The Simple Truth for Building an Enduring Culture
"Culture is about behavior. It's not what you say. It's what you do and what you tolerate."
— Brené Brown
I once worked with a company that had every perk in the book: beautiful offices, game rooms, catered lunches, endless snacks, team outings. Everything you would expect from a "Best Places to Work" list.
Yet people did not enjoy working together. Collaboration felt heavy, trust was low, and tension sat right under the surface.
They had core values printed on the walls and mentioned at all-hands, but they were not lived. They were aspirational, not operational. Over time, people began rolling their eyes whenever leadership brought them up. In one meeting, someone muttered, "Here we go again." The values had become words, not standards.
And because the values were not protected, something else took over: the behaviors leadership tolerated.
A manager who blamed others instead of owning issues. A high performer who treated colleagues as obstacles. Passive-aggressive comments no one addressed.
Not the behaviors they intended. Not the ones they hoped for. The ones they allowed.
And that is the culture they ended up with.
Perks did not create their culture. Tolerance did.
And tolerance, left unchecked, always fills the vacuum.
What Culture Really Is
Most leaders talk about culture as if it is created by activities, perks, or programs.
It is not.
Real culture is built on something far more fundamental: the handful of behaviors you expect from your people and are committed to protecting.
These behaviors are captured in your core values, typically three to seven clear standards that define who belongs. Values exist for internal clarity, not marketing. They describe the behaviors every person on your team embodies most of the time. Not perfectly, but consistently.
Jim Collins has emphasized this for decades: when people share the same values, everything becomes easier. Decisions align faster. Conflicts resolve quicker. Accountability feels natural instead of forced. Shared values create trust, and trust creates speed.
Meaningful values require intention. But even the best ones mean nothing if they are not protected through daily decisions. If you don’t enforce them, values are just words on a wall.
Once your values are defined, everything comes down to one question:
Will you protect them, or will you allow behaviors that undermine them?
Most leaders cannot answer that honestly. They define values, but do not enforce them. They talk about them, yet allow violations to slide.
Here is the truth they miss:
Culture is built when you celebrate the people who live your values and expunge those who violate them.
That distinction determines whether your culture strengthens or erodes. Whether it becomes what you intended or what you tolerated.
Why Protecting Values Matters
So what happens when you do not protect your values? It starts quietly. A few small behaviors slide.
Someone is dismissed in a meeting. Someone shifts blame instead of owning an issue. A high performer mistreats others, and leadership overlooks it.
Everyone notices.
When misaligned behaviors slide, people assume values are optional. Standards drift. Accountability weakens. The best people disengage first.
I once worked with a leadership team with a legacy employee who clearly did not fit their core values. She had been promised a job for life by the founder, who had since retired. Every quarter, issues surfaced about her behavior and its impact. And every quarter, there was another reason to keep her. She had been there forever. She knew things no one else knew. She was close to retirement, or so they thought. It felt easier to wait it out.
The team stopped trusting leadership. People withdrew. The tension became unbearable. The stress she created sent one colleague to the hospital.
That was the breaking point. Leadership made the call, and she took an early retirement.
What happened next was unmistakable. Tension lifted. The team regained energy. Trust returned. As the company pivoted, they went on to have some of the most productive and profitable years in their history.
That is the real cost of not protecting your values. Damage builds quietly. Trust erodes silently. People withdraw long before they walk out the door.
When values are not protected, everything gets harder. When they are, everything gets easier.
This is where the real work begins. These are the four practices that separate leaders who build enduring cultures from those who watch them erode.
The Four Practices
Protecting your culture is not complicated. It is simply the practices of aligning your decisions with your values, every day, at every level. That happens through four core practices: who you hire, what you review, what you reward, and who you remove.
1. Hiring: Protecting Culture at the Door
Protecting your culture starts at the door.
Skills can be trained. Experience can be gained. But values are ingrained. You cannot reliably coach someone into caring, being collaborative, showing humility, or approaching challenges with curiosity if those traits are not already part of who they are. People can develop skills, but values rarely change. Hiring on the hope of transformation is almost always a losing strategy.
The biggest hiring mistakes happen when companies prioritize expertise over cultural alignment. Someone checks all the technical boxes and interviews well, but if they do not share the team's values, they will create more problems than they solve.
I have seen this too many times. And I have been guilty of it myself. Under pressure to fill a role, leaders convince themselves, “We can coach them,” or “They will adapt once they are here,” or “Let’s just get someone in the seat.” But when values are not part of the decision, misalignment walks right through the front door.
Here is the truth: when you compromise on values at the point of entry, you pay for it every day afterward.
The opposite is also true: hire for values first and everything else becomes easier.
A simple discipline makes this possible.
Share your core values directly in the hiring process. Tell candidates, “We have a strong culture defined by these values, and here is what we expect.” Be upfront. Be direct. As Patrick Lencioni often says, be brutally honest about your culture.
The right candidates will lean in and feel like they have found a place that fits who they are. The wrong candidates will pull back or look unsure. They are not bad people. They simply belong somewhere else. Life is too short to hire someone who is a cultural mismatch for either side.
Then go one level deeper.
Ask values-based questions in every interview. Not hypotheticals or vague self-assessments, but real lived behavior. One authentic story reveals more than any résumé or skills test.
For each value, ask:
Tell me about a time you lived this value.
Tell me about a time you struggled with it.
How would your last manager describe you in this area?
What does this value look like in practice?
Leaders sometimes ask, “What if they lie?” Some people will. But no one can sustain a lie through their daily behavior. If you hire thoughtfully and use the other practices – reviewing, rewarding, and removing – misalignment becomes obvious quickly.
The real mistake is not asking.
If a candidate does not share your values, do not hire them. Because talent is expensive. Misaligned talent is destructive.
Hiring is your first line of cultural protection. Get it right here, and everything else becomes dramatically easier.
Culture is decided at the door. Protect it there.
2. Rewarding and Recognizing: Celebrate What You Want Repeated
Hire for values. Then reinforce them relentlessly.
People need repetition. You say something once in onboarding and assume it landed. It didn’t. Values must be reinforced, not just stated but celebrated when they are lived.
It starts with you. Leaders cannot ask people to live values they do not model. But modeling is only the beginning. The real power comes from celebrating values in real time.
The discipline is simple.
Call it out immediately.
When someone embodies a value, say it directly.
“That is what Ownership looks like here.”
It takes seconds and reinforces the standard for everyone.
Sometimes it’s as simple as sending a quick Slack message or pulling someone aside to say, “That is exactly what Collaboration looks like here.” Tiny moments reinforce big standards.
Recognize values in your team meetings.
At weekly meetings, all-hands, and State of the Company gatherings, call people out by name. Share what they did. Tie it to the value. This is one of the most effective ways to keep values alive across the company.
Make it systematic.
Include values in recognition programs. Create quarterly awards tied to specific values. Celebrate winners publicly and explain what they did. Give recognition within one business day when possible. The closer recognition is to the behavior, the stronger the reinforcement.
Do this consistently, and recognition stops depending on you. In high-performing teams, people recognize each other without prompting. They call out values in the moment. They tag them on messaging apps. They do it naturally because that is how the culture works.
When values become the everyday language of recognition, they stop being posters and start becoming habits.
3. Reviewing: Making Values Measurable
Recognition reinforces values. Reviews confirm alignment.
One of the most effective habits a leader can build is meeting with direct reports once each quarter to reflect on progress and performance. Not for paperwork or a formal review. These should be scheduled, consistent conversations. The only thing written down is notes for follow-up.
These conversations cover the relationship, the work, and what the person needs to succeed. Values must be included. They shape how work gets done.
A simple tool makes this easier.
The People Analyzer from EOS Worldwide is powerful and remarkably simple. For each value, you assess whether the person demonstrates it most of the time (+), sometimes (+/-), or rarely (-). This gives everyone a shared language for what “living the values” actually looks like.
Most organizations use a common guideline: at least half the values should be +, the rest may be +/-, and there should be no - ratings. But this is only a rule of thumb. Make the bar your own.
None of this should be a surprise.
If you are recognizing people quickly and addressing concerns within one business day, the quarterly conversation becomes a continuation of what you have already been saying, not a sudden reveal.
The real power is in the dialog.
You talk through the values. Where the person is strong. Where they need to adjust. Sometimes you spend more time on one value. Sometimes a top performer hears, “You are living all the core values well,” and you move on. The depth adjusts, but the conversation always happens.
When someone is above the bar, you celebrate.
When someone is on the line, you coach and support.
When consistently below the bar, when +/- ratings drift toward -, or when the pattern repeats, the conversation changes. One that leads to the final practice.
Reviewing is not about criticism. It is about alignment.
It keeps expectations clear, relationships healthy, and your culture consistent.
If values are not reviewed, they are optional.
4. Removing: The Ultimate Act of Protection
Hire for values. Celebrate them. Review them. And when necessary, protect your culture by removing those who violate them.
The hardest discipline is also the most defining. Ignoring misaligned behavior tells the team that values are negotiable, that performance matters more than behavior, and that the rules do not apply equally.
This is especially true for high performers who violate your values. They deliver results but leave damage. Others work around them. Everyone watches to see if leadership will act.
These decisions are the hardest, and the most important.
Before you act, start with yourself. Have I been clear about expectations? Have I been giving feedback in real time? If the answer to either is no, fix that first. But if you have been clear and giving feedback, and the person is still below the bar, it is time to begin the process.
In my experience, a simple three strike approach works best. It creates clarity, fairness, and a real opportunity for someone to change.
Strike one.
Tell them directly they are below the bar. Share specific examples. Agree on a reasonable window for change, often 30 to 90 days. During that period, continue giving feedback within one business day.
Strike two.
If the behavior has not changed, say it plainly. Agree on another window. Offer support where appropriate. Make the stakes explicit: if the values do not change, the fit is not right.
Strike three.
By the third conversation, the pattern is clear. They have changed or they haven’t.
Here is the truth: you are not firing them because of values. They have fired themselves by consistently rejecting them.
Many resign because they recognize the misfit. Others deny, argue, or blame. That is normal. It does not mean you are wrong.
You must be prepared to part ways. Keeping someone who does not live your values harms the team and the individual.
The moment they are gone, the culture begins to heal. People stop walking on eggshells. Teams regain energy. Trust is restored. Someone will thank you privately: "I was wondering when that would happen."
The relief is immediate.
Removing is not about punishment. It is about protection.
You are protecting the culture you worked to build and honoring the people who live your values.
Your Culture Comes Down to This
Remember the company from the opening. They had every perk and program imaginable, and their values were printed everywhere you looked. Yet the culture was tense, misaligned, and draining.
Their problem was not a lack of values. It was a lack of protection.
Perks did not create their culture. Tolerance did.
Culture erodes when misaligned behaviors are allowed to slide. Culture strengthens when values are protected through daily discipline.
And that is why you need a system:
Hire for values.
Celebrate them.
Review them.
Remove those who reject them.
Because in the end, your culture will be shaped by a single truth:
You will get the culture you protect, not the culture you hope for.
So here is the question that remains:
Are you building the culture you intend or the culture you allow?
Footnotes & Sources
Brené Brown on culture and behavior: Adapted from Brené Brown’s widely referenced statements on culture, leadership, and accountability, including themes from Dare to Lead (2018).
Jim Collins on values and alignment: Summarizes principles from Jim Collins’ research on organizational culture, particularly in Good to Great (2001) and subsequent writings on “core values” and “preserve the core, stimulate progress.”
Patrick Lencioni on hiring for values: Based on Patrick Lencioni’s guidance in The Ideal Team Player (2016), where he emphasizes honesty and clarity during the hiring process to identify cultural alignment.
EOS People Analyzer™: The People Analyzer is a tool from the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), introduced in Gino Wickman’s Traction (2007). It provides a simple, shared language to evaluate whether team members align with a company’s core values. EOS Worldwide retains trademark ownership of the tool and terminology.
