Corporate Culture Questions to Get Aligned: The Top 4

Culture Defined and the Corporate Culture Questions to Get Aligned
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines culture as “the way of life” of a particular group of people at a specific point in time, encompassing their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs — in essence, their shared customs. In the corporate context, workplace culture reflects the lived experience of employees: how decisions are made, how individuals are recognized and valued, and which behaviors and achievements are encouraged, rewarded, or overlooked. It shapes not just what people do, but how they feel while doing it.

Why Organizational Culture Matters
A recent Harvard Business School research report found that an effective culture can account for up to half of the differential in performance between organizations in the same business.  We have assessed organizational culture for decades, and our organizational alignment research found that organizational culture accounts for 40% of the difference between high and low performing companies in terms of:

• Revenue growth
• Profitability
• Customer loyalty
• Leadership effectiveness
• Employee engagement

There is no doubt that organizational culture matters to the people AND the business.

Key Corporate Culture Questions to Get Aligned
When it comes to shaping an organizational culture to best execute your people and business strategies, begin with these four fundamental corporate culture questions to get aligned:

1. What’s Our Fundamental Identity?
   An organization’s fundamental identity answers questions like: Who are we? Why are we here? What’s our fundamental purpose as an organization?  An organization’s fundamental identity can be easily felt by employees and easily seen by customers.
   
   Can everyone clearly articulate the organization’s fundamental identity?
   
   
2. What Central Beliefs Guide Our Decisions?
   Alongside a company’s vision and mission, corporate values are a critical driver of strategic direction and organizational expectations. When clearly defined and aligned, core values guide how top talent is hired, promoted, developed, managed, engaged, and retained. When poorly defined or misaligned, they lose meaning — and can even undermine progress.
   
   A company’s values matter most in moments of uncertainty or challenge, when the right course of action isn’t obvious.
   
   Ask yourself: do your values truly steer behavior? Do they define the mindsets leaders model and the behaviors your people are expected to emulate?
   
   
3. Do We Have Enough Organizational Health to Achieve Our Goals?
   Just as personal well-being enables peak performance, organizational health provides the foundation for sustainable high performance. McKinsey research shows that companies in the top quartile of organizational health generate nearly three times the shareholder value of their peers — often with measurable gains in as little as six months.
   
   Organizational health can be assessed through psychological safety within teams, trust in leadership, internal capabilities, and overall organizational climate. Without sufficient health, even the most talented individuals and teams struggle to navigate change or elevate performance.
   
   The question is this: do you have the organizational health required to reach your goals in a way that is sustainable and effective?
   
   
4. Does Everyone Understand How The Company Is Run?
   Leaders often underestimate how critical business context is for guiding how people think, act, and collaborate. For employees to make sound decisions, they need a clear understanding of how the company generates value, why it is structured the way it is, and how their unique role contributes to the bigger picture.
   
   The key question: do your people have the business acumen and organizational insight to ensure that the way work gets done supports — rather than undermines — your strategic priorities?
   
   

The Bottom Line
Leaders understand that a company’s strategy — the WHAT — drives performance. High-performing leaders recognize, however, that how that strategy is executed — the HOW, or corporate culture — often has an even greater influence. McKinsey research confirms this: companies that intentionally focus on both the WHAT and the HOW outperform their peers by a factor of three.

To learn more about if your culture is aligned with your strategy, download How to Purposefully Align Your Organizational Culture – Your DNA for Success