You don’t need a motivational poster or a company values statement to know what your culture really is.
Your culture is the lowest standard you’re willing to tolerate. Your culture is whatever behavior your best or worst-performing team member gets away with.
If you’re not sure what that looks like, just ask yourself:
- Who shows up to one-on-ones without updating their pipeline?
- Who avoids asking hard budget questions because they’re “building relationships”?
- Who sends the “Just checking in…” email after being ghosted for weeks?
- Who consistently misses quota and still collects a full paycheck?
Those people are setting the tone for your whole organization.
The Silent Drift of Culture Decay
I talk to leaders all the time who tell me, “Our culture’s fine.” But when we look at their behavior, it’s clear that they have cultural drift.
Not toxic. Just… soft. A team full of good people making comfortable excuses. Leaders look the other way because they fear fighting battles they think they’ll lose.
Here’s what cultural drift looks like:
- Forecasts that are padded with hope, not facts
- Meetings that have turned into group therapy or firefighting instead of strategy sessions
- Leaders telling reps what to do or rescuing them, instead of holding them accountable for figuring it out themselves
- A growing middle tier of reps who survive by being invisible—not great, but not bad enough to be noticed
Left unchecked, this type of culture pulls everyone down. Not overnight, but month after month, quarter after quarter. And suddenly, mediocrity feels normal.
High-Performance Cultures Don’t Happen by Accident
You can’t “nice” your way to a high-performance team.
You don’t fix culture by planning a happy hour or adding new SPIFFs.
You fix it by raising the floor for underperforming reps and by raising the bar for your top performers. You do that by being clear, direct, and non-negotiable about the behaviors you expect and what happens when they don’t happen.
That’s what leaders get wrong. They aim for ceilings, big deals, and top performer spotlights, while ignoring the foundation cracking underneath them.
How to Raise the Floor, Starting This Week
1. Get Honest About What You’re Tolerating
Audit your pipeline. Audit your one-on-ones. Who is dragging down the standard, even if it’s subtle? Where have you let things slide?
2. Make Accountability Public
Reset your team's expectations out loud, not quietly in a review document no one reads. Be clear about the minimum acceptable performance and what coaching will focus on moving forward.
3. Stop Covering for People Who Don’t Care Enough to Prepare
If a rep shows up unprepared, cancel the meeting. If someone can’t tell you the next steps, end the meeting and tell them to use the time to finish their pre-call plans. The leader who accepts chaos teaches the team that chaos is acceptable.
4. Coach the Middle or Lose Them
Your B-players make up a much larger portion of your team than your A-players or C-players. Don’t let them coast. Give them a clear choice to be successful here or somewhere else.
If You Don’t Build the Culture, It Builds Itself
Culture isn’t what you write on the walls. It’s what you allow in the halls.
If you’re tired of chasing accountability, writing off the middle 60%, or pretending your pipeline is healthier than it really is, fix the culture.
Raise your expectations. Enforce them. Stay consistent.
That’s the work. And it’s the difference between a team that wins sometimes and a team that wins on purpose.
Need a conversation starter?
In your next leadership meeting, ask:
“What’s one behavior on this team we’ve allowed for too long, and what needs to change starting now?”
If you want help making that stick, let’s talk.
