The Myth of the Culture Initiative

by Pamela Coleman

April 2026

Harvard Business Review found that 72% of culture initiatives yielded no improvement, and 57% of employees felt worse after the launch of a culture-building program. Leaders approach these campaigns as check-the-box exercises that reflect their perceptions of what they should do to address culture. It is far easier to install a ping-pong table or plan a fun outing than to do the harder, more deliberate work of building a cultural framework. Or they may offer updated perks, but in doing so, they convey confusion about what culture is and a lack of commitment to getting to an effective cultural strategy. Periodic cultural campaigns do nothing to address the throughline of an organization’s culture. Instead, leaders must take the time to build a cultural framework and then hold themselves accountable to it.

O.C. Tanner describes the frustration these programs often cause among teams: “At one global services firm, 69% of middle managers said they felt solely responsible for delivering on cultural commitments. Yet only 14% believed senior leaders were modeling those same behaviors themselves.” Culture campaigns fail because they are divorced from a coherent framework that applies across the organization, equally to every employee. Tanner goes on to say, “Across every sector and region we studied, culture only changed when leaders changed first.”

Take Uber under Travis Kalanick’s leadership. The team held ribald events, unfurled company values (heavily borrowed from Amazon), and trumpeted the “super-pumped” cultural philosophy. But Kalanick did nothing to develop a coherent operating system to support a healthy culture. Leaders acted recklessly, and employees lost faith and disengaged.

When leaders treat culture as a strategic effort, they develop plans and conduct periodic check-ins to ensure it is developing according to plan. First and foremost, they hold themselves accountable to behavioral standards – both in how the executive team operates and in how executives interact with the broader team. For many years, as a human resources consultant, I could quickly assess how an organization operated by observing the executive team’s behavior.

A coherent cultural framework is the launchpad for initiatives, programs, and campaigns that help people gain the perspectives and skills they need. Absent a framework, cultural initiatives can seem capricious and disconnected from outcomes. Employees appreciate guidance on how to succeed, and a clearly articulated cultural framework is the starting point. Leaders are fully responsible for the culture that emerges within their organizations, so it makes sense to be intentional about it. What was your most recent initiative launched in the name of culture, and how effective was it?

For more information, email me at pamela@cultural-coherence.com