Culture is What People Do, Not Just What They Say

Boards focus on how culture enables strategy, shapes risk, drives leadership, and creates long-term value. Yet measuring culture is complex. Research by Russell Reynolds Associates shows that only 53% of board directors feel they have sufficient data to assess corporate culture, highlighting a persistent gap between intent and insight.

Engagement surveys capture sentiment at a moment in time. They trend, rank, and compare, but they don’t reveal the behaviours and norms that drive risk, leadership effectiveness, or strategy execution. Independent, qualitative insight is essential to provide a richer, forward-looking view, highlighting both opportunities and emerging risks.

Why Engagement Surveys Fall Short

Surveys are useful for broad pulse checks, but they have clear limitations:

• Reflect past feelings, not ongoing behaviour.
• High averages can hide misaligned subcultures.
• Lack of trust or follow-up reduces honesty.
• Satisfaction or pride doesn’t reveal why decisions are made or how values are prioritised under pressure.

Culture is situated and enacted – what matters are patterns of behaviour, not averages.

Example: A company may report high engagement, yet teams cut corners on compliance or fail to raise quality issues. Engagement says “people feel good”; behaviour signals “risk is being ignored.”

 Listening Beyond Numbers

 Boards need structured interviews and focus groups to uncover:

• How employees interpret and live values.
• Informal rewards or punishments that override official values.
• Real examples of decision-making under pressure.
• Subcultures across teams, functions, or regions.
• Taken-for-granted practices that reveal risks.

This approach contextualises experience, providing evidence of behavioural norms rather than anecdote.

The Board Imperative: Independent Insight as Foresight

Boards need independent, qualitative insight to understand the culture that actually drives behaviour, performance, and risk.

Leaders are prone to optimism bias, overestimating how open their culture is and underestimating the difficulty employees face in raising concerns (Higgins & Reitz). For boards, this means internal approaches can echo a “feel-good” narrative rather than reality. Independent insight surfaces hidden issues before they become problems and enables proactive action:

• Spot emerging risk behaviours, compliance shortcuts, or misaligned subcultures.
• Identify where leaders truly succeed or struggle beyond self-reported engagement.
• Align strategy with actual behaviours and uncover misalignment early.
• Highlight capability gaps or resistance, ensuring teams can execute strategy and respond to change.
• Guide interventions like leadership coaching, reward design, and culture initiatives proactively.

Boards that adopt this approach anticipate problems rather than react, turning insight into strategic advantage.

For independent culture insights, contact Tamsin Howells  (tamsin.howells@mm-k.com  or Stuart James (stuart.james@mm-k.com).

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