— McClone Insurance
How McClone Built a Shared Language to Preserve and Strengthen Its Culture
Client Overview
McClone Insurance is a privately held, independent insurance and risk management firm founded in 1949 at Ralph “Cyclone” McClone’s kitchen table.
Today, McClone has more than 135 team members across five Wisconsin locations. The organization has grown significantly, but its philosophy has remained consistent: understand a client’s risks and challenges before recommending solutions.
That same intentional approach extends to McClone’s culture. For generations, the organization’s beliefs, values and leadership principles were passed down through relationships, stories and shared experiences. As McClone continued to grow, its leaders recognized that culture could no longer rely solely on what longtime team members instinctively understood.
The company needed a clear and consistent way to articulate the behaviors that made McClone distinct, and to ensure those behaviors could be understood, practiced and reinforced across every team and location.
Why It Mattered
McClone did not begin this work because its culture was broken. The organization already viewed its culture as one of its greatest strengths and an important competitive differentiator. The concern was what could happen as the business continued to grow.
New locations, new capabilities and new team members naturally create more complexity. Without a shared language, cultural expectations can become inconsistent, interpreted differently across teams or understood only by those who have been with the organization for years. McClone’s leadership wanted to protect against that drift before it occurred.
The goal was not to create a new culture. It was to document what already made McClone special, define what those beliefs looked like in action and create a framework that could scale with the organization.
The Challenge
McClone had clearly defined values and a strong sense of identity, but many of its most meaningful cultural expectations were informal. Longtime team members understood phrases, stories and leadership principles that had been reinforced over many years. Newer team members did not always have that same context.
Leadership also recognized that values alone were not enough. Words such as service, growth or accountability can mean different things to different people unless an organization defines the everyday behaviors that bring them to life.
McClone needed to answer a more practical question: what does it actually look like to live McClone’s culture each day? The answer had to be specific enough to guide decisions, feedback and accountability while still feeling authentic to the organization.
“We wanted help formalizing the beliefs and behaviors that were already part of McClone so we could reinforce them more consistently as we grew.”
McClone Insurance
Lisa Van Straten
Vice President of Human Resources
The Solution
McClone partnered with CultureWise to create the McClone Code: 24 clearly defined behaviors that bring the organization’s beliefs, values and culture to life. CultureWise provided a structured process for gathering input, identifying recurring themes and transforming McClone’s existing cultural language into behaviors team members could understand and apply.
The work was highly collaborative. It included leadership conversations, team input and thoughtful discussion about which behaviors were truly essential to McClone’s identity. The resulting Code includes expectations such as:
- When in Doubt, Do the Right Thing
- Take Ownership
- Think a Step Ahead
- Don’t Be a Bobblehead
- Collaborate to Win
- Stack Hands
- Make Me Better
- Be Crystal Clear
- Represent with Honor
- Keep It Fun
Together, the behaviors created more than a list of principles. They gave team members a common language for discussing how work gets done, how people treat one another and what it means to represent McClone.
Introducing the McClone Code
McClone understood that the Code could not simply be announced in an email or unveiled during a single company meeting. Team members needed the opportunity to understand where the behaviors came from, discuss what they meant and see themselves reflected in the final product.
The organization introduced the Code through four interactive sessions designed to reach team members across all locations, including those working remotely. The sessions combined facilitated conversation, practical examples and opportunities for team members to connect the behaviors to their own experiences.
Although some team members entered the sessions unsure of what to expect, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
“There was some natural hesitation going into the sessions because people did not know exactly what this would be. By the end, the feedback was incredibly positive. Team members understood that the Code was not an attempt to change who we were. It gave us clearer language for what was already important to us.”
— Lisa Van Straten, Vice President of Human ResourcesFrom Launch to Everyday Practice
The McClone Code was never intended to be a one-time initiative. Its value would depend on how consistently the organization reinforced it after the initial launch. McClone has continued bringing the Code into the everyday employee experience in several ways.
Weekly Code Videos. Each Monday, the entire company receives a short video focused on one behavior. Dustin McClone, President and CEO, personally led the first 24 videos. Members of the leadership team continued the series, and team members throughout the organization have since been invited to select behaviors that are meaningful to them and share their own examples. The videos keep the Code visible while showing that the behaviors apply across roles, teams and levels of leadership.
Performance and Development Conversations. The Code has been incorporated into McClone’s performance review process as a tool for reflection and development. Team members identify behaviors they believe they demonstrate consistently, as well as behaviors they would like to strengthen. This creates a practical starting point for meaningful conversations about growth, collaboration and accountability.
Team Member Recognition. McClone also incorporated the Code into its existing peer-recognition platform. Team members can recognize colleagues who visibly demonstrate one of the behaviors. Those nominations reinforce the specific actions McClone wants to celebrate and make examples of the culture visible across the organization. Quarterly drawings provide an additional element of recognition, with selected team members receiving funds that can be used toward an experience or item that is meaningful to them.
Hiring and Onboarding. The Code has also become part of how McClone introduces its culture to prospective and new team members. Rather than speaking about culture only in broad terms, leaders can explain the specific behaviors employees are expected to demonstrate. This helps candidates better understand the organization and gives new hires a clearer picture of how McClone operates from the beginning.
The Results
The clearest result of the McClone Code is not a single program or metric. It is the shared language the organization now uses to reinforce its culture. Behaviors that were once understood primarily through experience are now clearly articulated and consistently discussed across teams and locations.
A Common Language Across the Organization. The Code gives team members clear, practical language for recognizing strong behaviors, discussing challenges and holding one another accountable.
“The behaviors now show up in daily conversations. Our team has a clear, actionable way to align, provide feedback and hold one another accountable.”
— Lisa Van Straten, Vice President of Human ResourcesMore Consistent Accountability. Defining expectations has made cultural accountability more straightforward. Leaders and team members no longer need to rely solely on subjective descriptions of whether something “feels like McClone.” They can connect conversations to a behavior everyone recognizes and understands.
“The greatest investment is on the front end, taking the time to define the behaviors clearly. Once they are established, it becomes much easier to reinforce them and hold one another accountable.”
— Lisa Van Straten, Vice President of Human ResourcesSustained Engagement. The weekly videos, performance conversations and recognition program have continued well beyond the initial launch. That ongoing reinforcement has helped prevent the Code from becoming another set of words displayed on a wall but disconnected from how the organization actually operates.
Key Outcomes
- Developed and branded the 24-behavior McClone Code
- Created a shared cultural language across five locations
- Engaged the full organization through four interactive launch sessions
- Embedded the Code into hiring, onboarding, performance and development conversations
- Incorporated Code-based recognition into an existing peer-recognition platform
- Sustained company-wide engagement through an ongoing weekly video series
- Continued a multiyear decline in employee turnover
- Established a scalable framework for preserving McClone's culture as the organization grows
Continued Improvement in Retention. McClone’s turnover has declined steadily over several years: 21% in 2022, 17% in 2023, 12% in 2024, 12% in 2025, and 9% through the first half of 2026. McClone does not attribute that progress to one initiative alone. Retention is influenced by leadership, compensation, development opportunities, team dynamics and many other factors. However, the McClone Code has strengthened an important part of the employee experience by creating greater clarity around expectations, accountability and what it means to belong at McClone.
Preserving What Makes McClone Distinct
For McClone, the work was not about replacing tradition with a corporate culture program. It was about making decades of beliefs, expectations and leadership principles easier to understand and carry forward. CultureWise brought structure and guidance to the process. McClone brought the culture. The result is a framework that respects the organization’s history while giving current and future team members clear ownership of what comes next.
“Culture has always been one of our greatest competitive advantages, but we recognized that if our behaviors were not documented, they would become increasingly difficult to reinforce and scale as we grew. Our beliefs and values are deeply embedded in who we are, and CultureWise helped us bring structure to the process of formalizing what already existed. The result is a common language that helps preserve what makes McClone special while ensuring our culture continues to thrive as we grow.”
— Dustin McClone, President and CEOThe Culture You Need
Won’t Build Itself
We’ll give you the system, structure, and support to make it happen.