To Improve Company Culture, You Have To Kill It First

You can’t just “fix” company culture. Here’s why.

OK, people. All hands. Let’s talk about your morale.

First, let’s recognize the elephant in the room. Nobody is happy right now.

You’re working long hours, for low pay, either in an open office environment that nobody likes or working remotely and feeling like you’re going to wake up tomorrow to one of those dreaded HR meeting invites.

There doesn’t seem to be any kind of work-life balance anymore, because the gap between the two has disintegrated, and life is so expensive right now that you’re perpetually working in larger chunks to salvage smaller slivers of life.

You’re not happy. I get that. And if we’re here to be honest, I’ll tell you I’m not happy either. All respect, but I’m not here to listen to a bunch of complaining or to resolve interpersonal issues all day. I’m in the same boat as you, only I don’t have anyone to complain to.

But one thing I do know is that we all want this to work. It’s 2024. None of us would be here if we didn’t see a higher purpose than just earning a paycheck. And some of you have come to me to ask about our company culture — How did it get off track? How did it go toxic? And can we fix it?

Fine. Let’s start there. You want real talk about changing company culture for the better? You want the stuff that doesn’t come with upper-management checkboxing and high-priced consultants with perma-smiles pitching trust falls?

Well then settle in, because if we’re going to change our company culture, the ugly truth is that first we’ve got to kill the company culture we’ve got.

What Company Culture Isn’t

OK, I feel like I have to say this. The opening section above is a generalization, bordering on satire. I’m fine. My company and its culture are fine. I’m writing an article to be insightful and entertaining, not airing my dirty laundry in public. But you can’t be too careful these days on the internet.

So now I’ll turn that off and get into how you fix company culture.

You don’t.