Culture already exists in your organization. It’s happening in every meeting, every email, and every hallway conversation. The question isn’t whether you have a culture—it’s whether you have the one you want.
For years, organizations treated culture as a department. We tasked HR with "fixing morale," added perks like ping-pong tables or free lunches, and ran an annual survey to check the box. But let’s be honest: that approach doesn’t work.
Culture isn't a program you launch; it's the way people work together.
It’s driven by mindset—specifically, whether your people are operating with an inward mindset (focused on themselves) or an outward mindset (focused on collective results). When you shift that mindset, you don't just get a "better place to work." You get accountability, alignment, and performance that actually sticks.
If you want to build a case for investing in culture, you need to look beyond "good vibes" and measure the impact on performance. Here are the four areas where a healthy culture delivers real ROI:
Accountability: Low accountability kills morale. When people own their impact, trust goes up, and micromanagement goes down.
Engagement: Connected employees stay. Gallup found that employees who feel connected to their culture are 3.7x more likely to be highly engaged and 55% less likely to leave.
Collaboration: Silos are expensive. Collaborative teams are 5x more likely to be high-performing in innovation and creativity (Deloitte).
Psychological Safety: When people feel safe to speak up, they solve problems faster. Safety drives the honest conversations that fuel growth.
So, who is responsible for building this? The short answer is everyone. But different roles carry different responsibilities. Here is how the ownership of culture breaks down across your organization.
Leaders set the tone. You can’t expect your team to be outward if you’re stuck inward. Your job isn’t just to approve the budget for culture initiatives; it’s to embody the values you want to see.
Key Responsibility: Define the vision and ensure strategic objectives align with cultural goals.
Impact: When leaders model an outward mindset, it gives permission for the rest of the organization to do the same.
Middle managers are where culture lives or dies. They have the most influence on the daily employee experience. If they are squeezed between executive demands and team needs without the right tools, culture initiatives will stall.
Key Responsibility: Translate high-level strategy into daily behaviors and accountability.
Impact: Managers who coach with an outward mindset turn compliance into commitment.
Culture isn't something done to employees; it's created by them. Every interaction between colleagues either reinforces trust or erodes it.
Key Responsibility: Align personal attitudes with shared values and provide honest feedback on what’s working.
Impact: When employees stop blaming and start collaborating, silos dissolve from the bottom up.
HR doesn’t own culture, but they build the systems that support it. Their role shifts from "culture police" to strategic partners who design processes—hiring, onboarding, performance reviews—that reward the right mindset.
Key Responsibility: Maximize long-term talent productivity by aligning systems with the desired culture.
Impact: HR ensures that the organization’s structure reinforces, rather than contradicts, its values.
Compliance often gets a bad rap as the "rule enforcers," but they play a critical role in psychological safety. By ensuring integrity and reducing risk, they create the safe foundation necessary for open communication.
Key Responsibility: Identify risks and maintain ethical standards that protect the organization’s reputation.
Impact: A culture of integrity builds trust, both internally and with your customers.
Q: Why do most culture initiatives fail?
A: Most initiatives focus on changing behavior without addressing the root cause: mindset. If you tell people to "collaborate more" but they still see each other as competitors or obstacles (an inward mindset), the behavior won’t stick. You have to shift the mindset first.
Q: How do we get middle managers on board?
A: Middle managers are often overwhelmed. Don’t just give them more tasks; equip them with tools to solve the people problems that are draining their energy. When they see that an outward mindset makes their job easier—by reducing conflict and increasing ownership—they become your biggest champions.
Q: Can we measure the ROI of culture?
A: Absolutely. Look at retention rates, employee net promoter scores (eNPS), and speed of execution. When friction decreases, speed increases. Less time spent on internal politics means more time spent on strategic goals.
Q: Where should we start?
A: Start with leadership. You can’t outsource culture to a committee. When senior leaders do the work to shift their own mindset, it creates a ripple effect that no poster or perk can match.