Want Better Culture? How to Book Speakers Who Get It

Let’s stop pretending culture is something you fix with a pizza party and a few motivational posters. The companies actually getting it right? They’re done with fluff. They’re booking speakers who speak human, not HR.

If your idea of a “culture expert” still involves someone quoting Steve Jobs over a slideshow of stick figures climbing mountains, EVA’s here to break it to you: you’re booking it wrong.

Culture Can’t Be Preached From a PowerPoint

Real talk: culture isn't something your team passively absorbs during a keynote. They know the difference between someone who's walked through fire and someone who's read about it on LinkedIn. If the speaker doesn’t feel real, your people won’t care what they’re saying.

The right speaker connects because they’ve actually lived through the mess and survived with some dang good stories to tell. They’re not reciting a list of corporate commandments—they’re cracking open hard truths, making people squirm, laugh, nod, and maybe even rethink their Monday meetings. That kind of energy? It doesn’t come from someone who learned culture secondhand.

Skip the academic theories. Hire people who’ve built teams from scratch, fired toxic leaders, gotten it wrong, made it right, and know how to explain it without sounding like a TED Talk on autopilot.

Relevance Is Non-Negotiable

The best cultural speakers are not one-size-fits-all. If you’re booking someone who gives the same talk to a room full of financial advisors and a team of product designers, you’ve already lost the plot. Culture lives and dies in the day-to-day—the awkward 1:1s, the missed deadlines, the unspoken rules of Slack emojis. If your speaker isn’t tailoring their message to match the tension and tempo of your team, they’re just background noise.

You don’t need someone to “talk about inclusion.” You need someone who knows how microaggressions show up in team meetings and what a real fix looks like without making it weird or performative. You don’t need “motivation.” You need someone who knows how burnout sneaks into remote teams and what real prevention sounds like beyond suggesting yoga breaks.

Book speakers who ask real questions before they ever say yes to the gig. The ones who want to know who your people are, what your team is struggling with, and how the culture actually functions when HR isn’t in the room—those are the ones who will land hard and stick around in people’s heads long after the applause.

Vibe Check: Do They Even Sound Like Us?

Let’s be honest. You’re not just booking a speaker. You’re setting the tone for what your team is supposed to believe you care about. So, if you bring someone in who talks like a motivational spreadsheet, don’t act surprised when your team checks out halfway through.

Language matters. Delivery matters. Some speakers are polished to the point of being bland. Others may drop a few curse words and still come across as more respectful than someone hiding behind buzzwords. Culture isn’t tidy—so the person talking about it shouldn’t be either. If your team is messy, real, fast-moving, sarcastic, overwhelmed—then that speaker should feel like they’ve been in that chaos too.

The right speaker should feel like they could walk into your office, sit on the edge of a desk, and instantly understand why your product manager is side-eyeing the ops lead. That’s not about credentials—it’s about tone, timing, and total fluency in how people actually communicate.

Avoid the Resume Parade

It’s easy to fall for the resume. A bestselling book, a few logos from big companies, maybe a fancy podcast appearance. But none of that guarantees they’ll connect with your crowd. The best speakers might not be famous—but they’re real, and they’ve got receipts.

A strong resume doesn’t mean they know how to hold a room. Some of the most electric speakers EVA books aren’t media darlings—they’re just people who’ve spent years getting their hands dirty in the exact spaces your people live in.

So, ask this: Do they have something to say, or are they just trying to be impressive?

You want someone who will challenge the room, not charm it. Who will make people rethink their leadership style or how they run meetings. Someone who will call out your C-suite (politely, but with that gleam in their eye). That’s the difference between a culture moment and just another “learning opportunity.”

Beware the Buzzword Storm

If their talk description includes phrases like “transformational leadership,” “synergistic alignment,” or “navigating the digital workplace,” close that tab. That’s not thought leadership—that’s reheated word salad.

A real speaker makes complicated topics feel grounded, not grandiose. If they’re explaining psychological safety, it should sound like how your team actually argues in the group chat. If they’re talking about leadership, it better come with stories that feel like “yep, been there,” not “what even is that scenario?”

You want people who speak plain but hit hard. No jargon, no filler. Just clarity, conviction, and probably a moment or two where your Head of People is shifting uncomfortably in their seat (which is a good sign, honestly).

Culture Isn’t a Side Topic—It Is the Topic

Too many companies treat culture talks like a quarterly palate cleanser between the “real” business discussions. That’s the backwards approach. Culture touches every decision, every meeting, every Slack message. So why are you hiring someone to speak about it like it’s a nice-to-have?

The right speaker understands that culture isn’t separate from performance—it is performance. A team that knows how to communicate, set boundaries, and trust each other will always beat the one that’s clinging to process and pretending they’re fine. If the speaker doesn’t frame culture as mission-critical, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

And let’s be blunt: if your executive team isn’t in the front row, you’re also wasting your money. Booking a great speaker for “the employees” while the leaders are out golfing? That’s not culture—it’s a bandage.

Timing and Format Make or Break It

Culture talks hit different depending on when and how they’re delivered. Booking someone to speak right after a round of layoffs? Yeah, you better make sure they can walk into a tense room and still create trust. Dropping a speaker into your all-hands after 27 quarterly updates and two product demos? Don’t be surprised when no one remembers what they said.

Slot culture speakers strategically. Give them space, not a time slot squeezed between Q&A and lunch. And please—don’t force them into a “fireside chat” if they’ve got a story that deserves a stage. Sometimes a panel works. Sometimes you need 45 minutes of solo fire. Just match the format to the speaker’s style and the room’s energy.

Ask the Hard Questions Before You Sign Anything

It’s easy to get sold by a flashy reel or a referral from another company that swears “they were amazing!” But amazing for who? You’ve got to ask better questions.

Start with this:

 – What do they actually believe about workplace culture?

 – Do they adjust their material based on the audience?

 – Can they give a recent example where something didn’t go well—and what they did about it?

You’re not just hiring talent in general. You’re hiring someone to step into your space and shift it—if only for a moment.

They better know what they’re walking into, and they better be honest about what they bring to the table.

Don’t Confuse Liked with Effective

Here’s the thing: the best culture speakers aren’t always universally liked. Sometimes they hit a nerve. Sometimes they push too far. But if the takeaway is real change—new conversations, better feedback loops, less performative “teamwork”—then it was worth it.

Safe isn’t always smart. The speaker who makes your leadership team sweat a little might be exactly who your people needed. Culture is uncomfortable. So let the talk be too.

Booking a culture speaker shouldn’t feel like checking a box. It’s a signal. It tells your team, loud and clear, what kind of workplace you’re trying to build—and who gets to shape it.

So skip the clichés. Drop the corporate gloss. And go find someone who doesn’t just “get” culture—they live it. That’s who EVA books. That’s who your people deserve.