The first year of the culture change initiative feels like progress. There’s energy. People are talking about new values. Our leaders are saying the right things at City Hall. Some early victories are now recognized. Engagement survey scores have increased.
And then the second year happens.
Energy dissipates. This language reverts to old habits. Early victories will no longer be celebrated because they are no longer novel. At some point in 14 or 18 months, a senior leader will pull you aside and ask why the culture feels the same as it did before you joined.
I’ve seen this happen in organizations across a variety of industries, large and small, private, and federal. I’ve seen both high-performing organizations and struggling organizations. The second year is when most culture change efforts fail. It’s not because the organization isn’t serious. It’s not because cultural change is impossible. This happens because of three specific and predictable failure modes that most organizations hit the same wall.
Failure mode 1: The initiative was executed. Cultural activities did not begin.
There’s a distinction I’ve made with clients over the years that isn’t said enough. That is, running a cultural initiative is not the same as doing cultural work.
Cultural initiatives are programs. This includes start date, facilitator, deliverables, and end date. Culture efforts are ongoing. It’s built into how decisions are made, how performance is managed, and how leaders actually act on a Tuesday afternoon when no one is watching.
Most organizations are doing this. They bring in consultants, hold workshops, develop new values, and leave no stone unturned. The initiative will then end and everyone will return to their regular jobs. The mistake is not to implement beneficial initiatives, but to treat them as cultural changes rather than as catalysts for them.
When behaviors change consistently across organizational levels over time, culture also changes. It doesn’t happen by initiative. It happens with continued attention, reinforcement, and accountability. This requires ongoing leadership involvement rather than a one-time event.
Failure mode 2: Leadership alignment is quietly eroded.
Leadership alignment is typically strong in the first year. Everyone agreed on the strategy. Management attended the kickoff. The CEO sent an email to the entire company.
By the second year, the alignment often quietly dissolves. It’s not like anyone has given up on trying. It happened through a series of small choices, each of which seemed reasonable at the time.
The third quarter planning process was prolonged and the culture review was suspended. The new CHRO had a slightly different philosophy and pushed the approach in a different direction. Two of the original culture champions were promoted, with no explanation given to their replacements. Management stopped reviewing company culture goals because they weren’t tied to quarterly performance.
This is how the alignment breaks down. It wasn’t all at once, but 100 small postponements.
When working with leadership teams to transform organizational culture, the question I always ask is, “What are the mechanisms for maintaining alignment over time?” It’s not a kickoff. It’s not a withdrawal. 2nd and 3rd year structure, annual review. If you can’t answer that question specifically, you’re building on a foundation that will crack under normal institutional pressures.
Failure mode 3: The measurement system was not changed
This is something I see all the time and it drives me a little crazy. It’s an organization that invests in culture change but leaves its performance management system untouched.
You tell people that your organization values collaboration. Then measure and reward individual contributors who hit the numbers, regardless of how people are treated. You’ve said that innovation is a core value. Next, promote people who do their job well and stick to the budget.
Employees are not naive. They observe what gets rewarded and what gets punished. If there is daylight between the prescribed culture and the operational reality, they will trust the operational reality. every time.
To change actual organizational culture, measurement and reward systems need to actually reflect the values they are trying to embed. That means updating what you measure in performance reviews. It means considering not just what people offer, but how you lead them. It means being willing to have the tough conversations when high performers are actively undermining the culture they’re trying to build.
That’s a lot of work. It takes a real willingness to change a system that is already working in some way. Most organizations would like to hold another workshop.
Differences in behavior of survivors in the second year
The organizations I’ve seen consistently implement cultural change have a few things in common.
They treat culture like a business problem, not an HR program. Culture goals are on the same dashboard as revenue goals. Reviewed with the same frequency. Leaders are responsible for financial results just as they are responsible for them.
They measure cultural attitudes as well as cultural behaviors. Survey scores are useful, but they are lagging indicators, although I am a proponent of rigorous measurement. Organizations that get this right track behavior, including how leaders conduct themselves in meetings, whether their values are reflected in decision-making, and whether the behaviors that define their culture are modeled and reinforced every day. Our cultural mosaic study is built around this very distinction.
They made culture visible within their operational systems. Whether it’s performance reviews, promotion criteria, onboarding, recognition programs, etc., culture goes beyond the posters on the wall and the all-hands-on-deck slides to how the organization actually functions.
And they accept that culture change takes longer than initiatives. Instead of 3-5 months, it’s 3-5 years. Leaders who understand this don’t need to motivate themselves two years in a row. They are building the infrastructure to sustain jobs regardless of energy levels in any given quarter.
where does this leave you
If you’re in the middle of a culture change initiative and the second year is starting to feel like you’re running on sand, I’d like to ask you one question. Are you doing cultural activities or are you still implementing initiatives?
The difference is whether that change is built into the way the organization operates, or whether it still relies on dedicated programs and dedicated budgets to survive.
If it’s the latter, there’s still no problem. But you are in the danger zone. This is the moment to make the transition from initiative-driven to systems-driven. The transition is more difficult than the launch. This is also what determines whether any of them stick around.
We’ve helped organizations solve just this. If you’re hitting the wall in your second year and want to talk about what we’ve done that really works for you, we’d be happy to talk to you.
Source: gothamCulture – gothamculture.com
