Leading the Contrarian Way: Five Lessons in Building Trust, Strategy and Culture

I started my career in sales with the Dow Chemical Company right out of college in 1981. Little did I know that 44 years later, I'd still be connected to the legacy of this great company through my work at AmSty, the styrenics joint venture between Dow Chemical and Chevron Phillips Chemical that began in 2008.

Over my career, I've had the pleasure of working with some incredible people and great leaders. One of them went on to become president of Huhtamaki, maker of Chinet® brand products. That person is Clay Dunn, author of Culture Centric: Contrarian Leadership for High-Performance Companies.

As a senior executive and team leader in AmSty, I'm an avid reader of leadership books, and this one is among my all-time favorites. It's especially meaningful because Clay is a good friend.

Clay and I both started at Dow around the same time and crossed paths early in our careers. Later, when he led the Dow Polystyrene business as global vice president in the late '90s, I had the privilege of being part of his organization. I saw firsthand how he created the kind of culture he describes in his book – a culture that drove performance and lasting success.

After leaving Dow in the mid-2000s to lead Huhtamaki North America, Clay continued to refine his approach to leadership. Upon retiring a few years ago, he captured his philosophy in Culture Centric, which details five big ideas about the relationship between culture and results. His "contrarian" approach challenges traditional management thinking and offers powerful lessons for leaders at every level.

Culture Is Destiny

Clay opens the book with a simple but profound statement: "Culture is destiny. The culture of your enterprise will determine its success. The prime job of leadership, therefore, is to build a powerful culture."

He goes on to explain that culture isn't something you build once. It's something you create continuously, with every decision and action. "Everything we do creates culture, whether we want it to or not." That truth really resonated with me.

1. Framework: Build Trust First

The first foundation of a high-performance culture is trust. As Clay puts it, "Trust is the most valuable commodity that a leader can possess." With genuine trust, you don't need a command-and-control environment to drive results.

Self-awareness plays a big role here. Alden Mills, former Navy SEAL commander and author of Unstoppable Teams, calls this the "mirror effect" – your organization reflects your own behavior. As leaders, we have to be mindful of how we show up every day.

Clay also emphasizes setting high standards not just around results, but around actions, behaviors and attitudes. Safety is a perfect example. When it's the priority, not a priority, the right results follow. And when you remove distractions and focus on "what's important now" (WIN), you align your team around shared goals and can truly celebrate the wins.

2. Strategy: Build on Competence and Care

A solid strategy starts with understanding your people, your customers and your markets. "The first step in strategy development," Clay says, "is not just to understand business opportunities, but to know your people and their capabilities."

His model centers on Business Teams – groups deeply embedded in the business that execute strategy day to day while the Leadership Team focuses on communicating and guiding execution.

A few of his strategy principles stood out to me:

• Define your organizational capability and use it to pursue opportunities that create value.

• Be aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect – overconfidence can derail strategy.

• Have the humility to adjust when plans go off track.

• Develop a vision statement that clearly defines what you'll achieve and how.

• Innovate where there's a natural pull – real demand comes from filling genuine needs.

3. Goals: Drive Execution Through Discipline

Goals follow strategy, but they're the true engine of execution. "If you take one thing from this book," Clay writes, "it is this: lead a rigorous, disciplined and consistently ongoing goal process."

Company and team goals should emphasize collective success, which becomes central to the culture. Individual achievement matters, but it thrives within a culture of shared purpose.

Clay points out that a good strategy should last long-term and only be tweaked every few years, while goals evolve continuously. Leaders who constantly change the strategy send mixed signals; the real focus should be on executing the goal process.

"Build a culture where accomplishing goals is like winning a championship," he says. "Celebrate the wins and learn from the losses." I couldn't agree more.

4. Organization: Build Around Talent and Purpose

An effective organization starts with talent. Clay writes, "The best predictor of future performance is a past record of accomplishment. It's not how far you get, but how far you get from where you started."

He advocates for an organizational structure that's clear, purposeful and as flat as possible, allowing leaders to focus on empowerment and development, not micromanagement.

He also stresses the importance of building quality rather than inspecting for it, creating stability to reduce costly turnover, and fostering teamwork centered on a common purpose. These elements build a performance culture where people are accountable and aligned toward shared results.

5. Leadership: Win by Focusing on Values

Clay opens the leadership section with a quote from Adam Grant that captures the heart of contrarian leadership:

Good leaders build products; great leaders build culture.
Good leaders deliver results; great leaders develop people.
Good leaders have vision; great leaders have values.
Good leaders are role models at work; great leaders are role models in life.

What really struck me was Clay's perspective on winning within an organization. "Winning will drive morale," he says, "and it's leadership's role to create that environment."

That reminded me of John Wooden, who coached UCLA to 10 straight NCAA basketball championships. Wooden never talked about winning championships; instead, he focused on values – his Pyramid of Success. At its base were Industriousness, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation and Enthusiasm. At the top was Competitive Greatness: "Be your best when your best is needed."

That philosophy mirrors Clay's approach. Winning isn't the goal; it's the outcome of a culture grounded in trust, purpose and values.

There's so much wisdom in Culture Centric. I've only scratched the surface here. Clay Dunn is one of those rare leaders whose example makes you want to show up better every day.

He's wise, practical and inspiring – and I'm proud to call him a friend. Few people embody excellence and integrity the way he does. Clay truly lives what it means to be a contrarian leader.

Check out more of Kevin's top leadership reads: The Obstacle is the Way: Building Resilient Teams and The Power of the Five Graces of Leadership.