When culture is treated as a trend, it loses its power.
As part of Redgrave’s Culture Heroes series, I spoke with Martyn Worsley, Chief People Officer at Lockton, the world’s largest privately owned insurance brokerage. What stood out most wasn’t just Lockton’s impressive growth or its engagement scores, though both are remarkable. It was something far more foundational: a commitment to hiring the right people. And in today’s talent market, that can be a challenge.
Our interviewees is:
Martyn Worsley
The right hire, not the quick one
Recruitment is a powerful yet often underestimated lever for shaping organisational culture. Every hiring decision has an impact on how your culture shows up, evolves, and holds up under pressure.
We recruit against culture add rather than purely on skill set. We find people who can make our culture stronger, bringing new energy and ways of thinking.
Yet in the rush to fill roles, it’s easy to prioritise availability over alignment, credentials over character, or skills over cultural resonance. But at Lockton, recruitment is intentional, patient, and focused on long-term culture-add.
We don’t hire the best person available. We hire the right person, and if we have to wait longer to find them, we’ll wait. Because the right person inspires others, takes people with them and makes Lockton stronger.
This intentional approach reflects that hiring is more than simply filling gaps. It protects and amplifies what makes the business special and successful.
We’re not willing to risk our culture or our integrity by hiring the wrong person.
When you hire the right person, culture gets stronger. And, in turn, this culture drives performance, builds trust, and keeps people sticking around.
Leadership as culture’s gatekeeper
In every organisation I’ve worked with, culture rises and falls on the behaviour of its leaders. It doesn’t matter what’s written on the walls or in the strategy decks, if leaders don’t live it, the culture simply doesn’t stick.
This is backed by data: 91% of professionals surveyed say that a positive culture depends on effective leadership.
"Leadership is a fundamental underpin of culture…it has the potential to be the death knell of culture if you don’t have great leaders."
The best way to protect a culture is to evolve it, not preserve it in amber, allowing it to grow in the right direction.
This proactive leadership ensures cultural continuity and informs crucial decisions like hiring individuals who will become the next generation of cultural ambassadors.
A strong culture isn’t one that is handed down from HR or kept within a policy document. It’s something leaders live, model, and evolve every day.
According to Martyn, the culture at Lockton is deeply embedded, but it’s not static. With over half of the firm’s employees joining in the last three years, there is a risk of cultural dilution. Yet by being crystal clear about what matters most, and evolving the culture with intention, they were able to strengthen their DNA as they grew.
This proactive leadership ensures cultural continuity and informs crucial decisions like hiring individuals who will become the next generation of cultural ambassadors.
A global culture that feels local
One of the biggest challenges for any growing business is how to scale culture without fragmented or overly rigid. I’ve seen organisations struggle with this time and again, especially when expanding internationally. The key here is having clarity of values combined with local autonomy.
Despite their global presence, Lockton maintain a consistent cultural feel across offices around the world.
Whether you walk into an office in Singapore, London or Kansas City, the feeling is the same. We call it freedom in a framework. It’s the idea that you can create unity without uniformity. For example, our teams in Asia tailor onboarding to local norms and in Europe leaders shape their comms around local community values. That’s the freedom in a framework.
Their core values and philosophies are non-negotiable, but how they’re lived can flex. This approach creates space for local nuance while maintaining a consistent cultural heartbeat.
You simply cannot be successful at Lockton if you’re not living and breathing the culture. It’s how everything gets done.
Culture informs how decisions are made, how people collaborate, and how they engage with clients.
Culture as a commercial driver
We’d rather grow slower and get it right. We’re not here to win the race to biggest. We’re here to build something that lasts, and that means growing with purpose, not just speed.
In a world where many firms chase hyper-growth through acquisition or short-term wins, Martyn shares a different path, one that values alignment over acceleration. Growth is still the goal, but not at the cost of integrity or identity. It’s about scaling with purpose, making deliberate hiring decisions, and ensuring that every person who joins strengthens the culture, rather than dilutes it.
Culture isn’t an initiative at Lockton, it’s our north star. It shapes how we show up for colleagues, clients and communities and how we stay true to who we are now and in the future.
I’ve long believed that culture and commercial success aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they’re deeply connected. Yet too often, culture is treated as a parallel stream rather than a foundational force within the business. The organisations that get it right don’t see culture as separate from strategy; they embed it into everything.
Culture is a commercial growth enabler. It’s a competitive advantage. As a privately owned company, we’re not driven by quarterly earnings calls. That freedom enables us to invest in people and culture for the long-term
And the numbers prove it: Lockton has retained 97% of clients year-on-year while growing organically at a double-digit pace for nearly two decades.
Our own data backs this up too. In culture-forward organisations, 74% of respondents say culture positively impacts financial performance.
What drives this?
People who care, about their clients, their colleagues, and the long-term health of the business. When people feel connected to a shared purpose, when they trust their leaders and take pride in how the business operates, it shows up in the numbers. Retention improves, client relationships deepen, innovation increases, and performance follows. Culture, when nurtured intentionally, drives the business forward.
This thinking also influences how firm’s scales.
Takeaways for leaders
We share key takeaways for those wanting to lead with intention. Here are five calls to action:
01
Reframe hiring
The best on paper may not be the best for your people. Prioritise long-term culture add over short-term capability.
02
Build culture into every decision
Make culture an explicit part of your hiring, onboarding, performance, and reward systems.
03
Resist the urge to rush
Hiring in haste costs far more than waiting for the right person. If it takes longer, so be it.
04
Let culture evolve, but not erode
Culture isn’t about preserving the past. It’s about staying aligned as you move forward.
Organisational success doesn’t happen by chance. It’s the outcome of deliberate leadership choices, made consistently, reinforced through action, and refined over time.
Your firm culture becomes part of who you are. It shapes how you show up, for your team, your clients, and your even for family.
When leaders place culture at the heart of their priorities, it ignites a ripple effect where people thrive, businesses excel, and meaningful, long-term success becomes inevitable.
