Culture Matters. Just Not in the Way We Think.

Part 1: What Do We Actually Mean by Culture?

At work, we talk about culture as if it is obvious, powerful, and always worth investing in. This series takes a more evidence-based look at those assumptions. It is for leaders, HR, and OD practitioners who are being asked to “fix the culture” or “build a high-performance culture” and want to be more precise. Across the series, the aim is to help you make better decisions about when to work on “culture”, when to work on systems and structures, and how to connect the two in practice.
Introduction

I have written about culture before.
I have facilitated culture conversations.
I have believed culture was a primary lever of organisational success.

But reading the evidence more closely has unsettled me.

We talk about culture as if it is obvious. As if everyone knows what it is. As if it can be strengthened, shifted, or engineered with enough intention.

Yet when you step into the research, certainty fades.

Before we ask whether culture improves performance, perhaps we need to ask a more basic question:

What exactly do we mean by culture?
And if you are a leader, HR, or OD practitioner, an equally practical question follows:

When you say “culture” at work, what specific behaviours and system signals are you actually pointing at?

The Science

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conducted a rapid evidence assessment examining the link between organisational culture and performance.

Their findings are sobering:

• There is no consensus definition of organisational culture.
• Multiple competing schools of thought exist.
• Scholars disagree on whether culture is something an organisation is or something it has.

Two dominant approaches stand out:

1. Schein’s model
Culture is a pattern of shared underlying assumptions, values, and beliefs that guide behaviour. It is deep, embedded, and difficult to change.

2. Traits–strength models
Culture is a profile of measurable characteristics (for example clan, market, hierarchy, adhocracy) assessed via surveys such as Competing Values Framework (OCAI), Denison Organisational Culture Survey (DOCS), Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) or Organisational Culture Profile (OCP).

The problem is not that these models exist. The problem is that they are conceptually different. If scholars cannot agree what culture is, measurement becomes unstable.

And when measurement is unstable, management becomes uncertain.

Key Findings

The CIPD review highlights several important issues:

• Over 70 diagnostic instruments exist for assessing culture.
• Many show predictive validity but lack construct validity.
• In some cases, tools originally designed to measure effectiveness have been relabelled as culture instruments.
• Studies often rely on cross-sectional surveys and self-report data.

Put simply: we may be correlating performance with something called culture without being entirely clear what that “something” is.

This does not mean culture is imaginary.
It does mean it is conceptually fragmented.

And that fragmentation matters.

What Does This Mean in Practice?

In HR, we routinely:

• Commission culture surveys.
• Diagnose cultural strengths and weaknesses.
• Design culture change initiatives.
• Align recruitment and reward with “our culture”.

But if the construct itself lacks clarity, we must pause.

When we say:
“We have a high-performance culture.”

What are we actually referring to?

• Decision speed?
• Collaboration norms?
• Risk tolerance?
• Leadership behaviour?
• Incentive design?
• Psychological safety?

If different leaders are imagining different things, culture becomes a container word.
And container words can obscure more than they clarify.

Perhaps the more useful move is not to abandon culture, but to disaggregate it.

Instead of asking:
“How do we strengthen our culture?”
Ask:

• Which behaviours are stabilised?
• Which behaviours are rewarded?
• Which behaviours are tolerated?
• Which behaviours are costly?

That shift moves us from abstraction to mechanism.

If You’re a Leader or HR Practitioner, Try This Week

To make this concrete, here are a few small experiments you can run:

1. Clarify the picture behind the word “culture”.
   In your next leadership or HR meeting, ask each person to write down, in one sentence, what they mean when they say “our culture”. Compare the answers. Notice where they diverge.
2. Translate slogans into observable behaviour.
   Take one existing culture statement (for example, “We have a high-performance culture” or “We value collaboration”) and rewrite it as concrete behaviour:
   • “We have a high-performance culture” → “We commit to clear goals, review progress weekly, and address underperformance within one month.”
   • “We value collaboration” → “Major cross-team decisions involve A and B before sign-off.”
3. Name the system signals, not just the vibes.
   For one team or function, list three recent decisions about hiring, promotion, reward, or workload. Ask: “What do these decisions signal is really valued here?”
4. Audit a phrase you use often.
   If you frequently describe your organisation as “innovative”, “customer-centric”, or “high trust”, write down:
   • What behaviours are consistently rewarded that justify this label?
   • What behaviours are consistently penalised that would contradict it?

These actions do not solve culture.
But they make your use of the word “culture” more precise, and your levers more visible.

A Quote to Reflect On
“There is no consensus of what ‘organisational culture’ entails.”
— Organisational Culture and Performance: An Evidence Review

A Question to Reflect On
When you talk about culture in your organisation, are you describing shared assumptions, measurable traits, or simply patterns of behaviour?

If your honest answer is “I’m not sure”, your next step may not be another culture initiative. It may be a clearer shared definition.

Further Reading

• Barends, E. & Rousseau, D. (2022). Organisational culture and performance: An evidence review. CIPD
• Chatman, J. & O’Reilly, C. (2016). Paradigm lost: reinvigorating the study of organisational culture.
• Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M., & Macey, W. (2013). Organisational climate and culture.

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