You’ve defined your values. You’ve launched new initiatives. You’ve conducted employee surveys and communicated a vision for the kind of workplace you want to create. But six months later, something feels familiar.
Employees are describing the workplace in much the same way they did before. Communication is still inconsistent. Accountability still varies between teams. Leaders are still struggling with the same challenges.
So why isn’t your culture changing?
The answer may be simpler than you think: culture isn’t changed by what an organization says. It’s changed by what people experience.
Culture Isn’t a Program
Every organization has a culture. The question is whether that culture is helping the business succeed.
One of the challenges organizations face is treating culture like a program. Something that can be launched, communicated, and celebrated.
But culture doesn't live in those things. It lives in the everyday behaviors of the organization:
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How does a leader communicate when things go wrong?
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How is accountability handled? Do employees receive useful feedback?
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Are people recognized for the behaviors the organization says it values?
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Do different leaders create consistent experiences for their teams?
These everyday experiences tell employees what the organization actually values. When those experiences don't align with the culture leadership says it wants, employees notice.
The Gap Between Stated Culture and Experienced Culture
Imagine an organization that wants to build a more collaborative culture. Leadership updates the company values, holds town halls, and introduces a new employee recognition program.
On paper, the organization is clearly communicating that collaboration matters. But underneath those initiatives, the day-to-day experience hasn't changed.
Communication between leaders and teams remains inconsistent. Feedback is limited. Accountability varies from one department to another. Employees continue to experience the same behaviors that existed before the culture initiative.
The problem isn't necessarily the initiative. The problem is that the behaviors supporting the desired culture haven't changed.
This is why culture can be difficult to improve. Organizations may measure employee sentiment or conduct engagement surveys, but those measures tell you what people are experiencing. They don't necessarily tell you which leadership and team behaviors are creating that experience.
Culture Changes When Behaviors Change
If you want to change culture, start by looking at the behaviors that shape it.
Communication. Accountability. Feedback. Emotional intelligence. The way leaders interact with their teams. The structures that support how people work together.
These aren't separate from culture. They are the mechanisms through which employees experience it. When organizations identify and measure the behaviors influencing their culture, they can move beyond asking, "How do we improve our culture?"
They can start asking more actionable questions:
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Which behaviors are helping us create the culture we want?
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Which behaviors are getting in the way?
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Where do our leaders and teams need to improve?
That shift matters because it turns culture from an abstract concept into something organizations can actually work on.
Instead of launching another initiative and hoping it sticks, leaders can identify specific behaviors, develop those behaviors, and measure whether things are changing over time.
Your Culture Is Being Reinforced Every Day
Every conversation, meeting, decision, and interaction with a leader either reinforces the culture you're trying to create or undermines it.
That means improving culture isn't necessarily about doing more. It may be about understanding what's already happening beneath the surface and identifying the behaviors that need to change.
Because if the desired culture isn't showing up in everyday experiences, changing the messaging won't be enough. The real question isn't whether you've communicated your culture. It's whether your people are experiencing it.
A Question for Leaders
If you asked your employees to describe your company culture today, would their answers match the culture your leadership team believes you've created?
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If you want to understand the hidden business costs of turnover, disengagement, inefficiency, and other people challenges, download Vivo Team's The Hidden Cost of People Problems: A Business Leader's Guide to Measuring the ROI of Leadership.
Because when you invest in your people, the results follow.
Full Video Transcript
Is your organization working hard to improve its culture, but nothing really seems to change.
You launch new initiatives, you define your values, you conduct employee survey after employee survey, yet six months later, employees still describe the workplace in the same way.
I'm Renée Safrata and every organization has a culture.
The question isn't whether you have one, it's whether it is helping your business succeed.
And if your culture isn't improving, there's usually a reason.
Many organizations treat culture as a program, something you launch, something you communicate, and something you celebrate.
But culture isn't built by posters on the wall or words on the websites.
It's built by what employees experience each and every day.
It's how leaders communicate, how accountability is handled, how people are recognized, and what behaviors are rewarded.
When those experiences don't align with the culture an organization wants, employees are the first to notice.
And culture doesn't change.
Consider an organization who wants to build a more collaborative culture.
They updated their values, they hold, they hold town halls, and they introduced new employee recognition programs.
But the everyday experiences of their people didn't change.
Communication between leaders and teams remained inconsistent.
Feedback was limited, and accountability varied from one department to the other.
What if instead of launching another culture initiative they focused on improving the leadership behaviors influencing those results.
Over time, those behavior changes led to improved team effectiveness.
Leader effectiveness increased, and employees began describing culture differently.
The culture didn't change because the messaging changed.
It changed because behaviors changed.
Culture isn't something employees are told, it's something they experience, and every conversation, every meeting, every decision, every interaction with a leader can reinforce the culture or undermine it.
When organizations measure the behavior shaping culture, and they stop guessing on what needs to change, they can focus their efforts where they'll have the greatest impact.
So here's a question for you to consider.
If you asked your employee to describe your culture today, what would their, would their answers actually match the culture your leadership team believes they created?
If you'd like to explore that question further, download our free guide, The Hidden Costs of people Problems.
It explores the hidden business costs of turnover, disengagement, inefficiency, and other leadership challenges, and shows organizations how they can measure the impact of leadership development, because when you invest in your people, the results will follow.
