We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ivan Palomino. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ivan below.

Hi Ivan, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have spent a substantial amount of time finding alternatives to the traditional corporate training – as it is inefficient: retaining knowledge doesn’t make people practice what they learn, in average only 15% of people would practice what they learn after 2 months. I worked with a bunch of psychologists to help me find a solution so that people at work are motivated to create new behaviors out of what they learn using technology and behavioral sciences.

At the early stage, companies that approached me were requesting “trainings” to overcome challenges that were rooted in their work culture such as collaboration, work-life balance, empathy, resilience, etc. I felt that I had the right solution, but I didn’t have the right way to prove with data that there was actually improvement in these challenges when using our learning methodology and unfortunately, the typical culture survey doesn’t cover underlying facts such as the capacity to enable a new behavior.

Through my company PeopleKult – I worked on alternative way to assess culture and I even partnered with companies who were using AI to find a solution for the exact same ‘measurement challenge’ [companies such as culturama.is].
What is fascinating is that today more than 60% of companies are working in a type of transformation that requires their people to act differently to become more innovative or to build a pipeline of talent who would be attracted by a compelling work culture. Our framework allow us to measure and scale a new culture using data and the latest practice of brain science.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was Born in Peru and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, I’ve had the unique privilege of experiencing two distinct cultures – the rational Swiss and the empathetic Latin. This exposure to contrasting perspectives has shaped my approach to understanding human behavior, particularly in the context of business transformation.

While my initial academic pursuits in Engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne were deeply rooted in science and fact-based explanations, I’ve always been fascinated by the intricacies of human psychology. This fascination led me to spend nearly 18 years at a Fortune 500 company, where I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the impact of human behavior on organizational transformation.

My experience in Corporate Strategy exposed me to a common thread in failed change initiatives: the underestimation of human psychology. As I observed, the human brain is naturally resistant to change, and when people do not feel aligned with the values of their organization, innovation and progress stagnate.

This realization sparked my quest to understand how to effectively nudge people towards change. Recognizing that my existing knowledge and experience were insufficient, I embarked on a journey to dive into the depths of neuroscience and positive psychology.

My first venture, Bessern, was dedicated to leveraging behavioral science and technology to help employees improve their productivity and wellbeing in the workplace. It was really exciting to jump into neuroscience and app development. PeopleKult, my subsequent endeavor, represented a natural progression, as it aimed to quantify the business and human factors that foster a thriving work culture.
When founding PeopleKult, I understood that work culture needed an alternative. Simply because there are not many options to affectively tackle the common cultural challenges in corporations:
• Aligning people’s BEHAVIORS to the company values – making them understandable, practical and sustainable
• Diagnosing the underlying culture pain points so that organizations can act on the right problems
• Fixing the usual cultural problems: collaboration, agility, connection, innovation, resilience and drive
In the dynamic world of business, crafting a performing and thriving work culture is not an art but a science. PeopleKult has mastered this science, employing a three-pronged approach to transform organizational landscapes.
Step one involves aligning purpose and values with tangible behaviors, making them accessible and actionable for every employee. Step two empowers individuals to cultivate the desired mindset and practice micro-behaviors that embody the company’s values. PeopleKult Approach equips them with mental processes to reinforce these behaviors consistently, effectively addressing culture challenges such as collaboration, agility, and accountability.
Finally, step three seamlessly integrates these behaviors into an innovative employee performance assessment system. This transparency allows organizations and employees to gauge their progress, identify areas for improvement, and celebrate achievements.
PeopleKult’s approach is rooted in a DNA of scientific rigor:
• Brain-based behavior change: They leverage the intricacies of neuroscience to nudge individuals towards desired cultural norms.
• Data-driven solutions: Assumptions are cast aside as PeopleKult employs data and technology to identify and address real-world problems.
• Impact measurement: They are not about empty promises; PeopleKult quantifies the impact of their interventions, providing tangible evidence of their success.

In a world where organizational culture is the cornerstone of sustainable success, PeopleKult stands out as a culture architect with a scientific edge. Their approach is not merely about implementing policies but about transforming mindsets, behaviors, and ultimately, the very fabric of organizations.
Work Culture related words are constantly searched in Google – as it has become the Achilles heel for many organizations – Companies who do not have a healthy work culture:

• Have 10x loss of revenues compared to peers that have a strong organization culture
• Have a higher cost per employee due to lower productivity
• Have 88% less chance to attract talent prioritizing thriving work cultures

The financial wins are spectacular in companies that designs human-centric work cultures and that’s what we ultimately provide – business and culture impact through performance and employee engagement solutions.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When you have been for so long in the corporate world, you get used to thinking about your own ideas as having a natural chance to succeed because you are “the expert”. The real world of entrepreneurship is made of lots of uncertainty especially on the “idea” that you are bringing to light and sometimes without answers to the question: is there anyone who really wants my idea and would pay for it?

This is what takes time to understand in the transition from a corporate to an entrepreneurial mindset – you have to validate that there is a market for your idea as soon as possible, it doesn’t matter that the idea is not perfect yet.
You have to learn to let go of perfection and work on quick validations that your idea is solving a pain for someone and that he will pay for that.
Most of business ideas are not successful because entrepreneurs fall in love with their idea and not with the problem they are trying to solve – validating prototypes even when they are not perfect is the way to reduce the risk of failure – putting a customer in front of your ‘half-baked’ product as soon as possible is necessary to understand if you are really solving a pain.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Thanks god, I got hold of these two books before going wild in entrepreneurship:

Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin:
It is a candid, brutally honest book about Rand Fishkin [founder of Moz] and his mental health struggles within the system of Silicon Valley. A book to equip founders with more realistic expectations and the grit required to face the challenges in the startup universe

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
The book’s central premise is that business is fundamentally about people and leading a company effectively requires understanding and managing human behavior. Ben Horowitz explores the intricacies of building and maintaining a strong company culture, motivating employees, and fostering a culture of innovation and resilience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://peoplekult.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peoplekultpod/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipalomino/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ivanpalomino_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@growthhackingculture
• Other: Simply Human Newsletter https://simplyhuman.substack.com/

Image Credits
Ivan Palomino / Zuleka Kaysan