Company Culture
Company culture, also called corporate or organisational culture, is the shared set of values, beliefs, behaviours, and unwritten rules that shape how people work together. It shows up in what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated, how decisions are made, and how people treat each other when things go wrong. It is what employees describe when they tell a friend what it is really like to work there.
Also known as: corporate culture, organizational culture, workplace culture
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Key takeaways
- Company culture is what you actually reward and tolerate, not the values on the wall.
- Employees read culture from behaviour, especially leaders' behaviour, not posters.
- It shows up in who gets promoted, what gets ignored, and how decisions get made.
- You change it by changing incentives and leader behaviour, not by rewriting values.
Why does company culture matter?
Culture decides what happens when nobody is writing the rules. It affects who joins, who stays, how fast decisions get made, and whether people raise problems early or hide them.
How do you read company culture?
Ignore the values poster. Look at:
- Who gets promoted and why
- What gets tolerated from high performers
- How meetings run: who talks, who decides
- What happens after a mistake
How do you measure company culture?
Engagement and culture surveys, eNPS, exit and stay interview themes, and behavioural data like how quickly cross-team requests get answered.
Worked example
A startup lists "transparency" as a core value. But board updates are never shared below the leadership team, and survey scores on "I understand company strategy" sit at 41%. Leadership starts a monthly open Q&A with written answers. Six months later, the score is 68%.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you change company culture?
- Yes, but slowly, and mostly through what leaders do and reward, not what they announce.
- Culture vs values?
- Values are what a company says it believes. Culture is what people actually do every day.
- How do you measure company culture?
- Through engagement and culture surveys, eNPS, exit-interview themes, and behavioural signals like promotion patterns and how decisions actually get made.
- What are the types of company culture?
- One common model, the Competing Values Framework, names four: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy.
- What is the difference between culture and values?
- Values are what a company says it believes; culture is what it actually rewards and tolerates. When they diverge, people believe the behaviour.
- How long does it take to change company culture?
- Usually one to three years. It follows real changes in incentives and leadership behaviour, not announcements.
Sources
- Cameron & Quinn, the Competing Values Framework
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