The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer

Healthcare organizations don't just have an efficiency problem—they have a culture problem. Siloed specialists, misaligned incentives, and fragmented decision-making leave patients frustrated and clinicians burned out. Jonathan Kolstad is a professor of economic analysis and policy at UC Berkeley Haas and is one of the country's leading health economists. He’s the founder and faculty director of t...

The office has never been just a place to work, it both reflects and shapes an organization’s culture. The furniture, the light, the layout, the ratio of private to shared space—all of it sends signals, whether leaders intend them to or not.  Paul Cooper and Christopher Good have spent their careers translating between what organizations say they value and what their spaces actually communicate. P...

Culture doesn’t just shape behavior; it shapes the emotional states people value. Those values operate largely below the surface and can drive some of the most consequential decisions organizations make—who gets hired, who gets promoted, who looks like a leader, and increasingly, how we design AI. For 30 years, psychologist Jeanne Tsai, the Dunlevie Family Professor at Stanford University and dire...

We tend to treat organizational structures—such as job titles, departments, and reporting lines—like furniture: always there, moved around a bit, but rarely questioned. But what if AI is about to redesign the whole office? And in a world where you have humans and agents working alongside each other, how can leaders build a cohesive culture?  Stanford professor Melissa Valentine anticipated some of...

Most organizations say they want to foster creativity. But decades of research by Jack Goncalo, PhD 04, reveals they misunderstand it in fundamental ways: Leaders often implicitly reject novel ideas and penalize creative people when they’re up for leadership roles.  In our Season 5 kickoff, Goncalo unpacks the science behind why—and shares some genuinely counterintuitive findings: the conditions w...

On this special episode, Sameer turns the tables on Jenny and puts her in the guest chair to talk about the new book she wrote with Stanford Professor Glenn Carroll – Making Organizational Culture Great: Moving Beyond Popular Beliefs , out April 2026.  Based on decades of research, Glenn and Jenny’s book takes on the myths, clichés, and wishful thinking about organizational culture and replaces th...

Should you bring your “whole self” to work? Why does authenticity matter for organizations? And what does being “authentic” even mean?  On this episode of The Culture Kit, Jenny and Sameer sit down with their colleague Erica Bailey, whose research is changing how we think about authenticity and leadership. Bailey, an assistant professor in the Management of Organizations Group at UC Berkeley Haas,...

It doesn’t matter where you work—bad meetings are a universal pain point. But they don’t have to be. Rebecca Hinds is an organizational researcher who has spent the past 15 years helping teams fix their broken meetings—and broken collaboration in general. Hinds has applied her Stanford PhD to the future of work, founding think tanks at two technology companies, and is now the author of the forthco...

With the majority of our waking life spent at work, conversations around mental health are crucial for a healthy workplace culture. But how do you open the conversation at work? How can leaders build the trust and psychological safety needed for these conversations?  On this special episode, David Ko, CEO of the sleep and meditation app Calm and author of the book Recharge , shares his leadership...

Think your workplace runs on pure merit? Think again. In this season-opening episode, Berkeley Haas professor and leading sociologist Toby Stuart reveals how hidden status dynamics shape whose ideas get heard, who advances, and why meritocracies might be a “nice myth to think about” but nearly impossible to achieve in practice. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.  Stuart, author of the new bo...

With so many shifting rules and cultural norms, career success can feel like mastering a complex game. Jessica Lindl, Vice President of Ecosystem Growth at Unity Technologies and a Haas MBA alum, shows how a gaming mindset can be an advantage in today’s workplace. Her new book, The Career Game Loop: Learn to Earn in the New Economy , launches April 29.   Jessica joins hosts Jenny Chatman and Samee...

From ride-hailing services to warehouses to hiring platforms, algorithms are increasingly taking on the role of manager. What does this mean for worker autonomy and meaningful engagement with work?  On this episode of The Culture Kit , hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava interview Lindsey Cameron, assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, about the...

Why do some workplaces enforce strict rules while others never seem to start a meeting on time? What happens when a rule-following “Order Muppet”—think Kermit the Frog—pairs up with a “Chaos Muppet” like Cookie Monster? And what does how you load the dishwasher reveal about your cultural mindset? In this episode of The Culture Kit , hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava welcome Dr. Michele Gel...

IBM Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Nickle LaMoreaux is helping to steer the tech giant through the fastest change she’s seen in her two-decade career. In this interview with UC Berkeley Haas professors Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava, she shares how IBM’s bold shift to AI-powered HR helped free up her human team to better support the company’s 275,000 global employees....

How can leaders put AI to work without stifling human creativity and innovation?  Berkeley Haas organizational culture experts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava are back for season 3 of The Culture Kit! The season kicks off with Hila Lifshitz, a Professor of Management at Warwick Business School and head of The Artificial Intelligence Innovation Network. She’s also a visiting faculty member at H...

How can artistic thinking and practices foster a healthier and more effective organizational culture? On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava host a panel of four experts to discuss using art in the workplace to unleash a team’s creativity and innovation—regardless of the industry.  From Google’s art-infused Quantum AI Computing Lab to new methods of teaching,...

Despite efforts to eliminate gender bias at work, women still face barriers their male colleagues don’t. How can companies today identify whether gender bias has crept into their organization and create cultures that are supportive of women? On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava are joined by Laura Kray, a professor at Berkeley Haas and the faculty director...

“Tribalism” has a generally negative reputation these days. It’s often used to refer to an us-versus-them mentality, or a culture that’s divisive and exclusionary. But that perception, according to cultural psychologist Michael Morris, “could not be more inaccurate as a description of what human tribal instincts are. They're instincts for solidarity, not for hostility.”  On this episode of The Cul...

Should corporate leaders speak out on social and political issues? And if they decide to do so, what’s the best approach? On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava chat with Matt Kohut, a leadership communications expert, about his new book Speaking Out: The New Rules of Business Leadership Communications .  Jenny, Sameer, and Matt dig into historical examples o...

In the season two premiere of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava tackle the complex question of how to create a culture of inclusion and belonging in the face of growing polarization in the workplace and society at large. To help answer this question, Jenny and Sameer turn to DEI expert Jarvis Sam. Jarvis is the CEO and founder of the strategy firm, Rainbow Disruption, whic...

While “psychological safety” has become somewhat of a buzzword in management circles, it’s a concept that forward-thinking leaders dismiss at their own peril.  “I cannot think of a place where lower psychological safety would help you in any way,” says Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson, known for her pioneering research on the topic. “Lower psychological safety would make you take fe...

When Patrick Collison and his brother John Collison founded digital payment company Stripe in 2010, he didn't come in with “any kind of enlightened leadership expertise or genetic muscle memory.” As the company took off and grew to a dominant platform with $1 trillion in total payment volume and millions of customers, its culture grew more intentional—and strategic.  “Because Stripe's domain is re...

What are the benefits and challenges of running a fully remote company? What does research show about the shift to “work from anywhere”? In this bonus episode of The Culture Kit , host Sameer Srivastava interviews Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury , the Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Brandon Sammut , Chief People Officer at Zapier, on how to use technology and organi...

In a fireside chat with host Jenny Chatman, best-selling author Michael Lewis shares the inside story of the strange culture Sam Bankman-Fried created at his failed crypto exchange, FTX. Lewis got to know SBF for his latest book, " Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon ." The story is a fascinating example of a strong organizational culture gone terribly wrong.  Lewis is known for his...

With the world of work constantly evolving and the introduction of new technologies like AI, how can leaders prepare themselves to successfully lead their companies into the new frontier? On the season finale of The Culture Kit, Haas School of Business professors and organizational culture experts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava are joined by a special guest. Laszlo Bock, one of the leading in...