Overcoming a workplace culture stalemate

Every organisation reaches a point where the culture feels stuck – progress slows, the same issues resurface and people start to lose momentum. It’s rarely for lack of effort; it’s more often a sign of misalignment.

Kat highlights the symptoms that might indicate a culture issue, and the cyclical spiral teams often fall into. But it’s not all bad news. She also provides a pathway to breaking the cycle and ending the stalemate by asking the right questions, finding clarity and setting a culture of accountability.‍

‍Question 1: What defines ‘workplace culture’?‍

From my perspective, it's the day-to-day things that we do consistently.

You understand it best by observing… how do we make decisions? What are we actually prioritising in those decisions? How do people behave? How do they show up day-to-day? How do they behave under pressure when there's a really big problem to solve and lots of different perspectives around how to do it? How does that dynamic in the team play out? We look to understand a team's culture through a range of lenses. 

‍“It’s the day-to-day things that we do consistently.”

Question 2: What does a culture stalemate tend to look like?

I think of it as a gap – one that grows between where the business wants to go strategically, and how individuals and teams are operating day-to-day to get there. This gap widens when organisations don’t translate strategy into the enabling systems, expectations and behaviours that teams need to move in the same direction.

Growth brings complexity. As new leaders and teams are added, the strategy might be clear but the path to achieve it rarely is. Without the foundations of shared alignment – clarity on priorities, decision rights, ways of working and feedback loops – typically bottlenecks, frustration and stalled momentum begin to surface.

Question 3: What are the symptoms of cultural stalemate? 

It’s often not articulated as a culture problem. Leaders don’t come to us to say “we have a problem with our culture”. There are other ways it shows up in the organisation. 

Your projects stall. Delivery stalls. Teams miss milestones. People are so focused on trying to figure out where they’re going or trying to get alignment internally, at the expense of actually getting things done.

Decisions start to loop. They’re revisited multiple times or escalated unnecessarily because no one’s clear who owns them. Priorities begin to compete across teams, and effort feels busy rather than focused. Leaders interpret success differently, sending mixed messages about what’s valued. These small disconnects compound over time, creating tension and frustration across the business.

The same signals start to appear elsewhere too. Engagement surveys echoing the same themes quarter after quarter, feedback loops that feel repetitive and initiatives that don’t move the dial. Over time, trust begins to erode.

When you start to see the same things happening over and over again, and the goal posts or deadlines keep shifting, it all gets a bit cyclical. Apathy builds as people stop believing that anything's going to change, and inconsistencies increase across the business.

And so you get indicators that a cultural stalemate is occurring, but people rarely apply the culture lens to it. Because sometimes it's hard to see the bigger picture when you’re stuck in the weeds.

“Making the implicit explicit creates accountability.”

‍Question 4: How do you close the culture gap and overcome a stalemate? 

It comes back to how we actually frame culture. It's reflected in the decisions we make, what we prioritise, how we measure success, and what we hold each other accountable for. Culture is the pattern of what we consistently do and allow. 

Then, making the implicit explicit. For example: the set of behaviours we expect from everyone, are they clear? Have we translated them into what that looks like day-to-day? Do we recognise and reward those behaviours in practice? And are leaders modelling those same signals back to the organisation? 

When these things are explicit and consistent, accountability follows. Culture becomes embedded in the way work happens, not as a set of values on a page but as visible, repeatable behaviours that shape how decisions are made and how people show up every day.

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We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Want to hear more from the WRC team? Head to our Articles page where the crew will soon be covering topics such as: The leadership expectations gap and preparing for an M&A marathon.

‍Need a people and culture partner who gets it? Reach out to start a conversation of your own around how WRC can support your team with an upcoming project or ongoing support.