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You want Leaders with culture-fit? Try culture-add!

For more than two decades we’ve tallked about the mandatory culture-fit in the corporate world. As we all know, this means that every employee should be characterized by a set of values, principles and behaviors strictly aligned with the corporate culture.

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Leaders with culture darefy

For more than two decades we’ve tallked about the mandatory culture-fit in the corporate world. As we all know, this means that every employee should be characterized by a set of values, principles and behaviors strictly aligned with the corporate culture.

At a first glance, this seems obvious. A structured, strict or formal person wouldn´t feel confortable or welcomed in an adhocracy, with a great level of agility, empowerment, swift decision making, with just a few or no rules. Or a proactive, impatient and entrepreneur mindset wouldn´t be, probably, the best choice for a stable family business.

But, moving apart from these extreme examples, if everybody thinks and acts in the same way, you get small added value. And mitigate team’s potential and effectiveness.  

You can have the best of both worlds. You can retain the “basics” of your cultural assets and acquire valuable elements that your culture lacks, enhancing the organization’s standards and culture.

So, the be more concrete, you can establish a set of core values and principles and design a set of guidelines for people and leadership standards. Make the “invisible”, visible for everyone. But, additionaly, hire new people that, being aligned with the core, bring diversity, innovation, critical thinking and better decision making. These people may come from outside your industry, from an alternative academic/ training backgrounds, from other geographies and national cultures. People that were exposed to different realities and challenges throughout their lives. And sooner than later, you´ll probably spot on these newcomers “positive deviations” (that add value to culture, leadership and management processes) instead of the traditional “negative deviations” – always researched in the culture fit approaches.

If you change from culture fit to culture add, you enable your talent and leadership attraction capabilities, from defensive to ambitious mindset – and build a more positive corporate ecossystem to learn, develop and innovate.

Carlos Sezões
Managing Partner of Darefy – Leadership & Change Builders


Luís Gonçalves

Marketing & Tech Manager

Luís has a professional certification in IT (Computer Systems Management and Programming). He´s now finishing his degree in Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior. He has experience in marketing and communication projects, both in Portugal and in the UK. Entrepreneur and event manager, Luís is organizer and co-founder of the Famalicão Extreme Gaming, one of the biggest e-sports, video games and technology events in Portugal.

Nuno Gonçalves

Associate Consultant

Nuno has a degree in Psychology and a Business Management Executive Master; he’s an organizational consultant and senior trainer, with over 20 years of experience in the areas of Negotiation, Team Management, Leadership; Coaching, Stress Management; Emotional Intelligence, Feedback and Customer Management. He has a HeartMath Coach – Stress & Resilience Management certification and additional training in Theater, Psychodrama and NLP (Neuro – Linguistic Programming).
Nuno has been invited professor in modules like Innovation, Creativity and Leadership and Team Management.

Susana Almeida

Associate Consultant

Susana has a degree in Psychology (specialization in Social Psychology and Organizations) and Master in Human Resources Management (EADA). She has extensive experience of more than 15 years in executive search and middle-management recruitment, in leading multinational consulting firms, in Portugal and Spain. Susana presents also an insightful experience in several talent management, leadership assessment and culture transformation consulting projects. Versatile leader, she´s also an entrepreneur, language teacher and project manager in the education and life-long learning areas.

Cristiana Paiva

Client Partner

Cristiana has more than 15 years working in organizational, leadership and HR challenges, in different companies and geographies. She graduated in Sociology from the University of Porto and complemented her training with an MBA in Management, specializing in the areas of Marketing and Human Resources. She was a consultant for Dynargie Portugal and Responsible for the Recruitment, Selection and Talent Capture of the Ibersol Group. At JASON Associates Portugal she started as Business Development, then took on the challenge of internationalization in 2013 as Business Manager for the Angola operation and, later, she took on the role of HEAD Africa. She is the “mother” of the TOP Leaders Luanda brand, an event directed to TOP Management. In 2017, she completed the brand’s spin off for Angola, having led the process of making international operations autonomous. She is a Managing Partner at JASON Angola, a Partner at JASON Brasil and a Business Development Manager at JASON Tribe.

Carlos Sezões

Managing Partner

Carlos has more than 20 years helping companies to optimize their organizations, leadership and talent.  He began his career at Banco BPI (banking) in 1999, focused on small and mid-sized companies. In 2001, he went to work to the e-recruitment portal ExpressoEmprego.pt (Impresa Group), were he developed employer branding strategies. Later, in 2004, he changed to management consulting sector, where he worked for SIGH International and BI4All – essentially, in corporate governance and performance management projects. Carlos founded LearnView in 2007, a company focused on consultancy (change management) and competencies development (strategy, leadership, behavioural). Carlos was Partner at Stanton Chase Portugal for more than 10 years (2010 to 2021) – engaged in  Executive Search, Talent Management and Executive Coaching.

He holds a degree in Business Management and has upgraded his studies with a Marketing post-graduation course, an Executive MBA, and finished his Masters degree in Human Resources Management in 2018. He’s also concluded a Digital Transformation program (MIT). Since 2012, he has an international certification in Executive Coaching. Carlos was honored in 2013 as HR Consultant of the Year in Portugal (RH Magazine) and has also participated as a speaker in more than 50 conferences and seminars. Moreover, he has been serving as visiting professor in some universities and business schools (Universidade do Minho, UAL, ISG). Parallel to his professional life, he’s the founder and coordinator of Portugal Agora (www.portugalagora.com) – citizenship and think-tank platform.