Many organisations don’t actively manage their culture, they assume it’s happening naturally. But culture that evolves randomly can end up misaligned with strategy, working against rather than for the company’s success.
When culture is not deliberately shaped, it still takes form, often through internal politics, unspoken habits, leadership preferences, and external market pressures, which influence how people work, interact, and make decisions. If this unmanaged culture conflicts with strategic goals, the consequences can be severe: disengaged employees, ineffective decision-making, and even a loss of competitive advantage. The real question is: are you actively steering your culture, or is it steering you?
We sat down with our CEO Egbert Schram to discuss the hidden warning signs that may be working against you.
The culture you have vs. the culture you need
Every organisation has a culture, whether they have designed it intentionally or not. The problem is that most companies don’t actively shape their Organisational Culture. They assume that as long as employees align with corporate values, culture will take care of itself. In reality, culture must be deliberately measured and managed just like any other aspect of the business.
Instead of viewing culture as a static list of values, organisations should approach it as a dynamic tool. It is something that requires ongoing refinement, analysis, and alignment with business objectives. When leaders ignore Organisational Culture, they risk creating an environment where employees not only feel disconnected, or disengaged, but might actively work against your strategic goals.
The hidden warning signs
📏Employees follow the rules, but not the spirit
People comply with policies and processes, but there’s no sense of engagement or ownership. They may say the right things in meetings, but day-to-day actions don’t reflect the company’s mission.
You can control how people work, but you can’t control how they feel about it. When employees only go through the motions rather than believing in what they do, expect disengagement and eventual turnover.
Sometimes, this happens because employees feel they've been pushed around too much or repeatedly asked to operate beyond their competence level, leading them to disengage as a defense mechanism.
👔Frustration over reliability and professionalism
Employees expect their colleagues to uphold shared commitments, but when deadlines are missed, meetings start late, or tasks are neglected, frustration builds. Some employees may feel that a lack of professionalism, such as tardiness, missed deliverables, or an overly casual attitude, undermines their ability to be effective. Over time, these small breaches of accountability can erode trust and cooperation within teams.
📣Decision-making is stuck between strategy and reality
Leadership sets ambitious goals, but employees operate in a completely different manner. A company might claim to prioritise innovation, yet employees hesitate to take risks because failure isn’t tolerated. Another business might insist it is a customer-first company. Yet internal processes make it difficult for employees to actually serve customers effectively.
The way people work is your Organisational Culture. Beautiful value statements don’t mean anything, if they’re not followed in reality.
If your strategy and culture are misaligned, employees will default to whatever allows them to succeed within the existing system. Even the best strategy will fail if it clashes with how decisions are actually made within the organisation.
🏆Leaders say one thing, but incentives reward the opposite
A company may claim to value teamwork, innovation, or employee well-being, but if promotions, bonuses, or public recognition only reward short-term financial results, individual performance, or rigid efficiency, employees quickly learn what really matters. Culture is shaped by what’s rewarded, not by what’s said.
Inconsistent incentives create a credibility gap between leadership and employees. Over time, this erodes trust, disengages employees, and reinforces behaviours that contradict the company’s intended culture.
🌐Rituals and symbols don't match the intended culture
Every organisation has rituals (meetings, events, onboarding processes) and symbols (logos, marketing materials, office layouts). If these elements contradict the intended culture, they send the wrong message.
We once had a client who said they have an ‘open culture.’ But in all of their marketing materials, they consistently displayed figures without faces. Does that really resemble a people- oriented culture or a culture of anonymity? As another example, instead of showing people, you might rather showcase impressive charts, or technical figures. These are choices you need to make, and they have consequences on your culture.
Symbols shape perceptions more than leaders often realise. Employees don’t just listen to what leadership says, they absorb what leadership prioritises, celebrates, and showcases. If your culture doesn’t align with your symbols and rituals, people will follow what they see, not what they hear.
👋High turnover without a clear explanation
If employees keep leaving, despite competitive salaries and benefits, it’s a sign that something deeper is driving them away. Companies often attribute high turnover to external factors like market conditions or better job offers. While that may sometimes be the case, many times the real issue is cultural misalignment.
People rarely say “I’m leaving because of the culture.” Instead, they say they found a “better opportunity.” But what they really mean is that something in your organisation didn’t work for them.
When employees feel disconnected from leadership, undervalued, or forced to work in ways that don’t align with their personal values, they quietly disengage and look elsewhere. If turnover is rising, leaders need to ask tough questions: Are we expecting employees to work in ways that contradict their personal values? Is your strategy so important that you can risk losing your talents? Or can it be tweaked? Perhaps not throughout the whole organisation, but in certain sections of the company.
If your strategy is absolutely critical and it clashes with employee values drastically, you might need to start finding new people. But if you can’t find new people, we’re back to thinking how you can adjust your strategy. In the end, you do need to make a choice. But having a detailed understanding of the map to bridge the gaps can make that choice a lot easier.
🔥A high-intensity culture - Driving performance or leading to burnout?
Some organisations thrive in high-intensity cultures, where long hours, rapid decision-making, and relentless ambition are expected. In industries where speed, precision, or innovation are key, employees may willingly push themselves to the limit, as seen in companies like Tesla, Apple, or SpaceX, where individuals have worked beyond conventional norms, often defying what traditional employee handbooks might define as “good practice” in pursuit of groundbreaking advancements. For some companies, this level of intensity is a deliberate and strategic choice. But for many, it emerges unintentionally, creating a culture where employees feel obligated to work longer and harder, often at the cost of their well-being.
A high-intensity culture isn’t inherently bad, but it should be intentional and well-managed. If employees embrace this way of working and see it as a fair trade-off for growth, recognition, or opportunity, it can be a powerful driver of performance. But if long hours and constant availability become the unspoken expectation rather than a conscious choice, the result is often disengagement, stress, and attrition.
This is especially relevant today, as global workplace expectations are shifting. According to our Organisational Culture Report, employees across industries are increasingly prioritising well-being and work-life balance, even in environments that have traditionally valued intensity above all else.
This raises crucial questions for leaders: Is your high-intensity culture a conscious strategic decision, or an unintended consequence of unmanaged expectations? Are employees willingly engaging in this level of intensity, or do they feel pressured to keep up?
⛔Your company has evolved, but your Organisational Culture has not
If your strategy has changed, but your culture hasn’t, you may be unknowingly creating internal friction that slows progress. But cultural transformation is not instant—the more drastic the change you aim for, the harder it is to make it happen, and the longer it takes.
Take the example of a start-up vs. an established company. A start-up thrives on constant innovation, flexibility, and rapid decision-making because it is still searching for its place in the market. But as a company scales, it needs stability, structure, and operational efficiency to sustain growth. A company that once encouraged employees to “fail fast” may now require risk management and process optimisation - but if the cultural transition happens too suddenly, employees may struggle to keep up.
This is why organisations that wait too long to adjust their culture often find themselves in a crisis of misalignment. The better approach? Smaller, more frequent cultural adjustments. Instead of attempting a massive cultural overhaul every ten years, companies that continuously refine their culture in response to strategic shifts experience less disruption and greater long-term success.
Start-ups that scale successfully understand that culture must evolve alongside business growth and the same applies to any company undergoing strategic change. Culture should be treated like strategy: something that is reviewed and adjusted regularly, rather than something that gets "fixed" once every decade. By making cultural evolution an ongoing process, organisations can stay adaptable, engaged, and ready for whatever comes next.
How to take control of your Organisational Culture
If you recognise these warning signs within your organisation, it’s time to take action.
- Measure it – You can’t manage what you don’t understand. Use tools like the Organisational Culture Scan to diagnose cultural strengths and weaknesses. Our Organisational Culture Transformation programme offers a structured approach to aligning culture with business strategy, while our Culture Portal ensures continuous access to insights, tools, and benchmarks for tracking and refining your culture over time.
- Align culture with strategy – Ensure that how people work actually supports company objectives.
- Identify and close gaps – Where are the biggest cultural misalignments, and how can they be addressed?
- Implement change – Instead of broad, abstract statements, focus on specific, tangible changes in how things are done.
- Lead by example – The leadership team must embody the culture they want to see, reinforcing behaviors through both communication and action. Our CEO Package offers executive coaching tailored to cultural leadership, ensuring top leaders drive sustainable transformation.
For a deeper dive into how to shift your company culture, check out this article on how to change your company culture.
Final thoughts: Make culture work for you, not against you
Organisational Culture is never neutral. It either drives success or hinders it. If left unmanaged, it can actively sabotage strategic goals. When we’ve discussed the results of our Organisational Culture Scans with the management teams, one thing that we have noticed is that leaders often anticipate that there is something wrong. They usually don’t know what it is, but they simply have had the feeling that there is something that is not working.
If that sounds familiar, it’s time to take action. Don’t let your culture hinder your success. Start by measuring where you stand today, aligning culture with strategy, and making informed, data-driven changes. Reach out today to explore your next steps!