Recent incidents in the NBA and NFL highlight good and not-so-good approaches to changing toxic organizational cultures. The National Basketball Association and the National Football League both encountered situations that exposed institutional cultures that threaten the integrity of their respective brands. In each case, there are lessons to be learned about how to protect a brand and shift an organization’s culture. Adam Silver In the NBA, revelations about two owners turned attention to racist attitudes of those at the highest levels of the industry, and to the perception of bigotry in a game dominated by white owners and black players. Bruce Levenson ( John Bazemore, AP) Less than a year after Donald Sterling was forced by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to sell his interest in the Los Angeles Clippers and banned for life from the NBA after remarks he made to, and recorded by, his daughter, an inflammatory email written by Atlanta Hawks principal owner Bruce Le