The CEO leaned forward, eyes bright with conviction. "Innovation," she said. "That's our culture. That's what sets us apart." She hired me to help them understand what was working—to bottle the magic so they could scale their culture.

My team and I mapped their culture across departments. After a few sessions, a pattern emerged. But it wasn't innovation; it was confusion.

Across the organization, "innovation" meant different things to different people. Engineering thought it meant working fast—ship fast, iterate faster. Sales thought it was permission to cut corners. The product team thought it was about continuous improvement. Legal felt left out because there's no room for disruption in compliance.

One culture. One company. Everyone understood it differently.

And this confusion is everywhere. Only 28% of employees say they understand their company's culture. The rest try to figure it out on their own, guessing at unwritten rules. Meanwhile, leaders think everyone sees things the same way they do.

The gap between what leaders think the culture is and what employees actually experience isn't just wide—it's huge.

I see this all the time. Leaders often confuse the culture they want with the culture they actually have. They think the values poster on the wall matches what really happens every day.

The numbers reveal an uncomfortable truth: Nearly half of employees can't remember their company's values. Almost one-third of U.K. employees say their organization's vision drowns in corporate jargon. In the U.S., over 30% of employees believe their leaders don't behave consistently with stated values.

When you can't see your actual culture, you can't fix what's........

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