Alignment: Culture

Culture is what happens when nobody's watching. It's not the values on your website or the perks in your office—it's the unwritten rules that govern how people actually behave when they have to make tough choices.

In well-aligned organizations, culture is the invisible force that keeps everyone moving in the same direction even when they're working on completely different problems. It's what helps people make good decisions without having to ask permission, and it's what ensures that the right things happen even when leadership isn't in the room.

Culture isn't soft or fluffy—it's one of the most practical aspects of running a company. Get it right, and people will naturally do things that support alignment. Get it wrong, and no amount of process or tooling will save you.

Why culture drives alignment

Most people think alignment comes from having the right information or the right meetings. But information and meetings are just tools. What really determines alignment is whether people care about the same things and trust each other to make good decisions.

This is where culture does the heavy lifting. When people share the same underlying beliefs about what matters—whether that's customer obsession, quality, speed, or transparency—they naturally make decisions that reinforce each other rather than work against each other.

Netflix figured this out early. Their famous culture deck wasn't just about defining values; it was about creating a shared mental model for how to operate. When everyone understands that "keeper team" means you optimize for performance over comfort, decisions about hiring, feedback, and priorities become much clearer. People don't need detailed guidelines because they understand the principles that should guide their choices.

What strong culture looks like in practice

Strong culture isn't about everyone agreeing on everything. It's about everyone operating from the same basic assumptions about how work should get done and what success looks like.

Decisions feel consistent. When different people face similar situations, they tend to make similar choices—not because they're following a script, but because they're applying the same underlying principles.

People self-correct. Instead of waiting for management to catch problems, team members notice when something doesn't align with cultural expectations and address it directly.

New hires integrate quickly. People don't just learn what to do; they learn how to think about problems in a way that's consistent with how the organization approaches challenges.

Hard conversations happen naturally. Culture provides the framework for addressing difficult topics because everyone understands the shared commitment to certain outcomes or behaviors.

Remote work still works. Strong culture travels well because it's based on shared principles rather than physical proximity or constant supervision.

The culture-alignment feedback loop

Culture and alignment reinforce each other in a positive cycle. When teams are aligned, they build trust and shared understanding, which strengthens culture. When culture is strong, people make decisions that support alignment even without explicit coordination.

This is why companies like Patagonia can maintain such consistent messaging and decision-making across different functions and geographies. Their culture of environmental activism isn't just marketing—it's a genuine shared belief that guides everything from product development to supply chain decisions. When everyone truly believes in the mission, alignment happens naturally because people want to support the same outcomes.

The reverse is also true. When culture is weak or inconsistent, misalignment becomes systemic. People optimize for different things, trust breaks down, and coordination becomes a constant struggle.

Common culture problems that kill alignment

Most culture problems stem from a disconnect between stated values and actual behavior. Here are the patterns that destroy alignment:

Values tourism. Having beautiful values statements that nobody actually follows. When leadership talks about transparency but makes important decisions behind closed doors, people learn that the real culture is about information hoarding, not openness.

Mixed signals. Rewarding behavior that contradicts stated values. If you say you value collaboration but only promote individual contributors, people learn that collaboration is nice in theory but not what actually matters for career advancement.

Culture by committee. Trying to design culture through workshops and surveys instead of demonstrating it through consistent behavior. Culture isn't something you define in a meeting; it's something you build through daily choices.

One-size-fits-all culture. Assuming the same cultural approach will work for every team or function. What works for a sales team might not work for an engineering team, and that's okay as long as there are shared principles that connect them.

Culture as control. Using culture as a way to enforce conformity rather than enable better decision-making. Strong culture should create more autonomy, not less, because people understand how to make good choices independently.

Building culture intentionally

Culture happens whether you're intentional about it or not. The question is whether it's going to support the outcomes you want or work against them.

Building good culture starts with being honest about what you actually believe, not what you think you should believe. Amazon's "customer obsession" isn't just a nice slogan—it's a genuine belief that customer needs should drive most business decisions, even when it's inconvenient or expensive.

Model the behavior you want to see. Culture is formed by watching what leaders do when they think nobody is paying attention. If you want transparency, be transparent about your own decision-making process. If you want people to admit mistakes, admit your own mistakes publicly.

Make trade-offs explicit. Every culture involves trade-offs. Netflix chose performance over job security. Patagonia chose environmental impact over maximum profit. Being clear about these trade-offs helps people understand what the culture actually prioritizes.

Hire and fire for culture fit. This doesn't mean hiring people who all think the same way, but it does mean hiring people who share core beliefs about how work should get done. And when someone consistently acts in ways that undermine cultural values, address it quickly.

Tell stories that reinforce culture. The stories that get told and retold in organizations shape how people understand what's really important. Make sure the stories you're telling support the culture you want to build.

When culture becomes toxic

Strong culture can become a liability when it stops serving the organization's actual needs. This usually happens in one of two ways:

Cultural rigidity. When cultural values become so fixed that they prevent adaptation to changing circumstances. What worked in the early days might not work as you scale or enter new markets.

Cultural extremism. When cultural values get taken to unhealthy extremes. A culture of high performance can become a culture of burnout. A culture of transparency can become a culture of over-sharing that paralyzes decision-making.

The solution isn't to abandon culture but to evolve it thoughtfully. The core principles might stay the same, but how they get expressed should adapt as circumstances change.

Culture as competitive advantage

Companies with strong, aligned cultures have a massive advantage because they can move faster and with more coordination than companies that depend entirely on top-down control or detailed processes.

When everyone understands the underlying principles, people can make good decisions quickly without waiting for approval. When people trust each other's motivations, information flows more freely. When teams share the same definition of success, coordination happens naturally.

This is why culture is so hard to copy. You can't just adopt another company's values and expect them to work. Culture has to grow organically from the actual beliefs and behaviors of the people in your organization.

Culture enables everything else

Culture is the foundation that makes everything else possible. Great people are attracted to organizations with strong culture and are more likely to do their best work in that environment. Good processes work better when people understand why they exist and are motivated to make them successful. The best tools get adopted and used effectively when they support cultural values rather than fighting against them.

Without strong culture, alignment becomes a constant management challenge. With strong culture, alignment happens naturally because people want to support the same outcomes and trust each other to make good decisions.

The most aligned companies aren't the ones with the most detailed policies or the most sophisticated processes. They're the ones where culture provides a shared framework for thinking about problems and making decisions. When culture is working well, people don't just know what to do—they know how to think about what to do.