CEO's column February 2026

Management teams like to talk about collaboration, values and long-term thinking, but often towards something completely different. Because culture is not shaped in visions or workshops, but in what management actually tolerates. That's why culture is never a soft subject. It's mathematics. And it's crucial for the strategy to be implemented.

We get the culture we accept.

At a management meeting I recently attended, the numbers were proudly displayed. Growth was good. Margins were stable. The forecast seemed to hold.

Then comes the next item on the agenda: culture.

“We need to improve collaboration between departments.” “We need to become more customer-focused.” “We need to work more value-driven.”

The conversation lasted ten minutes. After that, the meeting returned to pipeline, budget, and cost control.

No decision was made. No incentives were changed. Nothing was to be followed up.

It is at that moment that most corporate cultures are formed.

Not in the vision. Not in the strategy. But in what management actually chooses to accept.

Culture is not soft. It is mathematics.

Peter Drucker's well-worn quote "culture eats strategy for breakfast" is often used as a reminder that culture matters. But that's an understatement.

Culture is not only important, it determines whether the strategy can be implemented at all.

Yet in many organizations it is treated as something diffuse. Something that “sits in the walls”. Something that can be worked on in workshops.

It's a convenient thought. It means that no one is really responsible for it.

In reality, culture is shaped by governance, what is measured, followed up and rewarded.

A study from McKinsey & Company shows that around 70 percent of all change initiatives fail. The main reason is not the wrong strategy, but that employee behaviors remain the same.

Organizations don't change through decisions. They change through incentives.

What you measure gets done. What you follow up gets prioritized. What you reward gets repeated. What you tolerate gets the norm.

The rest is communication.

The management team's biggest self-deception

There is a recurring pattern in many companies: They talk warmly about the culture they want, and systematically steer towards another.

They say collaboration is crucial, but reward individual performance. They say long-term thinking is important, but focus strictly on the quarter. They say innovation is needed, but do not tolerate mistakes.

The signals become clear. And rational people quickly adapt to what actually pays off.

An analysis published in the Harvard Business Review shows that high-performing organizations do not have more inspiring value statements than others. However, they have greater consistency between stated principles and actual incentives.

That's where most management teams fall. Not in ambition. But in consistency.

Because consistency is uncomfortable. It requires that you sometimes reward the right behavior even when the numbers get worse in the short term. It requires that you say no to high performance that is done in the wrong way.

And it requires leaders to examine their own decisions.

Culture is a marginal problem

Culture is often discussed as a matter of well-being. In practice, it is a marginal issue.

A comprehensive study from MIT Sloan Management Review, based on one million employee suggestions, shows that toxic culture is the single strongest driver of employee turnover, ten times stronger than compensation.

Ten gangs.

This means that culture affects cost structure, productivity and recruitment ability. In knowledge-intensive companies, it practically affects the entire value creation.

Despite this, the issue of culture often ends up at the bottom of the agenda. It is raised when key people leave or when commitment decreases.

It's like starting to discuss profitability only when the margin has already eroded.

What you tolerate defines the company

The most accurate definition of culture is also the most uncomfortable; culture is the sum of accepted behavior.

Not the ones that are encouraged in presentations. The ones that are actually tolerated in everyday life.

When a high achiever outdoes colleagues, and is allowed to continue. When a manager doesn't deliver, but escapes consequences. When strong numbers outweigh the right behaviors.

Every such event sends a signal. And signals shape organizations faster than strategy documents.

That's why culture can't be delegated. It's created in the leadership team, every week.

The uncomfortable conclusion

Most organizations don't have the culture they say they want. They have the culture their decisions, incentives, and tolerance create.

This also means that responsibility is not diffuse.

If the culture doesn't support the strategy, it's not an HR problem. Not a communication problem. Not an employee problem.

It's a management problem.

And ultimately a CEO problem.

Because we get the culture we accept.

The only question is what behaviors you as a leader accept in your company right now.