--- title: "Episode 54: Personal Purpose in Leadership: Why Attrition Can Wait — with Philip McCrea" description: Viedoc CEO Philip McCrea explains why he asked his board to stop chasing attrition numbers, how personal purpose drives engagement, and what builds global trust. --- [![Velocity Advisory Group](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Velocity-Logo-2023-Wide-1.png)](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/) ☰ Menu - About - [Meet Our Team](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/about/) - [Meet Our Coaches](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/coaches/) - [Careers](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/careers/) - [Speaking Engagements](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/velocity-speakers/) - Solutions - [Culture & Engagement](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/culture-engagement/) - [DISC Assessments & Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/) - [Employee Experience](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/employee-experience/) - [Executive Coaching](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/executive-coaching/) - [Family Business](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/family-business/) - [Leadership Development](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-development/) - [Sales Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/5cs-of-selling/) - [Strategy & Implementation](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/strategy-implementation/) - Resources - [Activating Greatness Podcast](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes) - [Blog](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/insights?type=insights) - [Case Studies](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/insights?type=case-studies) - [News and Announcements](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/insights?type=news,in-the-news) - [OrderDisc](https://orderdisc.com/) - [Webinars and Events](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/insights?type=webinars) - Industries - [Construction](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/construction/) - [Financial Services](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/financial-services/) - [Life Sciences](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/lifesciences/) - [Contact](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/contact/) Activating Greatness Podcast Episodes October 26, 2026 | Episode 54 # Personal Purpose in Leadership: Why Attrition Can Wait — with Philip McCrea ## The Price of Alignment: Viedoc CEO Philip McCrea on Purpose, Attrition, and Leading a Global Team **In this post:** *Viedoc CEO Philip McCrea explains how personal purpose in leadership shaped his decision to stop chasing attrition numbers. He also shares how he connects each employee to the mission and why trust takes time to earn across a global team.* An hour before a presentation to Johnson & Johnson executives, two partners from a large consulting firm walked in. For three months, a young consultant named Katie had done the work alongside Philip McCrea. Now they had arrived to take the credit. "Katie, the big boys are here. We'll take it forward. We got this covered," McCrea recalled on *Activating Greatness*, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group. He saw her face fall. Over coffee the next day, he told her she deserved more. She joined his company. Today, he said, she runs a 2,000-person organization. Personal purpose in leadership often starts with a moment like that. It shaped the purpose McCrea now leads by as Chief Executive Officer of Viedoc, the Uppsala, Sweden, e-clinical software company he took over in 2025. It also explains a decision that surprised his board: He asked them to stop worrying about attrition. ## Thirty Years to Find One Sentence McCrea grew up on a small horse farm outside Minneapolis. His parents were entrepreneurs who steered all three children away from entrepreneurship. It did not work on him. At 25 he became the first non-founding employee at a startup, and by 28 he was managing a team. "I made every management mistake you possibly could make," he said. "I did a whole lot more talking than listening." He still checks his instinct to favor motion over thought. When he started his own business at 32, he could not afford seasoned hires, so he bet on talented people who had not yet done the work. That habit became his purpose, though naming it took decades. "It was like 30 years before I could articulate that with any level of clarity, confidence, or certainty," he said. A colleague at Red Nucleus, where the leadership team was combining five businesses under one mission, pushed him to connect the company's purpose to his own. His answer has two parts. "I exist to help people discover things they can do that they didn't think they could," he said. The second part is networking, which he uses to create the opportunities. ## Attrition Is Not Always the Enemy When McCrea arrived at Viedoc, the company had a weak employee Net Promoter Score and attrition that host Alec McChesney put near 25%. The board wanted eNPS up and attrition down. McCrea pushed back. "On attrition, driving it down may be exactly the opposite of what we want," he told the board. He asked for a pause on both metrics and a focus on clarifying mission, vision, and purpose. People would get a chance to connect to something, and those who did not would leave. Attrition went up. "Yes, there's a dollar cost to losing somebody who's really good at doing their job, but I think there's a much bigger cost to having people not engaged," he said. "I'll take higher attrition for a period of time if it's what it takes to get us to a point where we've got people who are excited and engaged and moving in a single direction." His investors backed him, he said, because they value the brand over squeezing out the last few points of EBITDA before an exit. McCrea also draws a line that many private equity owners blur. Profit is the goal of the fund, he said, but making it the goal of the company misses the point. "That's not why people come to work every day," he said. "It's the outcome measure of success." > "I'll take higher attrition for a period of time if it's what it takes to get us to a point where we've got people who are excited and engaged and moving in a single direction." > > *Philip McCrea, Chief Executive Officer, Viedoc* Other life sciences leaders have made a similar case. Jeanne Hecht of Lexitas Pharma Services called [culture a strategic value driver](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-29-ceo-owns-culture-jeanne-hecht), and Julie Blasingim described [leading with mission under pressure](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-7-leading-with-mission-under-pressure-julie-blasingim). FREE ONE-PAGE CHECKLIST ### The Purpose Before Metrics Checklist Use it to tie company purpose to each person's own, decide which metrics to pause, and explain decisions people did not help make. [Get the free checklist](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/purpose-before-metrics-checklist) ## Making Personal Purpose in Leadership Everyone's Business McCrea prefers companies of 200 people or fewer, where leaders can work on purpose with everyone. At Viedoc, the purpose is creating a healthier world by accelerating clinical development that saves lives. The values are simple: "Do good, be confident, people first." He then asks each employee which words resonate. At a previous digital health education company, he framed it as three circles: health care, education, and digital transformation. If one excites you, you will have a good experience. If two excite you, a great one. "If all three of those things get you super motivated, this is the last place you'll ever work," he said. Another prompt works backward: How do you want people to describe you at the end of your life? That question led him past titles and industries to the satisfaction of watching people like Katie outgrow him. Purpose also shapes who manages. Viedoc had promoted experts into leadership roles they were not suited for. McCrea moved some of them back to the work they do best. "Sometimes that's an ego hit," he said, but he aims to put people where they can do their best work. ## From Swedish Company to Global Company Viedoc has teams in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Vietnam, China, Brazil, and Australia. Its home culture runs on lagom, a Swedish word meaning "just enough." In business, lagom extends to consensus: Everyone gets a voice on every decision. McCrea inherited about 40 decisions that had been pushed down the road. "Sometimes the biggest risk is not taking any," he said. His reframe for the company is short. "We need to go from being a Swedish company that works globally to being a global company that happens to be based in Sweden," he said. On his first day he told employees, "I did not come here to get second place," a jarring line in a culture that avoids talking about winning. What holds it together is trust. "You don't demand it, you earn it," he said. "In places like Japan that can take 10 years." Leaders who decide without the whole room owe people a clear explanation of why. ## Rapid-Fire Leadership Lessons - **Daily habit:** Ask the next question. One follow-up often opens several more. - **Most underrated skill:** Connection. Every day he calls someone from his past for five minutes, not for information but "for humanity." - **Stop doing:** Tolerating bad behavior from high performers. "Have the courage as a leader and just say, you know what, it's not how we do it." - **Best advice:** "Two ears, one mouth," from his wife. "You become so much smarter when you spend more time listening than talking." HOW VELOCITY HELPS ### Velocity Culture & Engagement McCrea refused to chase eNPS and attrition until the company understood its mission, vision, and values. Metrics tell leaders that something is wrong, not why. Velocity's Culture and Engagement work uses culture assessments, engagement surveys, and stakeholder interviews to uncover what drives disengagement and whether people connect to the company's purpose. The High Performance Culture Workshop then helps leadership teams turn those findings into clear priorities and daily behaviors that align people in a single direction. See how Velocity works with [life sciences organizations](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/lifesciences/). [Explore Culture and Engagement](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/culture-engagement/) ## The Takeaway: Purpose First, Metrics Second McCrea's best advice came from his wife, and it runs through everything he said. Leaders often rise because they can talk. They get better when they listen long enough to learn what someone else could become. That is how a young consultant who was pushed out of a meeting ended up running a 2,000-person organization. The same logic applies to a company. Attrition, engagement scores, and profit are outcomes. Leaders who chase them directly treat the symptom. Leaders who clarify purpose, earn trust, and accept some painful turnover along the way build teams that choose to stay. ## Listen to the Full Episode Hear Philip McCrea's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on *Activating Greatness*. [Find it on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@VelocityAdvisoryGroup), or listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4LcgAut0KyYiGyDhFvMjPD) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1868386871). FREE GUIDE ### The Conditions-to-Win Model McCrea connects each employee to the mission and knows that trust takes time to earn. This framework helps you build teams that believe they can win: connect people to the story, protect the front line from pressure, and trust what you see over the dashboard. 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Velocity Advisory Group helps leadership teams build the culture, strategy, and systems that let good people do their best work. [Book a discovery call](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/contact/) ## Related posts [![EP 7 With Julie Blasingim](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-7-Julie-1.png?height=200&name=ep-7-Julie-1.png)](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-7-leading-with-mission-under-pressure-julie-blasingim) [Leadership Mindset](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/leadership-mindset) ## [Episode 7: How to Lead With Mission When the Pressure Is On — with Julie Blasingim](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-7-leading-with-mission-under-pressure-julie-blasingim) [Alec McChesney](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney) Feb 8, 2026, 3:30:00 PM Best, Not Biggest: Julie Blasingim on Leading With Mission Under Pressure In this post: Univo IRB... 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[Read more](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-28-fixing-broken-work-lisa-calicchio) --- [![](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png?width=1025&height=267&name=Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png)](http://velocityadvisorygroup.com) Copyright © 2026, Velocity Advisory Group ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Alec McChesney", "url" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-26T15:18:35.605Z", "datePublished" : "2026-10-26T13:00:03.000Z", "headline" : "Episode 54: Personal Purpose in Leadership: Why Attrition Can Wait — with Philip McCrea", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-54-personal-purpose-in-leadership-philip-mccrea", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hubfs/Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png" }, "name" : "Velocity Advisory Group" } } ```