Culture is the multiplier on strategy. A brilliant plan executed by disengaged people produces mediocre results, while a sound plan carried by people with high will produces extraordinary ones.

For 25 years leading WD-40 Company, I ran the business on a simple equation. High will of the people plus sound strategy equals great results. Leaders pour enormous energy into the strategy half of that equation and almost none into the will half, then wonder why execution stalls. The data now confirms what I learned in practice. The will of your people is the difference between a strategy that lives and one that dies on the page.

TLDR

• High will of the people describes a workforce that is engaged, trusted, and connected to purpose, and it acts as the multiplier on any strategy.
• Gallup’s research links highly engaged business units to 23 percent higher profitability and 18 percent higher productivity than disengaged ones.
• McKinsey finds that healthy organizations deliver three times the total shareholder returns of unhealthy ones.
• Culture is a measurable financial driver, and treating it as an HR line item leaves value on the table.
• CEOs and boards build will through clear purpose, psychological safety, coaching, and recognition, measured as rigorously as the P&L.

What Does “High Will of the People” Actually Mean?

High will of the people is the level of engagement, trust, and shared purpose a workforce brings to its work. It is the human energy that turns a plan into performance.

Will is not enthusiasm for its own sake. It shows up as people who care about the outcome, feel safe to contribute, and understand how their work matters. At WD-40 we tracked it deliberately, because a strategy moves only as fast as the people willing to carry it. When will is high, people bring ideas, effort, and commitment. When it is low, they bring compliance, and compliance never built anything great.

High will of the people plus sound strategy equals great results.

Why Do Great Strategies Fail Without Engaged People?

Strategies fail without engaged people because execution runs on discretionary effort, and disengaged employees withhold it. A plan is only as strong as the will behind it.

Gallup’s global research shows how thin that will has become. About 21 percent of employees worldwide were engaged in 2024, and low engagement costs the global economy close to 9 percent of GDP, as reported by Forbes. The 2024 decline alone cost roughly 438 billion dollars in lost productivity, Forbes also found. A leadership team can design a flawless plan, but if two-thirds of the workforce is watching from the sidelines, the plan underdelivers.

The reverse is equally true. Highly engaged business units are 23 percent more profitable and 18 percent more productive than disengaged ones, and top-half units carry 2.33 times higher odds of success, according to Gallup’s Q12 meta-analysis of more than 180,000 business units. Will is the variable that decides whether strategy converts into results.

Is Culture Really a Financial Driver or Just a Soft Metric?

Culture is a financial driver. The performance gap between healthy and unhealthy organizations is large, measurable, and durable.

McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index, built on more than 20 years of data and millions of survey responses, shows that organizations in the top quartile of health deliver three times the total shareholder returns of those in the bottom quartile, across every industry. When companies manage with an equal eye to performance and health, they more than double their probability of outperforming competitors. Purpose compounds the effect. Companies that emphasize a common purpose are 2.4 times more likely to set a clear direction, and firms whose employees report both purpose and clarity have delivered higher risk-adjusted stock returns over time.

Organizations in the top quartile of health deliver three times the shareholder returns of those in the bottom quartile. Source: McKinsey

The numbers put an end to the idea that culture is decoration. Culture is the engine.

Why Do So Many Leaders Still Treat Culture as an HR Line Item?

Leaders treat culture as an HR line item because it is harder to measure than revenue and easier to delegate than to model. That delegation is the mistake.

Harvard Business School’s Boris Groysberg and his colleagues found that executives often let culture go unmanaged or hand it to HR as a secondary concern, and their strategy plans then go off the rails. The maxim often attributed to Peter Drucker, that culture eats strategy for breakfast, endures because leaders keep proving it. Strategy is set in the boardroom. Culture is decided in the hallway, in the first 30 seconds after a mistake, in whether people feel safe to speak. A CEO who owns the strategy but outsources the culture has surrendered the multiplier.

How Do CEOs and Boards Build High Will of the People?

They build will by making purpose clear, making it safe to contribute, coaching instead of judging, and measuring culture as seriously as the P&L.

Start with purpose that people can feel, rather than a statement on a wall. Create the psychological safety that lets people surface problems early. Replace annual judgment with regular coaching, and empower people to decide close to the work, which McKinsey links to better decisions and stronger financial returns. Then measure it. Boards review financial health every quarter, and the organizations that win review organizational health with the same discipline, because health improvements show up in performance within 6 to 12 months.

Strategy will always matter. But strategy is the easy half of the equation, because competitors can copy it. The will of your people cannot be copied. Build it, protect it, and measure it, and you own the one advantage no rival can lift from your deck. High will of the people plus sound strategy still equals great results. The leaders who remember which half they tend to neglect are the ones who win.

To go deeper on building the will of your people through coaching and Learning Moments, explore the resources at The Learning Moment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “high will of the people” mean?

It describes a workforce that is engaged, trusted, and connected to a shared purpose. That collective will acts as the multiplier that turns a strategy into performance.

Does company culture really affect financial performance?

Yes. McKinsey finds top-quartile healthy organizations deliver three times the shareholder returns of bottom-quartile ones, and Gallup links highly engaged teams to 23 percent higher profitability.

Why do good strategies fail?

Execution depends on discretionary effort, which engaged people give and disengaged people withhold. A sound plan carried by a disengaged workforce consistently underdelivers.

Is culture the same as employee engagement?

They are related but distinct. Engagement describes how committed and connected individuals feel, while culture describes the shared values and behaviors of the group. Both drive performance.

Why should culture not be left to HR alone?

Culture is set by leadership behavior every day, so a leader who delegates it loses control of the multiplier on strategy. Owning culture is a core executive responsibility.

How can leaders start improving the will of their people?

Clarify a purpose people can feel, build psychological safety, coach instead of judge, recognize good work, and measure organizational health with the same rigor as financial results.