizing Culture at Scale (00:00:00)

2. Radical Candor: Publishing 360 Feedback (00:02:57)

3. Translating Values into Competencies (00:05:04)

4. Testing Culture Fit in Hiring (00:09:06)

5. Adapting Bridgewater's Culture: Key Edits (00:14:26)

6. Closing Thoughts and Questions (00:19:01)