Stop Blaming Culture for Your Dysfunctions

🚀 Stop Blaming Culture. Start Owning the Real Issues

This week's edition was supposed to be about Alignment... However, I wanted to talk today about something thatI am noticing a lot...

There’s a growing habit in organisations today: When something isn’t working—whether it’s performance, results, behaviour, or leadership—many point the finger at “culture.”

"It's just our culture." "Our culture doesn't support that." "We're working on a culture shift."

Sound familiar?

It’s become the coat hanger for dysfunction—a convenient, vague label for everything that’s not working.

1. Culture is now a justification for the status quo

When leaders say, “it’s our culture,” what they often mean is:

• We’ve always done it this way
• It’s too hard to change
• Not sure how to tackle this... Hopefully it will be picked up somewhere, somehow by someone!
• Don't want to upset anyone! Instead, by calling it out, maybe the behaviours will just change if we define what we expect!

By doing this enought times, culture becomes a justification for mediocrity—a shield for avoiding the discomfort of real change. Instead of calling out the behaviours, decisions, or systems that need to shift, we label it all “culture” and move on.

2. We use culture to describe the problem but avoid owning the solution

Culture can help articulate what's going wrong—but that’s where most organisations stop.

They host listening sessions, run engagement surveys, and hold town halls. They collect the stories. But when it’s time to do something real about it, the ownership fades.

Culture becomes everyone’s problem and no one’s responsibility

If you’re using culture as a diagnosis without making space for action, then you’re not shifting anything. You’re just giving dysfunction a new name

3. Using “culture” as a catch-all makes root cause work harder, not easier

When everything is labelled a culture problem, it becomes almost too big to solve.

It’s like saying: “The needle is in the haystack—go find it. But be careful not to get hurt. And don’t pull too hard or someone else might get upset.”

We’ve created this idea that culture is something fragile, sacred, or worse—untouchable. But culture isn’t a mystery. It’s shaped by what leaders do, reward, tolerate, and ignore—every day.

4. The danger of using culture as a blame warehouse

By overusing “culture” as a placeholder for everything that’s wrong, you actually risk embedding deeper dysfunction:

• You delay action
• You confuse your people
• You drift further from performance
• And you unknowingly reinforce the very status quo you claim to want to change.

You’re not fixing the system—you’re feeding it.

5. What to do instead

✔️ Call out the behaviour, not just the buzzword 

✔️ Make the invisible visible—what’s really driving outcomes? 

✔️ Shift from abstract “culture talk” to naming and reshaping habits, systems, and leadership defaults 

✔️ Own the part you play—transformation starts when leadership takes responsibility

⛔⛔ And before you start thinking about a culture transformation program... Hold on! Because, in most cases, these programs are not set up for success. These programs are needed for a specific reason and are probably the most difficult transformation programs to design and run. As an alternative, you can achieve faster and more effective results in more personalized and targeted ways - If you want to hear more, reply to this article. 👈

Final Thought

Culture doesn’t shift because you talk about it. It shifts when leaders stop hiding behind it.

So if you're serious about creating a future-fit organisation, stop blaming culture for your dysfunctions—and start working on what’s really in the way.

What’s Next?

Last week we spoke about the cost of speed, and this week, we highlghted the cost of blaming culture

Next week we speak about:

➡️ Waiting for full alignment before taking action—why this is a trap. Stay tuned!

#Transformation #Leadership #Change #FutureFit #StrategyExecution #Culture

📑📓 Practical Transformation Learning—Shaped by You

Over the last few months, I’ve been watching some clear patterns emerge across the organisations, teams, and individual professionals I work with.

🔹 Leaders navigating transformation in increasingly complex environments 

🔹 Teams eager to sharpen how they execute without burning out 

🔹 Individuals seeking tools that help them lead better, think deeper, move faster without losing focus, and accelerate their career progression.

And it’s clear: there’s a growing appetite for practical, real-world learning that helps leaders and practitioners not just manage change—but truly lead it.

💬 What kind of transformation & change Leadership learning do you want to see offered?

Is there a skill you’ve been meaning to develop? A challenge you’ve seen across your organisation? A gap in capability that you wish had more support?

I’d love to hear: 

✅ What you’d like to learn next 

✅ What your team would benefit from 

✅ What kind of workshop would be a game-changer for your program or career

📩 Reply to this article or DM me and let me know what you’d love to see brought to life.

Together, we’ll shape what’s next in practical transformation learning—driven by what you need most to lead change that lands, lasts, and leads forward.

Looking forward to hearing your ideas.

🎉💎Women in Change Community for Australia & New Zealand

Check out this message from the Women in Change Founder 👇

🎥 Video 2: Why Australia & New Zealand

🔗Read all about it here 👇👇👇

🔗🔗Women in Change ANZ

🏆 🚀 Honored to Be Named a Top 10 Thought Leader in Transformation Globally!

Grateful to be recognized by Thinkers360 among the: 

1️⃣ Top 100 Change Management Thought Leaders Globally 🗺️ 

2️⃣ Top 100 Thought Leaders in the APAC Region ✨ 

3️⃣Top 10 Transformation Thought Leaders Globally 🌏

This recognition reflects the impact of transformation leadership, strategic execution, and pushing the boundaries of change.

A huge thank you to the incredible leaders, peers, and organizations I’ve had the privilege to work with.

Transformation is a collective effort, and this is a win for all of us, driving real change.

APAC digital badge was issued by Thinkers360 to Jess Tayel Dr. https://buff.ly/6RmHY7Z via Thinkers360

Change Management digital badge was issued by Thinkers360 to Jess Tayel https://buff.ly/5jdiYuS

Transformation digital badge was issued by Thinkers360 to Jess Tayel https://www.thinkers360.com/tl/badge/10568/5825

Till next week

Jess Tayel

Founder of the Transformation Leadership Institute and People of Transformation membership & community.

Enable Organizations to Become Future Fit Through their Transformations & Change efforts.

Elevate Change & Transformation high-performing leaders to soar above the sea of sameness and achieve new heights in mastery, influence, & impact without the drag of going solo or slow progression.