Strategy often fails in the gap between what leaders announce and what employees experience. A company can have the right vision, the right plan, and the right growth ambition, but if people do not understand where the organization is going, why it matters, and how they personally contribute, strategy remains a message. It never becomes culture.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Alicia Hart, Chief People Officer, and Janine Charlton, Chief Technology Officer at Merchants Fleet, to continue the conversation around the company’s Move America initiative. Their perspective is especially powerful because Move America is not just a people initiative. It is a leadership initiative, a culture initiative, and an execution initiative owned across the organization.

Culture Cannot Belong to One Function

Alicia and Janine made one point clear from the start: culture cannot sit inside HR alone.

Alicia brings the people and employee experience lens. Janine brings the technology, operations, and enterprise execution lens. Together, they show what culture actually requires: shared leadership ownership.

When culture is treated as a function, it becomes a program. When culture is owned by every leader, it becomes behavior.

Move America was designed to help employees understand three things:
Where the company is going.
Why that direction matters.
How each person contributes to getting there.

That is the real work of alignment. Not just communication, but connection.

Story Makes Strategy Stick

One of the strongest parts of the Move America initiative was the decision to build it around narrative. Merchants Fleet partnered with The Storytellers to create a six-chapter story that reflected the company’s journey: where it came from, where it is going, and how employees are part of that movement.

That matters because people rarely connect deeply with bullet points. They connect with story.

A strategy deck may explain the plan. A story helps people locate themselves inside the plan.

Alicia described how leaders delivered the story across the organization, making the initiative more than a top-down announcement. Employees were invited into an experience. They saw visuals, participated in exercises, and reflected on their own role in the company’s future.

Janine shared one of the most memorable pieces: employees were invited to write down their vision for the future of the company. That simple act gave people voice. It made the future feel co-created instead of imposed.

The How Determines Whether Strategy Survives

In the earlier conversation with Matt Dyer, CEO of Merchants Fleet, he emphasized that the “what” of strategy matters, but the “how” determines whether it becomes sustainable. Alicia and Janine brought that point to life.

The how includes:

• leadership behavior
• communication
• trust
• empathy
• shared ownership
• values
• the way teams work together under pressure

This is where many companies fall short. They define the direction, then assume employees will naturally align. But alignment is not automatic. It has to be designed, reinforced, and lived.

You Cannot Move Forward Without Acknowledging the Past

One of the most human parts of the episode was Janine’s description of the “Bury the Past” exercise.

Before asking leaders to move forward, Merchants Fleet gave them space to acknowledge difficult years the company had been through. Leaders were invited to write down what they needed to let go of, place it into a locked box, and symbolically move forward together.

That kind of ritual may sound unusual in business, but it is exactly the kind of human moment organizations often skip.

Companies expect people to “move on” without giving them a way to process what happened. But unprocessed history does not disappear. It shows up as resistance, silence, skepticism, and mistrust.

By creating space to acknowledge the past, the organization made it easier for people to be present for the future.

Values Need Systems, Not Posters

As part of Move America, Merchants Fleet refreshed its values through a cross-functional culture crew made up of leaders across the organization. That detail matters. The values were not handed down by HR, marketing, or a consultant. They were shaped by people who understood the company from different angles.

The result was a clearer articulation of the company’s culture, including the tagline: One Team, All Heart, All Hustle.

Alicia also shared how the company embedded values into real systems:

• employee recognition through the Heart Award
• performance management competencies
• leader-led team sessions
• monthly Move America meetings
• internal storytelling around client impact
• ongoing communication through newsletters and staff meetings

This is how values become durable. They have to show up in recognition, measurement, meetings, conversations, and decision-making.

Otherwise, they remain words on a wall.

Client Experience Is the Culture Test

When asked what one metric their two departments would share, Alicia and Janine both landed on client NPS.

That answer says a lot.

Culture is not separate from client experience. Culture is what the client eventually feels. If teams are siloed, clients feel friction. If leaders are misaligned, clients feel inconsistency. If employees do not understand the strategy, clients experience confusion.

Merchants Fleet reinforced this by tying client NPS to leadership bonuses and then extending a bonus opportunity across the entire company tied to client experience. That makes the message concrete: every employee plays a role in how clients experience the company.

This is how culture becomes measurable. It shows up in service, quality, retention, trust, and the way people collaborate across boundaries.

Remote Belonging Has to Be Designed

An audience question asked how remote employees are included in a culture shift like Move America. Alicia’s answer was practical and important.

Merchants Fleet did not treat remote employees as an afterthought. They designed a separate experience for remote participation, including virtual sessions, interaction, and leader-led follow-up that could work across both remote and onsite teams.

That is the right mindset. Belonging does not happen because people are copied on an email. It happens when leaders design experiences that make people feel seen, included, and connected to the work.

Leadership Is Tested Under Pressure

Janine made a sharp distinction: culture is not shaped by what leaders say in calm moments. It is shaped by what they do when execution is under pressure.

People watch how leaders communicate when deadlines are tight. They watch whether commitments are honored. They watch whether obstacles are removed or ignored. They watch whether leaders protect silos or create alignment.

That is where culture becomes real.

A company’s values are not tested when everything is easy. They are tested when client demands are high, resources are stretched, and decisions have consequences.

Love Shows Up as Care, Clarity, and Service

When asked what role love should play in business, Alicia connected it directly to leadership. The most important working relationship most people have is with their direct manager. That manager has enormous influence over whether people feel seen, supported, challenged, and connected to the why.

Love in business does not mean avoiding accountability. It means knowing when to push and when to support. It means helping people understand why the work matters. It means creating enough trust that people can show up honestly and still perform.

Janine added that care shows up in how leaders serve. Her function exists to support the enterprise, and that support is not just technical. It is relational. People can feel whether you care, whether you are willing to go the extra mile, and whether you see them as human beings beyond the task.

That is the heart of culture in action.

Key Takeaways

• Strategy only becomes culture when employees understand where the company is going, why it matters, and how they contribute.
• Culture cannot belong to HR alone. Every leader has to model and reinforce it.
• Story makes strategy more memorable and human than a traditional top-down message.
• Organizations need rituals that help people acknowledge the past before moving forward.
• Values become real when they are embedded into recognition, performance management, meetings, and daily communication.
• Client experience is one of the clearest measures of culture.
• Remote belonging has to be intentionally designed, not assumed.
• Leadership culture is revealed under pressure, not in calm moments.

Final Thoughts

Move America is a reminder that culture is not a side project. It is the operating system that determines whether strategy becomes real.

Alicia Hart and Janine Charlton showed that when leaders create shared ownership, acknowledge the human side of change, and connect every employee to the client experience, strategy becomes more than a plan. It becomes a way of working.

The companies that scale well are not only clear about where they are going. They are intentional about how they bring people with them.

Check out our full conversation with Alicia Hart and Janine Charlton on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog