"I really want to spend more time on culture — coffees, lunch and learns, maybe even a team retreat later this year. But right now I need to focus on onboarding our new VP of Product and figure out our response to AI. Everything is just coming so fast."
Our client, let’s call him Trevor, was being honest. And I got it. In that moment, he was overwhelmed and juggling a lot. But he was missing the bigger picture. He needed a clearer understanding of what culture actually is. I’ll give you a hint: it isn't coffees, lunches, or team retreats. That isn’t obvious to everyone. So if it's not that, then what the hell is it?
Well, that's the problem in a nutshell, now isn't it? I've worked in this space for years, and that definition just seems elusive. I have even found myself struggling to articulate in simple words what culture is. But I was determined.
First, to the Stacks!
As the resident rebel, I am all for changing it up when it doesn’t serve. But before we do that, let’s look at how some folks have defined corporate and team culture in the past. Because there is some good stuff in there.
A pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.
Accurate. Also a mouthful. Schein's triangle model — Artifacts, Espoused Values, and Underlying or Tacit Assumptions — is genuinely useful work. I've read it. My work is informed by it. It still wasn’t direct enough for me to move my client past his presumptions about culture.
Then there's Deal and Kennedy's model from 1982 which coined the enduring phrase: "the way we do things around here." I'd argue this is the most dangerous definition in circulation — not because it's wrong, but because of how it gets used. It's usually delivered as a way to avoid changing what isn't working. It lets people be lazy. And it strips the original model of everything that made it interesting — which was a specific framework for understanding how organizations make decisions and experience consequences. Reduced to a bumper sticker, it's become slang for "don't ask questions." Not for us.
Gruenert and Whitaker offer: "The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate." Descriptive and, frankly, accurate. Originally written about education — which as a parent genuinely terrifies me — it applies broadly to the outsized influence leaders have on culture anywhere. But it only tells half the story. It dismisses what leaders inherit, how others contribute, and perhaps most importantly, what leaders can choose to build.
Not really feeling any of these. On one hand, they carry a lot of weight - and take a lot of time to unpack. On the other hand, they almost over simplify just how integral Culture is to the inner workings of an organization.
I looked back over the work we’ve done. The image that’s come to me most often as I’ve worked with clients on employee experience design, performance management, and business strategy, and now in the weeds of team dynamics, and one word stands out. Infrastructure.
What's Inside the Walls
Imagine you're buying a house. Your inspector tells you everything looks good. No significant issues. Maybe eventually get the pipes in the mudroom sink looked at. The water runs a little slow. Probably nothing.
Plumbing's good. Electrical checked out. No structural issues. No mold. You've been thinking about going greener anyway — solar panels, EV charger in the garage, get rid of the gas lines. Strong bones. Good systems. All good enough to close.
Three months later, you're getting ready to move in. Your electrician does a walkthrough and thinks most of the work will be straightforward. He's got concerns about the wall in the garage where the charger would go. Wants a plumber to look at it.
Sure enough, that mudroom sink with the slow faucet had a slow leak. And it shares a wall with the garage. It's been quietly dripping on drywall and wood framing for who knows how long — and not only is it damp, it's moldy. Hidden behind a fancy garage storage system (a surface selling point!), it's now bleeding through where you can see it. And it's going to affect the electrical work. It's all connected. These largely invisible systems that make your house function every day. Until suddenly, they don't. But it really wasn’t all that sudden.
That's culture.
As my 12-year-old would say: it's IN YOUR WALLS. You don't really see it until something goes wrong. Because you're not looking for it. Turn on the faucet, the water runs — until that day it’s just a trickle. Hold a meeting, the team shows up — they are there physically, but totally checked out. And you don't always immediately know why. You have to open a crack and look inside. Grab a flashlight and get under the sink. Because you didn’t just make culture. You inherited some of it. The good and the bad. Just like those pipes that came with that house. Maybe the previous owners replaced the other bathrooms over time but never got around to that one sink. It wasn't a priority. Cast iron rusts slowly. That wasn't your choice. But now it's your problem. And your opportunity to choose a new way to fix it.
Culture is no different. It's the relationship infrastructure that dictates how values are lived, how people communicate, how they interpret feedback, collaborate, create, and get things done together. And because work is a team sport, hard-wired into your entire system.
But we often can't see it — because we're busy marveling at the new wallpaper, the art we just hung. Or in the work context: the new strategy, the values refresh, the all-hands celebration we've mandated attendance for. In the name of culture. Meanwhile nobody addressed the odd smell coming from the drain. The engagement survey that said an entire team is struggling under a manager who delivers on time but burns people out. The high performer we keep promoting even though everyone knows they're not a kind or skillful people leader. But hey — results.
We expect people to be thrilled by decorative and performative gestures in the name of culture. That ain't it.