The Hidden Driver of Top-Quartile Performance

After more than 30 years leading contact center operations of all shapes and sizes across three continents, from startups to turnarounds, I’ve learned that technology has never been the differentiator behind top-tier performance. People are.

Technology, even AI, is just an instrument. It is like giving the most expensive guitar on the planet to an amateur and expecting magic, while a true expert, like Eddie Van Halen in his day, could make even the cheapest guitar sound incredible. The instrument does not create greatness. The person holding it does.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a technology enthusiast and have witnessed the massive impact it can have. But I have also seen that if your people are disengaged, indifferent or distracted by cultural issues, it doesn’t matter what technology sits in front of them. Their level of engagement directly affects how they interact with customers and with each other.

Even when implementing new tools like AI, engagement has a strong influence on results. A recent Inc. survey found that 31 percent of employees admitted to quietly undermining their company’s AI strategy, and 17 percent intentionally avoided reporting AI-related security risks. That is a culture issue, not a technology issue.

This aligns with Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report, which found that 62 percent of employees globally are not engaged and 17 percent are actively disengaged. This means 79 percent of the workforce is not fully engaged and, in many cases, is undermining performance.

If you want to transform your company into top-quartile performance, it must start with your people and your culture, not your technology.

The Challenge

What I see in many organizations is a heavy emphasis on transactional leadership that focuses on urgent tasks, short-term KPIs and a relentless drive for efficiency. It is understandable. Leaders are measured, rewarded and often pressured based on immediate results.

However, when organizations rely too heavily on transactional leadership, they often invest in tools and systems without addressing the cultural undercurrent that quietly prevents them from optimizing their performance.

Cultural transformation not only delivers short-term results, it builds the operating system that engages your people to consistently find better ways to serve customers, strengthen processes and sustain long-term performance.

Many transactional leaders acknowledge that culture matters, but without a clear roadmap or a sense of urgency, it ends up at the bottom of the priority list. It sits next to “when I have time,” which everyone knows never comes.

Culture rarely feels urgent because people generally get along on the surface, which leads leaders to assume things are fine. They often do not realize how much culture is influencing performance, customer experience, team morale, innovation and retention.

A quick exercise you can do to determine if you’re managers are more focused on transactional or transformational is ask them to review the last five meaningful interactions they had with their team.

Count how many were:

• task- or metric-driven (KPIs, adherence, escalations), versus

• development-driven (clarity, feedback, coaching, recognition).

This audit immediately reveals which way your leadership culture is leaning.

The Echo Chamber

Many leaders find themselves unintentionally operating inside an echo chamber where internal data and survey scores reinforce a belief that the culture is healthy, even when it is not.

In 2023, 84 percent of call center leaders surveyed by CMP believed they improved employee engagement. During that same year, Gallup reported that 77 percent of employees were disengaged. That gap does not come from measurement variance. It comes from silence.

Employees stop speaking up because they:

• Don’t trust surveys
• Fear being honest might backfire
• Don’t think feedback leads to action
• Get tired of speaking up and seeing nothing change

This creates a culture where leaders believe things are stable even when they are not.

At one national client, I discovered field leaders routinely changed the due dates on their assigned tasks to make it appear they were hitting KPIs. To executives, the division looked strong. In reality, the manipulated reports hid a significant staffing issue that was holding back operational performance.

This was as much a culture problem as it was a data problem.

To create a win/win building block toward employee engagement, identify one process pain point and remove it.  Ask frontline agents and supervisors, “What slows you down or frustrates customers the most?” 

Choose one recurring barrier connected to a KPI (for example, high hold time, long wrap time due to system issues, unclear knowledge base content, or repeat call drivers).

Fix it or make visible progress within one or two weeks and celebrate the progress publicly within your department.

Rapid friction removal strengthens trust and improves performance metrics simultaneously.

Bottom-Line Impacts to Operational Performance

The business case for improving culture is stronger than ever:

• 26 percent higher revenue and 233 percent stronger customer loyalty (Verint)
• 23 percent higher profitability (Gallup)
• Up to 59 percent reduction in turnover (Culture Monkey)

In contact centers, where every point of attrition, NPS, AHT and quality score matters, these cultural gains become genuine operational game-changers.

Tools like AI can support the work, but culture determines whether people embrace change or quietly resist it.

Why Now and What’s Next

Leadership has never been more challenging. AI is reshaping roles, expectations and workflows. Hybrid environments, shifting customer demands and tighter budgets add even more complexity.

This is why now is the moment for transformational leadership. It goes far beyond motivational leadership. It is intentional leadership that focuses on engagement and is grounded in clarity, trust, consistency and a deliberate approach to shaping culture.

Because while technology will keep changing the work, only leaders can shape the culture that optimizes performance.