Brin’na unpacks the difference between a standard company culture and a magnetic culture—the kind of environment that people fight to join and never want to leave.
Drawing from her leadership experience at Target and beyond, Brin’na reveals the five elements of magnetic culture that transform workplaces from compliance-driven to thriving, inspired communities:
1. Psychological Safety – Unlock innovation by allowing people to bring their full selves to work.
3. Growth Orientation – Support both professional and personal development.
4. Shared Ownership – Build collective vision and shared responsibility for success.
5. Purpose Connection – Help every team member link their role to a greater impact.
She shares real stories of how these principles led to higher sales, lower turnover, stronger teamwork, and long-lasting transformations—not just in the business, but in people’s lives.
👉 If you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or manager who wants to build a team people rave about, this episode will give you the roadmap.
Welcome back to the Legacy Lounge. I'm your host, Brin'na Rollins Williams, and today we are diving into something that I am absolutely passionate about. The difference between company culture and a magnetic culture. You know, I've been in a lot of organizations over the years. Yes, I worked for Target. However, I did a lot of supporting projects, volunteer projects, and a lot of different jobs before I started my corporate career.
And prior to leading in retail operations at Target, I've seen cultures that people tolerate, cultures that people escape from, and cultures that people fight to join.
Today, I wanna talk about how to create the last one, the type of culture that people fight to join.
So let me start with a question. What's on your company walls? Seriously, like if I walked into your office right now in your company, what would I see? A mission statement, core values, maybe some motivational posters about teamwork if you're lucky. Here's the thing, that's company culture. It's what you put on the walls. It's what you write in the handbook.
It's what HR talks about in orientation. And there's nothing wrong with that, except it's not what actually drives behavior. Magnetic culture, that's something entirely different. That is what people can't stop talking about.
That's what makes someone choose your company over a higher paying competitor or offer from somewhere else. It's the magnetic culture that you've built. That's what makes people say, I don't just work here, I belong here. So let me tell you about two stores that I managed early on in my career. Both had the same company culture.
Same policies, same training material, same mission statement on the wall. But the actual cultures could not have been more opposite. Store A was what I'll call the compliance culture. People followed the rules because they had to. They did their jobs because they were paid to. When problems came up, they waited for someone else to solve them. Turnover was high.
Customer complaints were constant and honestly, I dreaded going to that store. Store B was magnetic. People went above and beyond not because they were required to, but because they were inspired to. When challenges came up, the team problem solved them together. And nine times out of 10 had multiple options of solutions when bringing it up to me.
New hires would tell me, I heard about this place from three different people who said, I just had to work here. Same company, same policies, completely different cultures. The difference was not what was on the wall. It's what was inside every relationship. So what makes a culture magnetic? Well, lucky for you, I've identified five.
elements that I want to walk you through. The first is psychological safety. This is the foundation above everything else. Psychological safety means that people can bring their full selves to work. That includes their ideas, their concerns, their mistakes, their victories, and my personal favorite, their questions.
It means they don't have to spend energy managing impressions or walking on eggshells. In my magnetic store, store B,
I will never forget the specific team member. For the sake of confidentiality, let's call her Sarah. She was newer, probably three months in role, and she came to me with what she thought was a crazy idea about how we could rearrange our seasonal section to increase sales. In most places, a new person would not dare suggest changing something, let alone...
in the holiday section, but she felt safe enough to speak up to give me her ideas. And guess what? We implemented her idea and it increased sales in the holiday section by 15 % that week. That is what psychological safety creates. It unlocks the collective intelligence of your team.
The second element, genuine connection. And I don't mean a forced team building exercise or mandatory fun, or like I like to call it, you're being voluntold to participate in this team building right now. I mean, real relationships between real humans who happen to work together are possible. Inside a magnetic culture, people know each other's stories. They celebrate.
Each other's wins outside of work and they support each other through challenging times. Work becomes not just a place that you go, but a community that you also belong to. I used to start every team meeting with what I'll call life updates. And it's two minutes for anyone who wanted to share something happening in their world. Sounds simple, right? But it did start the transformation of our team dynamic.
When one of my store directors shared that their daughter had made honor roll, everybody celebrated. And when another celebrated that they finally got engaged, the team was roaring in applause and support. Everybody rallied behind both. When another coworker shared that a family member had just passed, the condolences and the support and the compassion that came out of my team is something I never thought would happen in that way.
We were just humans treating each other as humans and caring about each other as humans.
The third is a growth orientation. Magnetic cultures are learning cultures. People don't just do their current job well, but they are also actively developing skills for their next role, their next challenge, their next level of contribution. But here's the key, it's not just about professional development. It's also about human development. In my best teams,
We talked openly about what people wanted to learn, what they were curious about, what kind of person they wanted to become.
wanted to become. And then I found ways to help support their growth in that way. I had a team member who was so passionate about sustainability. It wasn't just part of her job description, but we found ways for her to lead multiple store initiatives and to drive recycling initiatives, help lead community cleanup projects for volunteering. And the whole team showed up to support.
not just because it was a voluntold volunteer opportunity. It's because it was a volunteer opportunity where her and her peers could get together and they chose to show up and support her for something that she cared about that was bigger than the day today. She grew, the environment impact improved, and she became one of the most engaged employees who also led community impact.
The fourth element is shared ownership. In magnetic cultures, everybody owns success. It's not just the leader's vision that people execute. It is a collective vision that everybody helps create and refine along the way. This was probably the hardest shift for me to make personally, especially when I was a district senior director because I was used to being
the one with the answers, the one that made the decisions. But when I started involving my team in shaping our direction by tapping into what they care about, what their strengths are, something really freaking cool happened. They didn't just implement the strategies, they actually improved them. They didn't just meet the goals, they exceeded them time and time again, because they were no longer just following my plan.
of regurgitating direction. They were executing our plan. We win as a team. We refine as a team.
And the fifth is purpose connection. People inside of a magnetic culture don't just know what they do. They know why it matters. They can connect their daily task to the bigger purpose and meaningful impact at large. At Target, we weren't just selling products. We were helping families create homes, helping people feel good about themselves, helping families thrive.
delivering joy every single day.
When someone on my team understood that the way that they treated a customer in a specific moment could be the highlight of that person's entire day, that right there is when everything changed. The work had meaning beyond just the paycheck. Now I know what some of you are probably thinking, yeah, Brenna, that sounds great, but I've got budgets to hit and payroll to make and deadlines to meet and performance metrics to manage and...
I don't have time for all this relationship fluff stuff. Well, here's what I've learned after managing hundreds of millions in operations. Magnetic cultures do not hurt performance. They accelerate it. When people feel psychologically safe, they take smart risks. When they have genuine connections, they collaborate better. When they are growing, they contribute more.
When they have ownership, they care more about the results. And when they understand the purpose, they go the extra mile.
The store with the magnetic culture, it will consistently outperform the compliance culture store in every single metric that matters, including employee retention, and most importantly, safety, everything across the board.
So how do you start to build a magnetic culture? Well, let me give you three things you can try this week. First, you can start by having a real conversation, not just about the work, but about the people behind the work that's happening. Ask your team members what they're excited about, what they're learning, what they're struggling with. And here's the key, actually listen to the answer. Don't try to solve everything.
just create space for people to be human.
Second, share ownership of something.
Pick one challenge, one opportunity, one decision that you would normally handle yourself and choose to involve your team in shaping the solution. You might be surprised by what emerges when you tap into that collective wisdom. And third, connect the dots between the daily work and the bigger purpose. Your job as a leader is a lot, and part of it is to filter communication.
That includes helping people see their individual contributions and how they matter to customers, to the team alongside them, and to the community at large. Make the invisible impact visible.
Years later, I still get messages from people that I worked with or were on my team in some capacity. they don't usually talk about how sales goals are going They actually just tell me how they're feeling, how they're growing. And...
how they've discovered their own capabilities that they didn't know they had before. How being a part of a culture that I was once a part of too, didn't just impact their career, but it also impacted who they were as they're an evolving elite in their career. But who they became as a person in that process.
That right there, my friends, that is the power of a magnetic culture. It doesn't just drive your business metrics, it improves the people's lives that are driving the metrics. And it delivers every time. And when you improve people's lives, they don't just work for you. They also become ambassadors for what you're building.
That right there is today's episode of the Legacy Lounge. If you're ready to transform your culture from compliance into something magnetic, I would love to connect with you. Reach out on LinkedIn, send an email, share this episode, and let me know what resonates from today's conversation. And if you're a leader that is trying to build something special with their team, share this episode with your team, because the world needs more magnetic cultures.
Places where people don't just work, but they actually belong. Until next time, keep building cultures that people wanna fight to join. The world is waiting for what you are gonna create.
