Gradually, then suddenly
Why culture shift feels invisible — until it isn't
In the midst of a significant amount of AI slop and humblebragging, LinkedIn occasionally throws up something pretty interesting. Last week, a post drew this article to my attention, which outlines the case of a family who are actively bringing their wealth back into the UK (from Guernsey, where little to no tax is currently being paid) for what has been described as ‘ethical, social and moral reasons’. The article states that the family will be £82 billion worse off in 100 years time than they would have been had they kept their money where it currently is, and this quote in particular caught my eye.
“According to Clive Coleman, a senior partner at Maltin PR, the decision goes against many assumptions about how wealthy families behave. ‘There’s certainly reputational capital to be gained from an ultra-wealthy individual or family moving assets from a low-tax regime to a higher-tax regime because they feel it is morally the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘They want to play their full part in the social contract.’
Coleman believes the move stands out because it provides an alternative narrative to public expectations of how UHNWs behave. ‘It goes so against the public perception that the super-rich are experts at moving their assets to low-tax or even no-tax regimes,’ he said. ‘Bucking that trend comes with a lot of reputational capital, even if it means the tax take on those assets will be far higher.’”
What these paragraphs speak to, perhaps, is the beginnings of a culture change. Suddenly, the thing that everyone seemed to be doing (in this case avoiding - but, crucially, not evading - tax) starts to look a tad grubby, like something from another era when we didn’t know any better. We add to that the Patriotic Millionaires movement and the quiet philanthropy of MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) who has signed a Giving Pledge that commits her to giving away the majority of her net worth, and we begin to see an alternate picture than that which has dominated previously.
Nobody quite knows who said the now famous quote “culture eats strategy for breakfast” but whoever it was hit the nail on the head. Everything we do is massively influenced by the people around us and the cultural norms that they represent - Seth Godin describes it as “people like us do things like this”. Whenever we join a workplace, one of our natural drivers will be a desire to fit in, and a surefire way to do so is to adopt the habits and behaviours that make up the culture of the place. If everyone goes and gets lunch together, you’re probably going to go get lunch with them. If everybody moans about the boss, there will be a strong temptation to do the same, or at least listen with sympathy. To stand alone when you want to, even need to, be part of the team, is incredibly difficult and, much of the time, not sustainable when you have to work with people day in day out.
The annoying thing about company culture is that it’s pretty tricky to diagnose prior to joining the organisation. You can ask about it at your interview, and there might be some tell-tale signs that you pick up on, but you basically can’t know for sure until you actually step into the place and begin your job. And so it is that sometimes, a leader who thinks they’ve just successfully been offered the role of their dreams can walk into a working culture that makes them want to run for the hills.
If this is you right now - don’t despair! Turn around! Stop running! Because leadership gives you the extraordinary opportunity to change a culture. A leader, by definition, holds a considerable degree of power, and, because of this, has an outsize influence on the dynamics and behaviours of the place where they work. Culture change can be hard, sometimes lengthy and definitely frustrating - but the results can be completely life-changing for all involved.
An organisation’s culture is made up of repeated behaviours which, over time, have become norms so that they are no longer thought about. The bigger an organisation is, and the longer the average length of service is, the harder culture is to change, but I firmly believe it is never impossible. There are many different things that you may wish to shift - perhaps there’s a culture of overwork, or of low standards, or a ‘them vs us’ between senior and junior team members. Once you have diagnosed what the issue is, the first and most important action is to model the new behaviour that you want to see. You cannot expect anyone else to have, for example, high standards unless you do too.
The work of modelling can by itself have a significant impact, particularly in smaller organisations where the leader has a lot of contact with every member of the team. The next step is to figure out the strategies and structures that will allow the culture change that you’re seeking to embed across all levels of the organisation - starting with the senior leaders who report to you, who can then in turn instill it in their own teams. Your action plan will look different depending on what you’re trying to shift - sometimes naming the change transparently and frankly is helpful, sometimes it’s about putting in more practical day-to-day tweaks which support the culture you’re trying to build. Whatever it is will, sadly, not be a one-and-done situation - culture change usually requires sustained effort over multiple months or even years to properly embed.
Hemingway’s famous quote about bankruptcy (“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly”) is, I think, very apt when thinking about how cultures shift. You can spend a long time feeling like nothing is happening and then one day you turn around and something’s changed. It can be a tiny thing - the way one colleague speaks to another, the way someone handles themselves in a meeting, someone coming to speak to you about something that you know would have been whispered about in the corridors a few months ago. Those tiny acts are your canaries in the coalmine, letting you know that the hard yards you’ve put in are finally starting to pay off.
Capitalism is one of the world’s most powerful cultural forces - and yet, we are beginning to see some of its biggest winners act against their own financial interests because their belief about how the world should work is bigger and more important than the money they might ‘lose’. Even cultures that feel intractable can begin to shift when those with power decide that there might be a better way and this is one of the great privileges of being a leader - we get to shape the organisational world that we and our colleagues exist within, and hopefully turn them into better places to be.