Why Culture Still Drives Performance in the Age of AI

This exclusive interview with Dalia Feldheim was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.

Companies are spending millions on AI tools while neglecting the culture needed to make them work, according to former global CMO and organisational psychologist Dalia Feldheim.

Feldheim spent more than 16 years at P&G before becoming CMO and Vice President of Marketing APAC at Electrolux, and now works with organisations on leadership, psychological safety and workplace culture. Champions Speakers

In an exclusive interview with the Mental Health Speakers Agency, she explains why she believes emotional intelligence will become a stronger differentiator as AI adoption accelerates, why fear can damage performance over time, and why investment in people remains central to business results.

Question 1. How does organisational culture translate into measurable business ROI, particularly as AI adoption accelerates?

Dalia Feldheim: “I always used to say ROI is not return on investment, but return on interaction, because what really drives business is people: how you work with your employees and drive motivation and performance, and how you work with your stakeholders.

“Sales is all around relationships, and today that matters more than ever because when AI means IQ is in your pocket, EQ, emotional intelligence and relationships become your differentiator.

“I find companies spending millions on AI adoption tools, but they’re not spending on building the right culture in the organisation that enables AI adoption.

“There are two things at play here. How we develop people, and how we allow them to experiment and fail, will enable AI adoption.

“With AI adoption, we also need to remember that you can’t outsource soul. AI can help us with so many things, productivity, processes, etc, and it’s a great companion. I’m now writing a book with my AI, but the thoughts, the creation, the human interaction and the storytelling are mine.

“When we talk about culture, we need the premise that enables AI adoption, and we need to continue focusing on heart and soul.”

Question 2. What role does psychological safety play in driving innovation, collaboration and performance?

Dalia Feldheim: “I came across the term when I started exploring the territory of culture at work and the great work of Amy Edmonson on psychological safety.

“Google did a big project, Project Aristotle, where they tried to understand the number one driver of high-performing teams. They thought it might be around vision or enabling, and they found psychological safety was the number one driver of high-performing teams.

“Amy’s work really explains why. The number one driver of high-performing teams is psychological safety, and the number one driver of psychological safety is leaders admitting mistakes or creating a culture that embraces failure.

“When you do that, you get more collaboration because people are not afraid to voice their opinion or share feedback.

“You get better, more productive collaboration. You get better innovation because people are not scared to share crazy ideas. They know they won’t be penalised for coming up with ideas, and that leads to more creativity.

“There are fewer mistakes. There are mistakes, but they are embraced and you learn from them, so you’re not creating the same mistake twice.

“You also see it driving motivation because people see you as who you are.

“How we approach failure, how we offer help and feedback, how open we are to raising ideas, and diversity, equity and inclusion all affect motivation and engagement in the company, and hence the culture’s resilience over time and through change.

“We’re seeing Amy’s work on psychological safety become the core of what culture should be focusing on to enable, at the end of the day, the bottom line.”

Question 3. Where do leaders most often go wrong when trying to build high-performing teams?

Dalia Feldheim: “I think it all goes back to this idea of ROI.

“I worked 17 years with PNG, and Proctor and Gamble is very much a company of: take care of your people and the business takes care of itself.

“On a personal level, I delivered 200 index 200 because I never felt like I was working. I was always nourished.

“From there, I moved to another company, never mind the name, but it’s a great company. My direct boss, the CEO of Asia, was a totally different animal. He was basically a bully. He didn’t believe in people. He said it very directly. It’s all transactional.

“The focus was on ROI, return on investment, money, money, money, bottom line. As a result, there was a whole culture of fear. There were silos, people were put against each other and, yes, fear delivers results short term, but long-term love delivers much higher results.

“Over time, you saw people either quit, get fired or become so fearful that it prevented the innovation we talked about before.

“I could see it in myself. I was a top-rated performer in PNG and suddenly you needed to think twice about every email you were writing because you’d be scrutinised or constantly feel like someone was over your shoulder. Your performance diminished.

“After three years of fighting it, I looked at myself and saw my performance was not what it was.

“When I left and did my TED talk, I got a call from a guy in Australia. He said, “I watched your TED talk. I wanted to say thank you. I realised I’m an… What do I do?”

“We started a coaching relationship. He said, “I always led from fear and I’ve been productive, so why change?”

“We started working and he said, “Okay, I’m willing to try this different approach.” He started this human-first approach and was shocked by the results.

“He was so shocked that he left his job as a sales manager and now calls himself the eradicating coach.

“Leaders who don’t understand that, in order to be a leader, you need to have followers, meaning your people come first, are missing the essence of what I teach and what I work on.”

Question 4. How can organisations scale a coaching culture without compromising growth or performance?

Dalia Feldheim: “I get a lot of, “We don’t have budget for training,” and at the end of the day, that’s when you get into a downward spiral of performance.

“Today there are online courses. I teach both online and live.

“I have a Team Thrive online self-paced programme. I’m doing it with my first boss in PNG, which is a lovely story. We met each other a year ago and said, “Oh my God, we used to teach people development in PNG and companies don’t invest in that anymore.”

“So we created a low-cost version for employees to experience themselves. Anyone who does it then has a monthly live session where people can ask questions.

“But I am seeing a shift back into live training. I also do a lot of that and it’s incredible.

“It’s proven to be the biggest investment that you can do in your people. So if bottom line is your obsession, you still need to know that bottom line goes through people development. There’s no escaping it.

“Otherwise, you’ll wear down the people. You’ll end up with burnout. You’ll end up with silos. You’ll end up with fear.

“Investing doesn’t have to mean these big million-dollar projects. It can be a very simple $500 or $1,000 per employee and they go through a real transformation.

“What I love about the training is creating a cohort of like-minded people. We created this monthly Q&A because when you create a cohort of like-minded people, that’s when your culture change starts.

“When I look at PNG and why it was so successful, that was the expectation. You were expected to spend 50% of your time on people development.

“We get what we measure. Putting that in place, bringing cohorts together and really prioritising training is core, not only for people feeling better and being motivated, but because that leads to higher results and the bottom line.”