As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Even the best business plan can’t succeed if your corporate culture is so dysfunctional that it alienates your employees. It only takes one member of the leadership team to champion dignity, and there’s a business case for it: It’s both cost effective and a competitive differentiator. Research shows that when people trust each other at work, they’re more committed to the organization and more willing to make a positive contribution. In addition, it’s been proven that interpersonal trust is important to how well an organization functions and to whether it achieves its goals and objectives. It also increases productivity, cooperation, and employee retention. That’s critical, because in a competitive market, you have to attract good people, and the way to do that is to make your employees feel valued. You’re not going to single out, say, the manager who yells at assistants. But you can suggest that both leaders and employees be trained to treat each other with dignity, to develop their interpersonal skills, and to create a dignity culture throughout the organization.