“Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got." – Peter Drucker
I ran across this 2x2 grid from an old project.

The challenge in the company was (and still is) getting junior people to buy into the firm's commitment to excellence. This excellence is demonstrated daily by senior leadership. The junior people, many of them Gen Z or young Millennials, are expected to learn through osmosis, watching daily interactions between leaders and clients.
To help them I set out to identify where exactly this disconnect showed up in their business. Was there a report somewhere? Were they looking at certain experiences? It took time, but we found measuring the number of client issues escalated to the senior level as one metric. Measuring passive-aggressive complaints in the annual customer survey is the second metric.
Quality vs Intent
The grid came from surveying the senior leaders and the junior staff. On the X axis we found there was an unwritten expectation in the job requirements, which we call the minimum acceptable standard. It's the least you can do without getting fired. (which was not the same as the written job requirement, by the way) We put this on the low side. On the high side of the X axis were the firm's best practices exhibited by the senior leaders. This is what we're aiming for.
On the Y axis I put whether these were being done consciously or unconsciously. As you can imagine, some people scraping along at the minimum standards had no idea they were there. At the same time many of the leader's best practices were not communicated.
We want all of our people to be in the top right. They know the best practices, and they do them on purpose. We can live with best practices done unconsciously too. Most of all, we want our people to do these things because they want to. It's in their best interest, we say. A rational person wants to do the best they can. When you operate in the top right of the grid, you're exhibiting those rational self-interest behaviors.
Bottom left may need some coercion. Top left is an issue. Surprisingly, there were a few senior leaders in this area. Incredibly competent, but not demonstrating the firm's values, and acting that way on purpose. Most surprisingly to my team were the number of best practices not tracked or communicated. The outcomes the top people produced were consistent, but the way they got them was not.
We set out to raise awareness, to go from unconscious to on-purpose, and guess what? Yep, escalated complaints went down and survey complaints started looking different. (as often happens, old metrics give way to new ones as projects progress)
Takeaways
My reinforced takeaway is you have to check for awareness before taking action on bad behavior. I'm never surprised when people say, "oh, I didn't know that." My surprise takeaway is you have to check for awareness before taking action on good results. When you hear, "doesn't everyone do it this way?" it's a clue they need to talk to each other more structured way.
A firm's culture is hard to change, but it starts with awareness. (And maybe give the young people a break because there are a lot of hidden rules to navigate. It's not intuitive.)
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