Culture Matters: It isn’t what you say, it’s what you do

RIE Solutions
Jan 29
5 min read

In business today, a strong workplace culture isn’t a “nice-to-have”, it’s a strategic differentiator that helps firms truly stand out. Organisations that prioritise culture consistently outperform peers in innovation, team retention, client satisfaction, growth, and resilience. Yet many still treat culture as a superficial exercise publishing values and a mission statement on the website or in a business plan, then moving on. Culture is far more than that.

Culture lives in the everyday. It’s how each person on the team embodies your shared values and philosophy through the words they choose with colleagues and clients, the decisions they make under pressure, the recruitment standards they uphold, and even seemingly small choices like which stationery providers you use. For example, a culture focused on pure profitability can drive decisions that compromise quality e.g. cheaper, lower standard supplies or turning a blind eye to poor labour practices. A culture of sustainable profitability and integrity leads somewhere different: better suppliers, fair pay, ethical sourcing, long term client trust, and decisions you’re proud to defend.

💡Bottom line: Your culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you do, especially when no one is watching.

Culture and performance: what the evidence shows

Research by John Kotter and James Heskett in Corporate Culture and Performance transformed how leaders think about the connection between organisational culture and financial success. By studying hundreds of companies across sectors (including Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, ICI, Nissan, and First Chicago), they showed that:

Culture shapes economic outcomes. The right cultural conditions correlate with stronger growth and profitability; the wrong ones drag on performance.
“Strong” isn’t always good. Strength without adaptability breeds bureaucracy, arrogance, and resistance to change.
Adaptability is crucial. High performers are outward-looking and responsive to customers, competitors, and market shifts.
Leadership is the lever. Culture doesn’t change through posters or pep talks. It shifts when leaders set a compelling direction and empower teams to serve stakeholders, not just shareholders.

The takeaway: shared values aren’t enough without action. Values must translate into ongoing learning, experimentation, and improvement lived dynamically through daily decisions.

Reflect 🤔: If a neutral observer reviewed your last ten significant decisions, which value would they say dominated—speed, cost, quality, people, impact, integrity? Please share your thoughts on our new Mighty Networks Platform?

Team culture: the performance engine

Evidence from UK healthcare shows that team-level culture, distinct from organisational or national narratives, drives day-to-day behaviours, wellbeing, and outcomes. The same applies in financial services, where tight deadlines, complex compliance, and market volatility demand a culture that is both cohesive and adaptable. Four enablers show up consistently:

Clear, shared values : Agreed and understood at team level; specific to your work and clients.
Visible, supportive leadership: Present, consistent, and fair; leaders model the behaviours they expect.
Collaborative practices: Rituals that make cooperation the default (e.g., decentralised decision making, cross-functional team approach to projects, peer feedback).
Continuous reflection and learning: Reviews, feedback loops, and improvement cycles that are short and regular.

Reflect 🤔: Which of these four enablers has the biggest gap in your team today? What is one observable behaviour you’ll change this month? If you’re an Ops Leader, please share your thoughts on our new Master Practitioners Club Open Ops Forum?

The Culture Code in practice: three repeatable skills

Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code distils the “secret sauce” of elite teams into three practical skills:

Build Safety: Psychological safety is the bedrock of trust. Leaders send “belonging cues” (eye contact, energy, listening) that tell people their voice matters.
Share Vulnerability: Trust grows when leaders admit mistakes, ask for help, and invite feedback. These “vulnerability loops” deepen relationships and accelerate learning.
Establish Purpose: Purpose is a living narrative, not a wall poster. Flood everyday conversations with vivid stories of your values in action so decisions naturally align.

Further reading: https://danielcoyle.com/the-culture-code

Reflect 🤔: What’s the last story you told internally that proved your values? What story could you tell this week? If you’re an Ops Leader, please share your thoughts on our new Master Practitioners Club Open Ops Forum?

Culture check: a 5‑minute audit for leadership teams

Use these prompts to test whether your firm’s behaviour matches what you say you value:

Decision trail: What do your last 10 decisions reveal you value most?
Budget as belief: Do time and money allocations match your stated values?
Supplier ethics: Would your suppliers pass your values test (pay, sourcing, privacy, accessibility)?
Recruitment reality: Do hiring and promotions reward people who live the values?
Meeting moments: Who speaks and who feels safe to challenge?
Client choices: When revenue and the right thing diverge, which wins? How often?
Micro choices: Do small decisions (tools, templates, stationery, coffee) reinforce or erode your culture?
Story bank: Which stories get told and what do they celebrate?
Policy vs practice: Where do words and behaviours diverge? What will you fix first?
Ownership: Who owns culture and what are the next three actions in the next 30 days?

💡One practical next step: Audit the last 90 days of decisions (people, clients, operations, suppliers). Surface one misalignment and one bright spot. Fix the former; scale the latter.

Spot toxic signals early

Toxic cultures are rarely born overnight. Instead, they accumulate over time through unchallenged habits and behaviours. Warning signs include:

🚩Demotivated team: people attend but aren’t engaged.

🚩No (or misaligned) values: “what we say” vs “how we behave.”

🚩Poor communication: gossip, unclear expectations, no feedback loop.

🚩Lack of recognition: effort goes unnoticed; morale drops.

🚩High turnover: a symptom of deeper cultural issues.

🚩Work–life imbalance: “always on” expectations erode trust and performance.

🚩Fear-based leadership: people won’t challenge ideas; innovation stalls.

🚩Inward focus: blind to market changes and customer feedback.

The state of UK organisations: the values–behaviour gap

A large-scale survey of 1,170 UK employees (Nottingham Business School) found significant misalignments between stated values and lived behaviours:

Only 18% felt their organisation’s stated values matched daily behaviours.
25% said leadership actions didn’t reflect professed values.
38% believed their culture failed to support wellbeing.

These gaps fuel disengagement, elevate turnover risk, and weaken client trust.

Source: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2025/01/organisational-culture-survey-shows-widespread-mismatch-between-behaviour-and-policies

Values that work: from slogans to systems

Corporate values shouldn’t be just a marketing tactic, they should be a decision-making compass. The UK Business Values Survey (2022) highlights a shift toward values rooted in emotional intelligence and human connection:

Collaboration is now the most cited value among UK businesses, surpassing integrity.
Empathy, passion, and courage are rising—signalling a human-centred pivot.
82% of companies still rely on top‑down values selection; only 18% co‑create with employees.
Many firms struggle to embed values—language is vague, behaviours undefined, and reinforcement mechanisms missing.

When values are co‑created and consistently lived, they shape culture, guide decisions, and build trust driving commercial outcomes and resilience. Reported benefits include strengthening culture, supporting strategy, advancing sustainability, focusing customer service, guiding conduct, enhancing reputation, attracting talent, and building customer trust.

Source: https://oxfordcharacter.org/research/uk-business-values-2022

Where to begin

Co‑create values with the team. Involve people from across the business; ownership drives adoption.
Make values actionable. Define 3–5 observable behaviours per value (e.g., “Empathy” → active listening norms, load balancing in peak periods).
Embed values into operations. Bake them into hiring process, onboarding, 1:2:1s, decision frameworks, and meeting rituals.
Tell stories that reinforce values. Share concrete examples of values in action; stories stick where slogans flop.
Measure and revisit. Run a quarterly culture pulse and publish one fix and one win.

🚩 Red flags to avoid: vague language, no team input, inconsistent leadership behaviour, no operational integration, and a lack of real stories.

Financial services lens: Tie values to everything you do e.g. how you price, your investment philosophy, who you advise, product and platform choices, data privacy, how you structure your team, supplier standards, your recruitment process, how you manage conflicts.

So, to end, culture isn’t a slogan, it’s the sum of your daily choices. Make them count, because every decision tells your story and shapes the future of your business.