Real Culture, Real Change – Why Most ‘Culture’ Initiatives Fail to Address Culture

By Kristine Gentry, PhD

Introduction

Did you know that 70% of culture transformation initiatives fail to achieve their desired outcomes? Organizations are pouring hundreds of millions into boosting employee engagement scores, yet less than 70% of our workforce is fully engaged. Recent studies from Gallup have determined the global cost of disengaged employees has reached $8.8 trillion annually.

Here's a look at why typical approaches to culture and engagement might be missing the mark.

What We Often Get Wrong About Culture

Many companies focus on superficial changes when they want to improve their culture. They introduce creative perks like ping-pong tables, host virtual happy hours, or redesign office spaces with open plans and flexible seating. Some even mandate activities like morning meditation sessions—yes, that’s actually been tried!

Are these initiatives inherently bad? Not necessarily (except forced meditation). Perks like these can be fun and enhance certain aspects of company culture. However, they are merely surface-level and don't address the underlying issues within the workplace culture. Imagine slapping beautiful wallpaper over a huge crack in the wall—it doesn’t fix the structural issues.

If employees feel disconnected from the company’s mission, if there's a mismatch between stated values and leadership actions, or if employees lack autonomy—no amount of superficial perks can compensate for the foundational cracks in a company’s culture. These are just a few examples of the way a poor culture impacts employees.

If the central components of culture like having a clear mission, vision, and values are not identified, communicated, and internalized, then these company perks are going to be short-lived in creating a temporary boost of excitement if they move the needle forward at all.

The Essence of Organizational Culture

Part of the problem organizations have with sustained culture change is that too few people understand what culture is or where the concept originated. The concept of "culture" originated from anthropology, which began with the study of diverse groups of people during colonial times. Anthropologists noted differences and similarities among groups in their economic systems, religions, family structures, relationship to their environment, languages, values, and belief systems. This helped form a comprehensive understanding of what culture entails. But what exactly is culture?

Let’s define it: Culture is the learned and shared values, beliefs, and behavioral patterns among a group of people.

In simpler terms, think of culture as the ecosystem of our collective behaviors and beliefs.

In an organization, culture includes the formal, written elements like the employee handbook, contractual agreements, policies and procedures, and company benefits and perks. If a company has defined mission, vision, values, and core competencies, those may also be part of the company culture, if they are utilized.

However, culture also includes the informal—the unwritten rules about how things are done and how people behave. It’s the advice you’d give a new hire about navigating the company, who holds the real power, and what the true working hours look like. It's about which policies are followed in practice and how people are truly rewarded or recognized. It's impacted by what is valued by the organization and how employees are rewarded.

In a nutshell, culture includes all the things you learn once you start working that you wish you knew before you started.

Lessons from Cultural Anthropology

Now that we understand what culture is and its significance to an organization's success, let’s explore how we can understand culture using lessons from cultural anthropology. This sub-field of anthropology focuses on understanding groups of people by immersing in their cultures—a method known as ethnography.

Ethnography involves participant observation and in-depth interviews, providing insights into how groups function. Participant observation is a foundational method that involves observing people in their environment to understand their culture. This allows an anthropologist to not only hear how people describe their culture but to see it in action. In this way, anthropologists can understand the consistencies and inconsistencies in a culture.

Anthropologists also study how cultures change and understand the interconnectedness of culture, meaning you cannot change one aspect of culture without understanding how it is connected to and impacts other aspects of culture.

While traditional change management practices tend to be linear, top-down, and process-oriented, an anthropological approach focuses on all people in an organization. If managers are not in agreement with change management programs, they will not push them out to their people. If frontline employees are negatively impacted by change management programs or do not understand the reason for them, they are unlikely to adopt the changes.

An anthropological approach to change includes understanding the impact of that change on all people. It focuses on gaining feedback and insights at all levels to ensure that any change includes the perspective of all employees and ideally benefits all employees.

These methods can be applied to a corporate setting to observe how teams interact or how decisions impact employee morale and productivity. Cultural Anthropologists can study all aspects of your culture and bring to light any gaps between your ideal culture and your actual culture that may be leading to a lack of engagement.

Case Study of Real Culture Change

Today, anthropologists work in a variety of organizations in a wide variety of roles in business.

Consider a project where ethnographic research was conducted among nurses at a large healthcare system. The goal was to allow nurses to work at the top of their licenses rather than being bogged down by non-specialist tasks. Observations revealed that new, additional steps in the charting system were creating unnecessary workloads. Administrators were unaware that well-intended changes were actually hindering nurses. Feedback from the study led to process adjustments that improved the working environment, reducing burnout and enhancing engagement.

Conclusion

While millions are spent on employee engagement and change management, without a deep understanding of culture, these efforts often fall flat. However, adopting an anthropologically informed approach to cultural change can profoundly impact your organization’s effectiveness and employee satisfaction.

Call to Action

What’s working (or not) in your organization's culture? Share your experiences below, and let’s discuss how to build stronger, more resilient workplace cultures.