The Hidden Force Driving Your Company: Culture and How to Change It

Culture is the invisible web that shapes how people think, feel, and behave in organizations. You can only change culture by altering how individuals work with one another. This means that culture is less about formal policies and more about shared mental rules developed through daily interactions.

These mental models influence interpretations, decisions, and actions—often unconsciously. Attempts to change culture by mandating new values or reorganizing rarely succeed because they don’t address these underlying dynamics.

True culture change requires microinterventions: small, intentional shifts in how people relate and collaborate. Changing meeting formats, encouraging peer coaching, and leadership modeling new behaviors can gradually transform shared beliefs.

For instance, a company improved trust and collaboration by changing board-executive interactions from confrontational to coaching styles, cascading positive effects throughout the organization.

Culture change is a slow, iterative journey, demanding patience and focus on human connections. By nurturing relationships and reinforcing new patterns, organizations can align culture with strategic goals.

In our final blog, we’ll examine how organizing knowledge work around projects rather than jobs unleashes creativity and agility.

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