Culture is what we create every day

Culture is often described as though it is something an organisation can design.

A set of values.

A program.

A presentation.

Perhaps a document somewhere on the company intranet.

But culture is much more ordinary than that.

Culture is what accumulates.

It is thousands of small moments.

A conversation in a corridor.

A difficult meeting.

A promotion decision.

The way a leader responds when someone disagrees.

The way mistakes are handled.

The way we talk about people when they aren’t in the room.

A person taking a risk and discovering that it was safe to do so.

Those moments accumulate.

Eventually people know what kind of place they work in.

They know whether the organisation creates trust or fear.

Confidence or self-doubt.

Curiosity or compliance.

And eventually they make a judgement about what really matters.

Not because of what appears on the values statement.

Because of what they have watched happen.

I used to ask myself:

“If a new employee watched me for six months, what would they conclude I truly valued?”

Would they believe I valued people? Or would they conclude that people mattered provided this month’s numbers were good?

Organisations are remarkably accurate mirrors.

Not of our intentions, but of our behaviour.