A lot of this (as with most things actually) comes back to intentionality and awareness. Culture inevitably has to change with scale, and sometimes decisions that are right in the moment will jar with the intended culture.
What matters is noticing it and continuing to talk about it, both within the leadership team and openly across the company. The problems tend to show up when leaders try to cling to an original culture that no longer fits, or when culture just happens as a byproduct of decisions rather than something they actively shape.
P.S. You also inspired me last year to start my own Substack and get back to writing!
Exceptional framework for understanding organizational decay. The Uber-to-Netflix contrast is instruc tive because it shows how culture debt compounds when leadership treats norms as emergent rather than designed. What I find particularly compelling is the psychological safety point, most orgs think of it as a feel-good HR metric but its actually the canary in the coalmine for cultural misalignment. Boeing's trajectory is the clearest case study of this since safety concerns getting minimized is a direct symptom of eroded psychological safety at the structural level. The technical debt analogy works well but I'd add that culture debt also has network effects unlike code refactoring where issues stay localized.
Really nice piece, Mike. And very well written.
A lot of this (as with most things actually) comes back to intentionality and awareness. Culture inevitably has to change with scale, and sometimes decisions that are right in the moment will jar with the intended culture.
What matters is noticing it and continuing to talk about it, both within the leadership team and openly across the company. The problems tend to show up when leaders try to cling to an original culture that no longer fits, or when culture just happens as a byproduct of decisions rather than something they actively shape.
P.S. You also inspired me last year to start my own Substack and get back to writing!
Thanks Daniel. I love that you are writing again! I'll check out your Substack.
This makes total sense! There are many different perspectives of culture debt.
Exceptional framework for understanding organizational decay. The Uber-to-Netflix contrast is instruc tive because it shows how culture debt compounds when leadership treats norms as emergent rather than designed. What I find particularly compelling is the psychological safety point, most orgs think of it as a feel-good HR metric but its actually the canary in the coalmine for cultural misalignment. Boeing's trajectory is the clearest case study of this since safety concerns getting minimized is a direct symptom of eroded psychological safety at the structural level. The technical debt analogy works well but I'd add that culture debt also has network effects unlike code refactoring where issues stay localized.
Excellent piece! Apposite, for today's world, too! I sincerely hope a certain Western Leader who's name begins with a T is reading!