Why do people ignore the values printed on the wall? Why do teams say one thing and do another? Why do well-meant rules get bypassed when things get busy?

Culture is often described as “the way we do things around here.” That definition is too simple. It focuses on the surface, on behavior, without addressing the underlying systems of meaning, belief, and expectation that influence how people think and act in real life.

To understand what’s really going on in an organization, we need to ask:

- What does this behavior mean to the people doing it?

- What do they assume is at stake if they act differently?

- What stories and values are reinforced by this ritual, meeting, silence, or celebration?

These questions point us toward a richer view; one that includes the emotional and social logic behind behavior. This is where we find trust, belonging, and identity. And this is also where to look when formal values and lived experience drift apart.

Layers of culture: what we see vs. what we feel

Psychologist Edgar Schein described organizational culture as having three layers (Schein, 2017):

- Artifacts are visible features like rituals, layout, dress code, or who speaks in meetings.

- Espoused values are what people say they believe in, often written down in vision statements or work agreements.

- Underlying assumptions are the often unconscious beliefs people hold about status, safety, fairness, and what is "normal".

Sometimes, these layers don’t align. A team might say, “you can ask for help anytime,” but if no one actually responds when you do, the real lesson is that vulnerability is risky. Over time, people adapt their behavior to what’s safe, not what’s stated.

Why some tools miss the mark on culture

This misalignment can’t be corrected by policy updates alone. And yet, many tools treat culture as something that can be engineered into place. Consider the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL), a popular maturity model used to assess health and safety practices. It outlines five steps toward cultural improvement, with detailed checklists across themes like leadership, engagement, reporting, and learning.

The problem is that it evaluates culture by measuring formal behavior and documented processes, not lived meaning. It focuses on whether employees can name safety objectives or whether resources are in place, but not whether people feel supported, safe, or trusted if they speak up.

Behavior ≠ Belief

Many popular slogans reduce culture to compliance or habit:

- “Culture is what you tolerate.”

- “Culture is what people do when no one is watching.”

These sayings sound good, but they miss the point. Culture isn’t just about what is done. It’s about what people believe is expected, safe, or rewarded. Culture is the meaning behind the action.

For example, an organization might score well on the SCL because it has a process for reporting incidents. But if people believe reports are ignored (or punished), they will stay silent. Culture can’t be measured by checklists alone.

The Safety Culture Ladder: useful but incomplete

First, the upside. The SCL is a coherent developmental model. It helps organizations reflect on where they are and what "good" might look like. From Level 3 onward, it includes shared ownership, communication and collective responsibility. Its flexibility across industries is a strength. Version 2.0 now even includes psychosocial safety and cybersecurity.

But it risks equating culture with compliance and communication.

-       The SCL equates cultural maturity with the presence of roles, resources and rules. But these are signals, not substance. A company may encourage feedback (behavior), yet people might still withhold it due to fear.

- Behavioral focus is not based on meaning. Observing behavior is helpful, but shallow if you don’t ask what that behavior means. Culture isn’t what people do. It’s what they believe is safe, normal, and rewarded.

-       There are no lived-experience indicators. There’s no guidance for exploring trust, emotional safety, or exclusion. For example, the SCL might assess a learning culture by counting near-miss reports. But what if people submit token reports out of fear?

-       Linear thinking doesn't fit cultural complexity. Culture rarely evolves in straight lines. It can regress under stress. It varies between teams. The ladder implies steady, uniform growth, which isn’t how culture works.

-       The ladder doesn’t help leaders hear the unsaid. Culture audits should surface silence, sarcasm, cynicism, hesitation. In short: the emotional signals of trust or fear. These don’t appear in behavioral checklists. Yet they are important if we want to understand culture.

What is culture, historically?

In the 19th century, anthropologist Edward Tylor described culture as a complex whole: beliefs, laws, customs, and knowledge acquired through society. Later scholars, like Graham Wallas and Karl Mannheim, wrote that culture is learned and embedded in how people make sense of their world. In the 1950s, Kroeber and Kluckhohn defined culture as a system of shared meanings visible in both artifacts and ideas. They also made clear that culture is not monolithic. Societies include subcultures: regional, professional, social. These often conflict with formal values.

As social systems (organizations too) evolve, these parts change at different speeds. Sociologist William Ogburn called this cultural lag: When systems and technology change faster than beliefs and habits (König, 1974). Organizations that push change without emotional readiness risk people reverting to old ways.

To really understand culture, ask this instead

Culture is not something a leader can simply "roll out." It's experienced by people trying to succeed, belong, and stay safe. When stated values don’t match what’s modeled, trust erodes. People disengage. Some go silent. Others find workarounds.

So instead of diagnosing culture with metrics, try listening:

- What does this action mean to the people doing it?

- What do they assume is at stake if they do things differently?

- What story does this meeting, ritual, or silence reinforce?

Culture is not just what we see people do. It's what we feel, fear, assume and remember. And that’s why changing culture requires understanding, not just procedures and audits.

Trust isn’t visible, but it’s invaluable

Question: Is the SCL a culture audit? Not in the sense sociologists or anthropologists would define it. It audits systems, documentation, and behavior. It doesn’t capture meaning, emotion, informal norms, or trust; the actual ingredients of culture.

Recommendation for cultural insight

So what can we do; especially if audits are required and can’t simply be abandoned?

We don’t need to abandon culture audits. But we do need to pair them with what Edgar Schein calls Humble Inquiry; the willingness to ask rather than tell. Combine structural assessments with deep listening. Collect stories. Use ethnographic approaches. Ask people what they assume, feel, and expect. That’s how we uncover not just what is done, but what is believed. That’s where lasting change begins.

Literature

König, R. (1974, [1958]), Das Fischer Lexicon Soziologie, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei GmbH.

Schein, E.H., Schein, P. (2017), Organizational Culture and Leadership, 5th edition, Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons.