A new episode of The Winning Cultures Podcast is out. This one goes somewhere the show hasn’t been yet: an organization where nearly everyone on the roster could walk away on a Tuesday, and nothing would happen to them.
Amy Courter served as National Commander and CEO of the Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the United States Air Force, where she led 61,000 volunteers and became the first woman in the organization’s history to wear two stars. Before that, she spent two decades at Valassis, running IT worldwide. Today she is an Executive Coach and Certified EOS Implementer. Amy sits down with me to talk about what you learn about culture when you can’t pay anyone to care.
A Mission Doesn’t Care Who’s Getting Paid
Civil Air Patrol performs 90% of all search and rescue in the United States and Puerto Rico. When people hear the work is done by volunteers, Amy has a ready answer: the Titanic was built by professionals, and Noah managed the ark. Paid or unpaid was never the point. The mission was the point, and the values were what guided people to it. As she put it in one of her town halls, if you’re lucky, you get to volunteer twice, once to join and once to leave when you’re done. Everything in between is a commitment.
Culture Shows Up When Nobody Is Watching
Culture doesn’t get decided in the meeting. It gets decided in the small moments nobody sees. Do I stop here or finish it? Do I make the extra call? At a search and rescue exercise in another state, Amy watched one member gently correct another: that’s not how we work around here, excellence matters, let’s get this right. She wasn’t the reason it happened. That was the point. She also remembers someone telling her they always asked themselves what Amy would do, and she pushed back on it. She didn’t want people guessing at her. She wanted them applying the values.
99% On Time, Without Asking for Overtime
At Valassis in the 1990s, Amy’s team delivered custom software 99% on time and on budget, at a point when the industry average was under 80% and often closer to 60%. She never asked anyone for a minute of overtime. What she did do was cut a deal with the janitors to tell her when her team was still in the building late, so she could show up with pizzas and help. Nobody ever figured out how she knew.
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