Why I stopped trying to ‘fix’ company culture

We’re told culture eats strategy for breakfast. But what happens when you’re asked to “fix” a culture that’s been shaped over decades? Early in my consulting career, I thought culture was a problem I could solve - with surveys, workshops, a few posters on the wall. I’ve since learned that culture is less like a machine and more like a living ecosystem. You don’t fix it. You work with it, learn from it, and, when you’re lucky, help it grow in the right direction.

When I first started consulting, I thought culture was just another puzzle to solve. A broken process? Map it. A lagging team? Coach it. A culture that didn’t “work”? Diagnose, redesign, fix. That was my playbook. It made me feel useful. Necessary. In control.

But culture, I’ve learned, does not like to be controlled. And trying to fix it often does more harm than good.

Let me tell you about the project that woke me up to this.

The culture change program that didn’t change anything

It was a global manufacturing firm in the aftermath of a complicated merger. There were two legacy companies, two very different sets of habits, and a lot of unspoken resentment. We were hired to "unify the culture."

I still have the deck. We designed a full transformation roadmap - surveys, workshops, storytelling campaigns, new values, rituals. Every slide looked right.

But six months in, not much had changed. People used the new vocabulary, but in a flat, rehearsed way. Leaders nodded along in meetings, then reverted to old habits. Morale didn’t improve. Engagement scores didn’t move.

It was humbling.

We’d created a blueprint for a culture no one trusted yet. And in our urgency to “fix” what was broken, we missed the deeper truth: the culture wasn’t broken. It was bruised. And bruises need care, not replacement.

What culture actually responds to

It wasn’t until years later, working with a healthcare nonprofit, that I saw culture change really take root - and this time, we approached it very differently.

The organization had grown rapidly after receiving significant funding. Teams were stretched, and communication had started to fray. Instead of launching a top-down culture program, the executive director made a quiet but bold move: she asked us to help her listen.

We spent weeks just observing. Sitting in team meetings. Watching how people collaborated. Asking questions like, “When do you feel proud of your work?” and “When do you hesitate to speak up?”

The turning point came not from a new mission statement, but from a decision to restructure how cross-functional teams met. One small change - reducing meeting size and making space for reflection - led to a noticeable shift. People began raising concerns more freely. Managers got better at surfacing tensions early. Trust grew.

No values posters. No culture task force. Just small behavioral changes, reinforced steadily. The culture didn’t change overnight, but it evolved. And it felt real because it was rooted in people’s lived experience.

The invisible work that shapes culture

Culture lives in the space between formal processes and informal habits. It’s shaped by things most organizations never write down:

• Who gets cut off in meetings - and who doesn’t.
• How mistakes are handled - quietly corrected or publicly blamed.
• Whether saying “I don’t know” is treated as honesty or weakness.

One of the most powerful conversations I ever facilitated happened in a financial services firm. A high-performing team was struggling with burnout, and no one would admit why. After an offsite session, someone finally said: “We say we’re collaborative, but every project is a competition.”

That one sentence opened the floodgates. It was a truth that had been simmering beneath the surface, and once voiced, it couldn’t be ignored. The team began shifting how they rewarded performance, how they assigned stretch roles, even how they ran meetings.

Culture change didn’t come from a new slogan. It came from naming what was already true - and deciding to do something about it.

When a culture initiative does work

I don’t want to give the impression that structured culture programs never work. They can - when timed right.

One client, a regional retail group, launched a new culture initiative after several years of painful but clear-eyed operational reform. They had already tackled the big process inefficiencies. They had stabilized turnover. They had replaced two toxic senior leaders.

So when they rolled out new values and rituals, it didn’t feel hollow. It felt earned.

What made the difference? The culture work came after the behavioral work. They aligned their messaging with what people were already starting to feel. The result was buy-in, not backlash.

That taught me an important lesson: you can’t market your way out of cultural debt. You have to live your way through it first.

The shift in mindset: from fixer to gardener

These days, when clients ask me to “fix” their culture, I gently push back. I ask what they believe is broken - and how they know. I ask what they’ve already tried, what people are afraid to say, what patterns keep repeating. And I listen.

Because culture isn’t a static object. It’s a living system. And like any system, it resists change that feels forced.

I no longer see myself as a fixer. I see myself as a gardener. My job is to spot the healthy roots, prune what’s getting in the way, and create conditions for new growth. That might mean redesigning incentives. Coaching leaders on how to model vulnerability. Or even just holding a mirror up to patterns no one has named.

And most of the time, real change doesn’t start in a boardroom. It starts in a quiet moment, when someone feels safe enough to tell the truth.

Actionable advice

If you’re wrestling with culture in your organization, try this:

• Start with behavior. Don’t ask what your culture says. Ask what people see. Who gets promoted? Who avoids consequences? That’s your real culture.
• Don’t “own” the culture. Let teams shape it with you. Invite their stories, frustrations, and rituals. Then work with what’s real, not ideal.
• Create small spaces for truth. Not everything needs to be a town hall. Sometimes a safe room with 6 people and honest questions goes further.
• Look for misalignments. If your values say “we embrace feedback” but no one gives it, focus on fixing that behavior first.
• Model what you want. Culture follows leaders. If you want honesty, start being honest - even when it’s uncomfortable.

Closing reflection

Looking back, I don’t regret trying to fix culture. I think I needed that phase. I needed to believe I could fix it in order to understand why I couldn’t. What I’ve learned since is that culture isn’t a static thing to diagnose and treat. It’s a reflection - messy, contradictory, evolving - of what we reward, what we ignore, and how we show up when no one’s watching.

And that’s good news. Because it means that every one of us, every day, is shaping culture in some way. The question is: are we doing it with intention?