Culture is a mirror. Here’s a pattern we witness:  An organization states strong values. Leadership genuinely believes in them. New employees talk about them with pep and vim. They’re on the wall, in the onboarding materials, and recited at town halls. Yet somehow, the culture still isn’t working the way anyone wants it to.

The problem almost never is the values themselves: It’s the systems running alongside them.

Culture isn’t really built by what you say you believe. It’s built by what you reward, who you promote, how you handle setbacks, whose jobs you eliminate in the re-org, leadership behaviors that are tolerated, and what actually happens when someone challenges the way things are done. Those are your real values, whether or not they match the ones on the website. Those are the real values your internal employees and external customers feel and see. Sometimes, that mirror can be less-than-ideal.

The gaps are usually unintentional. A company says it values sustainability, but celebrates the person who burned out to finish the project. An organization says it values inclusion, but the promotion process is informal and opaque. Leadership says it values innovation, but the budget process kills new ideas before they have enough room to prove anything. An organizational restructure happens, and the aftermath includes only a cursory “back to work” from the team lead, with a lack of acknowledgement of the employees who are no longer present.

We’ve worked with organizations that had genuinely good intentions and cultures that undermined those intentions at every structural turn. The fix isn’t a values refresh. It starts with honesty about where the systems and the stated beliefs are pointing in different directions. That kind of honesty usually requires an outside lens, because internal teams tend to stop seeing what’s been normalized. Leaders tend to have the most positive cultural perceptions, even when the reality is contrary.

Once you can identify the gap, the work gets specific.

• What does each value actually look like in a hiring conversation?
• In a budget discussion?
• In a performance review?

Values without behavioral definitions are just aspirations. Aspirations without accountability, especially for leaders, tend not to hold. Leadership hiring and Board composition are immensely important, and are often the leading indicators of a culture’s potential, but if systems and operations aren’t reviewed concurrently, both will have limits. The leaders and boards who believe culture, structures, and operations are inextricably interdependent tend to boast the most successful companies.

Laura Pickett, MHA, CPXP, is the Founder and Principal of Thrive Lab. With two decades of leadership experience across healthcare, philanthropy, and professional sports, she partners with executives and teams to bring clarity to complexity, strengthen culture, and accelerate meaningful progress. Known for blending strategic vision with a roll-up-your-sleeves approach, Laura helps organizations align around what matters most and move with purpose.

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn

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