18/09/2026
It's
Plenty of businesses will mark it by describing the culture they would like to have. Values on a wall. A line in the recruitment ad. Something about being like a family.
That isn't culture. Culture is what happens the first time someone is struggling and has to work out whether to say so.
If they say nothing, you find out during their notice period.
If they say something and it goes badly, everyone watching learns not to bother.
If they say something and it goes well, you have built the one thing that genuinely holds a team together.
None of this gets decided on an away day. It gets decided in ordinary weeks, by whoever happens to be nearest, usually in about four seconds.
In your business, what would someone do?
