Several years ago, I told our team something I still believe about defining company culture: if you don’t define your culture, it will be defined for you.
By that point, I had already spent decades in healthcare and employee benefits. I had seen how culture can take shape through habits no one intentionally chose. People learn what gets rewarded, how leaders respond under pressure, and how coworkers treat one another when the work is demanding.
I wanted us to be more deliberate at CDB. Our leadership team worked together to define the Core Values that best reflected the company we wanted to protect and continue building.
For employers and brokers, the culture of a benefits partner is more than an internal matter. It can influence how problems are handled, how teams collaborate, and how consistently people follow through. At CDB, our culture supports the three uniques we want clients and broker partners to experience in every relationship with us: savings, service, and satisfaction.
Our culture is organized around four Core Values: Take Care of Our Clients, Deliver Results, Be Positive & “Bring It,” and Be a Great Teammate/Collaborate.
We aligned our Custom Way Fundamentals beneath those values to give employees a shared understanding of how the values should show up in everyday work. I think of the Fundamentals as the practical behaviors behind the larger framework, but the Core Values are what hold it together.
Take Care of Our Clients guides how we communicate, respond, and stay engaged when someone needs help. Deliver Results reinforces accountability and continuous improvement. Be Positive & “Bring It” reflects the energy and attitude we want people to contribute, even when the work is demanding. Be a Great Teammate/Collaborate shapes how we listen, solve problems together, and support one another across departments.
A defined culture gives people something concrete to work from. Employees know what the organization expects. Managers have a common foundation for coaching and development. Leaders are responsible for reinforcing the same standards they ask others to follow.
I have never wanted the Custom Way to exist only in a presentation, handbook, or page on our website. People should be able to feel it when they interact with CDB.
You can see it in the way a service representative stays with a difficult member question, or when one team steps in to help another solve a problem. You can also see it in the relationships people build here. There is a lot of serious work happening every day, but there is also humor, personality, and room to enjoy being together.
That balance is important to me. Our team participates in office activities, gets together for Cincinnati Reds games, and spends time supporting charitable organizations in our community. I have written before about how charitable giving strengthens company culture because shared service gives people another way to connect around the values they bring to their work.
Those experiences are not separate from the culture we bring to clients. When people know one another, enjoy working together, and are willing to step in for each other, collaboration becomes more natural when a client or member needs help.
A strong culture should also make room for people to contribute in different ways. We do not expect everyone at CDB to think, communicate, or solve problems exactly the same way.
. All of our employees, including new hires, complete the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment. Around the office, employees have signs at their desks identifying their individual strengths in the categories of Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. I like that those are visible. They are a simple reminder that people bring different abilities to the team and that those differences can make the organization stronger.
The assessment helps employees better understand how they work and how their coworkers may approach the same situation differently. For leaders, it creates opportunities to develop people thoughtfully, assign work with individual strengths in mind, and build teams that complement one another.
I believe investing in people is part of protecting culture. Employees should understand what is expected of them, but they should also have opportunities to grow and use what they do best.
Our three uniques give us a practical way to evaluate whether the culture we have defined is showing up in the experience we provide.
Savings requires people to keep learning and look for better ways to manage a health plan. Service depends on responsiveness, personal communication, and follow-through. Satisfaction is built through the accumulation of those experiences and the work happening behind the scenes to support them.
For a third-party administrator, culture can directly influence the client and member experience. The standards a company sets around ownership, collaboration, communication, and improvement affect how its people answer questions, resolve claims issues, manage escalations, and support employer groups and broker partners. [Internal link: How Customer Service Supports Health Plan Performance]
Savings, service, and satisfaction are business priorities for CDB. Our culture helps us deliver them with greater consistency.
The work did not end when we named our Core Values. Every stage of growth brings new people, new capabilities, and new situations that test whether the culture is still visible in the way the company operates.
Leadership has to keep reinforcing the standard through decisions, recognition, coaching, and accountability. We also have to leave room for the organization to improve. A strong culture should provide a foundation for change, not become a reason to resist it.
CDB has changed considerably since I joined the organization in 2003. Through that growth, I have wanted the company to remain recognizable in the qualities that have served our clients and people well: personal service, accountability, collaboration, and a willingness to keep improving.
If you don’t define your culture, it will be defined for you. I believed that when we intentionally defined our Core Values several years ago, and I believe it even more strongly now.
Culture is something we continue choosing through the way we lead, work together, serve clients, invest in people, and show up for our community. I am proud of the framework we have built at CDB, and even prouder when I see our people bring it to life.