Culture is one of those words that gets thrown around constantly — and means almost nothing without the work behind it. Eric Himes has spent his career doing that work, helping organizations move beyond mission statements and actually build environments where people show up invested.
He joins Don Martelli on The PR Bunker Podcast for a candid conversation about what inspired culture looks like in practice — and what it costs when organizations get it wrong.
Eric's work starts with a question most leadership teams never ask: how do you actually measure inspiration? He walks through his company's framework for quantifying employee investment — not just engagement scores and anonymous surveys, but meaningful data that ties culture health directly to business outcomes. If you can't measure it, you can't grow it. That's the core of his approach.
The most valuable part of this conversation is how concrete Eric gets about the day-to-day work. He shares tactical examples from working sessions he facilitates — the resistance, the breakthroughs, and what it looks like when a team genuinely starts to shift. Cultural transformation isn't a retreat or an offsite. It's a practice.
Eric also addresses how AI is changing the cultural equation. As organizations adopt new tools and restructure workflows, the human dimension of work needs more attention, not less. He talks about his upcoming book and where he sees the field heading — and makes a compelling case for why inspired culture may be the most underrated competitive advantage available right now.
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