Stop Hoping for a “Good Culture” and Start Building One

Ask most leaders about their culture and they’ll point to something visible.

The values on the wall. The mission statement on the website. The photos from last quarter’s team event.

All lovely. None of them are your culture.

Your culture is what people actually experience between meetings, in Slack threads, on tough days, and when no one is watching. It’s the patterns that repeat.

And here’s the uncomfortable bit: most cultures don’t happen by design. They happen by accident.

Culture by Accident: When Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

Accidental culture usually sounds like this:

• “We say we value wellbeing, but everyone is still online at 9 p.m.”

• “We talk about collaboration, but our systems reward individual heroics.”

• “We have values, but I’m not sure how they show up in my day.”

No one sets out to create a culture where people are exhausted, confused, or disengaged.

It happens slowly, through a thousand tiny choices: Who gets promoted. What gets celebrated. What leaders ignore because they’re busy.

Over time, those choices become the real rulebook.

Culture by Design: From Posters to Patterns

Designing culture on purpose doesn’t mean inventing a new slogan. It means getting very honest about three things: what you model, what you reward, and what you reinforce.

1. What you model

Leaders are walking billboards for culture.

If you say you value psychological safety but shut down ideas in meetings, your team will believe your behaviour, not your slides.

If you say you value learning but only praise people when they get it right first time, you’re teaching people to play it safe.

2. What you reward

Who gets the bonus, the promotion, the shout-out in the town hall?

If it’s always the person who saves the day at the last minute, you’re rewarding firefighting, not planning. If it’s always the loudest voice in the room, you’re rewarding airtime, not insight.

Rewards tell people what really counts.

3. What you reinforce

What do you talk about regularly? What do you revisit in 1:1s, team meetings, and performance reviews?

Whatever you repeat becomes “how we do things around here.”

Culture by design is about aligning these three levers with the kind of organisation you actually want to be, not just the one you describe in onboarding.

Making the Invisible Visible

One of the reasons culture is hard to shift is that it lives in the invisible layer: assumptions, habits, unwritten rules.

In our SPARK SHINE work, we use visual thinking exercises to drag culture into the light. When leaders map or sketch “a day in the life” of their people, a few things usually jump out:

· The values we talk about most are barely visible in daily routines.

· The behaviour we quietly tolerate is actually setting the tone.

· The systems we built years ago are rewarding the opposite of what we need now.

Those moments are gold. You can’t redesign what you refuse to see.

Three Culture-Design Questions for Your Leadership Team

You don’t need a three-day offsite to start designing culture more intentionally. Try these questions in your next leadership meeting.

1. “If a new hire shadowed us for a week, what would they say we really value?”

Not what’s on the wall. What’s in the calendar, the conversations, the decisions.

If the answer doesn’t match your stated values, you’ve just found your culture gap.

2. “Where are we accidentally rewarding the wrong thing?”

Maybe you say you value inclusion, but the same three people dominate every meeting. Maybe you say you value innovation, but every new idea has to pass through five layers of approval.

Look at recognition, promotions, and “unofficial heroes.” They tell the truth.

3. “What is one ritual we could introduce that reinforces what matters most?”

Culture is built in rituals: how you start meetings, how you celebrate wins, how you respond when things go wrong.

A few examples:

· Starting team meetings with “one win, one learn” to normalise experimentation

· Monthly “values in action” shout-outs where peers nominate colleagues

· Leaders blocking focus time and actually honouring it, to show deep work is respected

Small rituals, repeated consistently, beat big campaigns every time.

Leaders as Culture Designers

Here’s the good news: you don’t need to be a huge organisation to design culture on purpose. Smaller teams often have an advantage. You can move faster, test ideas, and feel the impact quickly.

The key shift is seeing culture as part of your job, not a side effect of it.

That means asking yourself regularly:

· “What did I model today?”

· “What did I reward?”

· “What did I reinforce?”

If those three line up with the culture you want, you’re on track. If they don’t, you have real power to change them.

Cultures That Shine

The cultures that shine brightest aren’t the ones with the fanciest value statements. They’re the ones where:

· People can feel the values in everyday decisions

· Systems and rituals support the behaviour you say you want

· Leaders know how to reinforce what matters most, consistently

That’s culture by design, not by accident.

Ready to Move From Culture by Default to Culture by Design?

At The BrightSpark Group, we help leaders make culture tangible, visible, and actionable. In our SPARK SHINE journey, we use visual tools and practical exercises to help you see the culture you actually have, define the one you want, and build the behaviours and rituals to get there.

If you’d like to design a culture that attracts great people and keeps them, reach out to Team BrightSpark to book a free discovery call. Let’s explore how we can help your culture shine on purpose, not by accident.