Why Investing in Culture Is the Most Strategic Move You’ll Make This Year

For years, organisational culture sat quietly in the background, only spoken about in values statements, referenced in engagement surveys, but rarely treated as a core business strategy.

That’s no longer the case. In today’s world, culture is your strategy.

We’re in a time where people are increasingly values-driven. Employees, customers, and even potential hires are paying close attention not just to what organisations do, but how they do it. Your culture is being felt long before someone joins your team and it continues to shape their experience long after they leave.

Whether you intend it or not, your culture is always communicating. More often than not, it’s subtle messages and then other times, more loudly.

The only question is: what is it saying?

Culture Is Your Competitive Advantage 

Research consistently shows that organisations with thriving, healthy cultures outperform their competitors. They experience higher revenue growth, improved customer satisfaction, lower absenteeism, and stronger retention. But this isn’t down to chance and it certainly isn’t about perks, posters, or slogans on the wall.

Thriving cultures unlock discretionary effort.

Discretionary effort is that powerful, voluntary energy people give when they feel trusted, valued, and connected to a meaningful purpose. It’s the difference between doing the job and owning the outcome. Between compliance and commitment. Between showing up and truly contributing.

When people are inspired by their workplace culture, they thrive, they go the extra mile; and not because they have to, but because they want to.

Strategy might have got you here, but culture will get you there. 

You can have the most robust strategic plan in the world, complete with clear goals, strong governance, and sound financials but without a culture that supports execution, there’s every chance it will stall. 

Culture determines how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, how accountability is lived, and how change is experienced.

Culture is what shows up when pressure is on. It’s what guides behaviour when no one is watching.

And in times of uncertainty, transformation, or growth, culture becomes the deciding factor between momentum and resistance.

The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Culture

When culture is left unattended, leaders often see the symptoms before they see the cause:

• High turnover or difficulty attracting the “right” talent

• Low engagement or quiet disengagement

• Siloed teams and strained relationships

• Change fatigue and resistance

• Leaders feeling stuck managing behaviours rather than leading outcomes

• Low to no innovation

These challenges might seem on the surface to be about capability. More often than not, they’re about alignment, trust, and clarity all of which live in the cultural space.

The cost of not investing in culture is paid daily: in lost productivity, diminished morale, and missed opportunities.

Culture Is Built in the Small Moments

One of the biggest myths about culture is that it’s something abstract or intangible. In reality, culture is shaped in very practical, very human ways:

• How leaders show up under pressure

• What behaviours are rewarded or tolerated

• How feedback is given (or avoided)

• How decisions are communicated

• How people feel after interacting with their leaders and team members

Every conversation, every meeting, every response - these moments either reinforce the culture you want, or quietly erode it.

This is why leadership matters so deeply. Leaders don’t just influence culture, they model it.

Investing in Culture Is Investing in Performance

The most future-ready organisations understand that culture is not a “nice to have” or a once-a-year initiative. It’s a continuous investment that pays dividends across performance, engagement, wellbeing, and reputation.

When leaders are intentional about culture, they create environments where people feel psychologically safe, clear on expectations, and connected to purpose. In those environments, people don’t just stay. Instead they care, they grow, they innovate, they thrive!

And that is incredibly hard for competitors to replicate.

The Question for Leaders

So the question isn’t whether you can afford to invest in culture. It’s whether you can afford not to!

As we look ahead, the organisations that will thrive are not the ones with the most polished strategies. They are the ones with cultures intentional enough to bring those strategies to life. Because in the end, culture doesn’t just shape how work gets done.

Culture will shape what’s possible.

In part two we talk about three practical ways leaders can start investing in their team's culture today.