You already know strategy matters. You’ve likely spent months—maybe years—crafting one that’s bold, clear, and built to win. But when progress stalls, the issue often isn’t the strategy itself—it’s whether the organization can move with it.
That’s where culture comes in.
The culture that once fueled your success may no longer be fit for what’s next. And even if things look fine on the surface, early signals might be telling a different story—signs your culture isn’t accelerating your strategy the way it used to.
Culture is what turns intent into impact. It’s not the values on the wall or the message at a town hall—it’s the unwritten rules that shape how people decide, collaborate, and lead. It’s how things really get done.
When those patterns align with your direction, momentum builds. When they don’t, even the best strategy struggles to stick.
You see it in:
- The stories people tell about what gets rewarded
- The choices teams make under pressure
- The habits that show up when no one’s watching
And in the everyday:
- How decisions get made
- How people collaborate
- How accountability is managed
- How change is received
If your strategy has shifted but progress still feels stuck—or strained—it’s worth asking:
Is your culture still serving your business, or is it starting to slow you down?
A case in point
Two years ago, BTS partnered with a global organization that had just launched an ambitious growth strategy. Excitement was high—but results didn’t follow.
Leaders were frustrated by a lack of speed and ownership. Employees said they didn’t feel empowered. The word that kept surfacing? Bureaucracy.
That term became a catch-all for inefficiency, but no one could quite define it. So we helped them unpack what was really going on:
- Unclear decision rights
- Too many committees for too many decisions
- Outdated knowledge-sharing systems
- Manual processes slowing everything down
We visualized the findings in a “bureaucracy tree” to connect the dots. That clarity helped leaders prioritize where to focus first. And that’s when momentum returned.
The power of pivotal moments
The breakthrough didn’t start with a bold new initiative. It started with a shift in focus—from broad ideas to specific moments.
We worked with leaders to identify the everyday situations where culture is shaped and signaled: subtle, unscripted moments that reflect what’s truly expected and rewarded.
- A decision point with no obvious answer: do we act, or wait for perfection?
- A team member hesitates: do we jump in to solve, or create space for them to step up?
When leaders could name these moments, they could begin to shape them—making small, deliberate choices that sent a different signal. These weren’t one-time actions. They were repeatable patterns, practiced consistently.
And they’re just as available to you. Start by asking: where are the moments I tend to default to safety, silence, or control? And how could I begin to respond differentlyto shift the story?
Breaking old habits and building new ones
With these pivotal moments in mind, the leadership team reflected on their own patterns. How were they showing up? What were they reinforcing?
They focused on three shifts:
- Stop reinforcing slow, complex decision-making
- Start modeling clarity, ownership, and speed
- Shift systems that quietly rewarded caution over empowerment
These weren’t abstract goals. They were grounded in real behaviors:
- How many people are involved in a decision?
- Are roles and responsibilities clear?
- Are our tools helping—or slowing us down?
By focusing on what people could see, track, and practice, change became tangible. It gave people something to act on—and believe in.
Scaling change through experimentation
The organization didn’t treat culture change as a campaign. They treated it as a learning process.
Top leaders ran small, coordinated experiments—turning abstract values into visible behaviors.
In one experiment, leaders committed to returning authority to managers who had “delegated decisions up” to them. In another, they redefined decision rights to cut through ambiguity and accelerate action.
These weren’t pilots. They were deliberate repetitions of new behaviors, designed to build muscle memory across the organization.
The results:
- Decisions moved faster
- Long-stalled initiatives were shut down
- A new product feature launched in half the usual time
- Employees reported feeling more empowered and accountable
If you’re wondering what this could look like for your organization, start here: What’s one behavior you could test out – or let go of, for a week? What’s one decision you could delegate? One moment you could coach instead of solve?
That’s how momentum builds—quietly, visibly, and fast.
Four common patterns to surface
Now that you’ve seen how small cultural habits shape (or stall) strategy, the next step is to spot where those habits are hiding in your organization. Here are four patterns we often see when momentum is missing—along with what they may be signaling.
| Element of Culture | What It Shapes | What It Might Look Like Today | Why It Might Be Time to Rethink |
| Decision making | Speed, ownership, and accountability | Teams slow down not because the path is unclear, but because they’re unsure who’s empowered to choose it. Decisions stall in ambiguity—or escalate unnecessarily. | Legacy approval structures often reflect yesterday’s risks. Today’s pace requires alignment over consensus, and trust in judgment at every level. |
| Meeting norms | Focus, decision velocity, and participation | Meetings are packed with updates, but few decisions get made. Real conversations happen in sidebars—after the meeting ends. | When meetings become status dumps, they signal that the real work happens elsewhere. Reclaiming meetings as spaces for collaboration – whether it be rigorous debates on ideas or making visible decisions, to shift how teams show up—and move with more speed. |
| Leadership modeling | Credibility and cultural integrity | Leaders talk about agility or empowerment—but in high-stakes moments, default to control, caution, or top-down decisions. | Culture isn’t shaped by slides—it’s shaped by what leaders do when it counts. If words and actions diverge, people follow the behavior. Look for examples of misalignment and challenge leaders to try out a new tact. |
| Feedback | Learning, adaptability, and momentum | Leaders see something misaligned—but let it go to avoid discomfort or protect relationships. Feedback is delayed, diluted, or disappears. | Without feedback, small misalignments calcify. Cultures that learn fast don’t wait—they normalize feedback as a lever for shared growth. |
Which one shows up most in your team? That’s your next pivotal moment.
Shining a flashlight on your invisible “monsters”
When it comes to culture, the hardest part is often what you can’t see—or don’t know how to name.
Think back to childhood. Most of us, at some point, were convinced there was a monster in the closet or under the bed. In the dark, a pile of clothes becomes something menacing. A shadow turns into something to fear.
But then the light comes on. You see clearly. The fear fades. What once felt huge and scary becomes harmless—even a little silly.
That’s what culture can feel like inside an organization. Bureaucracy. Resistance. Complexity. These forces seem big and hard to define. They slow us down and sap momentum. But more often than not, they’re just old habits and assumptions lurking in the dark.
When leaders learn to spot the subtle, pivotal moments that shape behavior, they turn the light on. What felt intangible becomes specific. What felt impossible becomes actionable.
You don’t need a total reinvention. You need clarity—a way to see what’s really happening and where to shift, simply and deliberately.
When to bring in reinforcement
Not every culture challenge needs an outside partner. But some moments call for reinforcement—especially when change needs to stick at scale.
At BTS, we help organizations turn invisible cultural friction into visible forward motion. Whether you’re shaping a new strategy, integrating after a merger, or building a leadership culture that unlocks ownership—we help leaders shift from insight to impact.
Here are a few signs it might be time to partner:
- You’ve named the strategy—but execution keeps stalling.
- You see the issues—but can’t align on how to shift behaviors.
- Leaders are bought in intellectually, but behavior hasn’t changed.
- Teams say the right things—but culture feels stuck in old habits.
If you’re facing one of these moments, it’s not a failure—it’s a signal. The good news? You don’t have to tackle it alone.
Let’s talk about what it would take to move from insight to sustained culture change.
