You may suddenly notice a quieter office, transactional check-ins, and once-collaborative projects now receiving only routine responses. The vibrant, innovative culture that once defined the organisation is fading right now.
In Nigeria, cultural erosion in organisations often happens quietly through bureaucracy, shifting priorities, and a lack of focus. The core issue is the gap between espoused values, those displayed publicly and lived values, which are the behaviours actually rewarded and demonstrated daily. Closing this gap is essential to maintaining the organisation’s mission and long-term success. When alignment weakens, engagement drops, and the organisation’s purpose is at risk.
The Myth of Passive Culture
A common misconception is that culture is static. Leaders often believe they can define values, launch them, and expect them to last. Many operate under what can be called the “Monument Model” of culture, a system where once the core values are worded, printed on mugs, and framed in the lobby, the hard work is considered done. The culture, like a bronze statue, is erected for all to see and assumed to stand firm through the years, requiring only an occasional polish. This model is not only incorrect, but it is also the primary enabler of cultural decay.
The truth is, organisational culture is not a monument; it is a dynamic, living ecosystem. Culture evolves with every hire, promotion, recognition, resolution, and decision. It requires active engagement to remain strong; otherwise, it fades.
The Four (4) Silent Killers of Organisational Culture
The “Monument Model” leads to a dangerously reactive stance. Leaders only notice culture when it’s already unravelling, when turnover spikes, motivation is challenged, conflicts never get settled, innovation grinds to a halt, or public scandals erupt. By then, it’s too late, they scramble to “fix” the now-obvious problem with yet another change programme, more values workshops, or motivational speakers. This is like frantically replanting a forest after it’s become a desert. The resulting effort is desperate, expensive, and risks being futile.
To prevent cultural decline, we must first identify its causes. These are often quiet, systemic processes that erode the foundation. Understanding and addressing these silent threats requires examining how they undermine psychological safety, belonging, and shared purpose.
1. Growth Without Integration
While growth is a primary objective for organisations, rapid scaling through hiring, acquisition, or expansion can weaken culture. The challenge lies not in growth itself, but in failing to integrate culture as quickly as operations expand. By failing to address psychological safety and to incorporate newcomers into a unified way of working, the foundational sense of belonging and purpose becomes diluted.
In Nigeria, new hires are often onboarded into their roles but not into the organisational culture. Without consistent integration, they may introduce behaviours from previous workplaces, gradually reshaping the culture and reducing its effectiveness.
2. The Leadership Say-Do Gap
While dilution is an external challenge, the leadership “Say-Do Gap” undermines culture internally. Trust erodes when leaders’ actions fail to align with their stated values. Employees focus on what leaders silently reward, tolerate, and do, not just what they say.
- When a leader preaches “teamwork and psychological safety” yet allows an employee to use harsh, demeaning language over colleagues without consequence, they are not protecting the team; they are diminishing the very safety they vowed to uphold.
- A company that lists “collaboration” as a core value but only promotes brilliant lone wolves who hoard information is not valuing collaboration; it is valuing individual brilliance at the expense of the team.
Every time a leader’s actions contradict their espoused values, it undermines future communications and signals that the real culture lies in the gap between words and deeds. The result is a shift from a vibrant, trusting culture to one defined by political manoeuvring and quiet compliance.
3. Rewarding the Wrong Things – The System Failure
This challenge is compelling because it is embedded in formal systems. Culture is defined by what is incentivised. Conflict-resolution mechanisms, compensation structures, performance reviews, and promotion pathways ultimately determine lived values.
To know the true culture, don’t read the value statement. Look at who got promoted last year and why. Analyse the metrics that determine bonuses. Examine the stories told about “rockstar” employees.
A company may value “integrity” and “teamwork,” but if the only person who got a massive bonus and promotion was the sales director who met their aggressive targets through aggressive, borderline-unethical means and by steamrolling their team, you have just communicated your true cultural priorities to every single employee. The message is deafening: results at any cost.
If performance reviews focus solely on quantitative, individual output and ignore collaborative contributions, the organisation systematically discourages a collaborative, safe culture. The culture fades because systems favour different behaviours.
4. The Disappearance of Ritual – The Loss of Glue
Culture is sustained not through policy documents, but through shared experiences and stories. Rituals are the heartbeat of your culture. They are the repeated practices, the weekly all-hands meeting, the project kick-off cheer, the “first ship” celebration, and the Friday social that create rhythm, connection, and a shared identity. During periods of stress, growth, or remote work, rituals are among the first casualties. Discarding these practices is a critical, costly mistake that accelerates the breakdown of the culture.
The so-called non-essential town hall provided opportunities for leaders to show vulnerability, foster cross-team connections, and reinforce the company story. Without these rituals, the social fabric weakens. In remote settings, the absence of informal interactions can lead to isolation and a culture that is purely transactional. Studies from Harvard Business School and Harvard Business Review show that rituals, even informal or virtual ones, help employees bond, increase the perceived meaning of work, and foster organisational citizenship behaviours like going the extra mile.
The Steward’s Role: It’s a Leadership Job, Not an HR Programme
A critical shift in mindset is required to combat these silent killers. HR is not the owner of culture; the leadership team is. HR’s role is that of an architect, a coach, and a systems designer. They can build the frameworks, provide the data, and facilitate the conversations, but they cannot be the culture.
When culture is delegated to HR, it becomes just another initiative, separate from the core business. For lasting impact, leaders must take full ownership and make culture a daily, strategic priority.
The executive team must serve as Chief Culture Officers. Their attention sends the most powerful signals in the organisation. What they consistently address, measure, and respond to strongly will immediately reshape lived experience, “Garden Model” of culture. In this approach, leaders act as vigilant gardeners, recognising that their ecosystem demands ongoing, attentive stewardship. They can’t walk away after planting seeds (the values); constant involvement is required.
Strategic Steps to Restore and Sustain a Healthy Culture
The next three steps are crucial for leaders who want to reinforce their culture now.
Step 1: Diagnose the Gap – The Culture Audit
Move beyond annual engagement surveys. Collect qualitative, behavioural data to uncover lived values. Leaders should be directly involved in this process.
- Analyse Promotion & Reward Histories: Review promotion and bonus awards from the past 2–3 years. As leaders, assess whether these decisions reflected both business results and core values. Discuss what these choices say about your culture. Sample questions: “Can you share a time someone was recognised here? What did they do?” or “What would help you live our values more easily at work?”
- Mine Exit Interviews for Cultural Data: Use exit interviews to gather cultural insights. Go beyond tracking compensation as a reason for leaving by asking about alignment with company values and any discrepancies between stated and actual practices.
Step 2: Align the Systems – Hiring, Reviews, Promotions
At this stage, align your formal systems closely with your desired cultural values to ensure culture is self-reinforcing.
- Hiring: Integrate culture into your hiring process. Screen for both skills and values fit. Use behavioural interview questions to assess candidates’ alignment with core values.
- Performance Reviews: Redesign the system to split equally between WHAT people achieve (results) and HOW they achieve them (demonstrating values). Make cultural contribution a non-negotiable part of performance and compensation decisions.
Step 3: Lead Out Loud – Reinforce through Rituals and Stories
Actively serve as the primary storyteller and steward of your culture.
- Protect and Create Rituals: Whether it’s a weekly coffee chat, a quarterly awards ceremony, or a monthly “failure forum” where teams share learnings, treat these rituals as sacred. In a remote/hybrid world, this is even more critical. Invest in creating moments of genuine connection that are not about work updates.
- Be a Storyteller: by recognising employees who exemplify organisational values. Publicly share these examples in meetings, newsletters, and internal channels to make values tangible and set clear expectations.
- Close the Say-Do Gap, Publicly: When you make a mistake that contradicts the culture, acknowledge it. A leader who says, “I sent that email late at night and I should not have. I value your time to recharge, and my action undermined that. I will do better,” builds more trust than one who never makes a mistake. Vulnerability and consistency are the antidotes to cynicism.
Conclusion: The Daily Practice of Culture
A vibrant organisational culture is not a legacy you inherit; it is a garden you tend daily. It is the sum of a thousand small, intentional actions, the hire you make, the employee you promote, the story you choose to tell, the ritual you protect, the email you decide not to send.
Cultural decline is not inevitable; it results from neglect and apathy. By addressing its causes and actively stewarding culture, organisations can build resilience and long-term success. The most successful organisations will be those with intentional cultures.
At pcl., we help organisations preserve and strengthen their cultures through evidence-based cultural diagnostics, leadership alignment, and system integration. Our approach combines deep organisational insight with practical frameworks that identify and close the gap between espoused and lived values. By embedding culture into leadership behaviours, performance systems, and employee experiences, pcl. enables organisations to build trust, enhance engagement, and sustain a culture that drives long-term performance and strategic success.
Written by:
Olanrewaju Ogundipe
HR