• Agile Transformation

Why aren’t we doing anything about the culture?

Culture within an organization is a strange thing. Everyone has a feeling about it, but hardly anyone can pinpoint it properly. Or put it into words. Let alone consciously influence it. Yet culture determines every day how people work together, how decisions are made and how change is implemented. High time, just at the beginning of this new year, to pay attention to it in a series of articles.

You notice it as soon as you walk in. In the atmosphere of a consultation. In how sharp or cautious people are. Whether there is room to try something or not. The culture. And think back to that time you went from one team to another: you felt it was different, you felt yourself different. And yes, often unconsciously, you then behave differently. But how does that come about? Along what lines can you view and influence that?

In the first series of articles of 2026, I want to take the culture within your organization or team very seriously. Not to judge that culture as right or wrong, but to make it visible and discussable.

Why this series on culture in your organization?

In my work, I see many teams and organizations that want to change: become more agile, collaborate better, learn more. But then the really impactful change often lingers on behavior: “people in the end don’t do what we agreed.”

In my experience, that is rarely the cause of the problem. It lies deeper: in the underlying cultural patterns that make certain behaviors logical and other behaviors difficult.

Competing Values Framework in practice

The way I look at culture in this series is strongly inspired by the work of Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron. After all, they have been showing with the Competing Values Framework for decades that culture is always about fields of tension. I myself have been working with this thinking for over 25 years. This series of articles is my translation of it to daily practice.

In this series, I therefore use the four recurring culture values from this framework: innovate & discover, perform & win, manage & secure, and collaborate & connect. Don’t think of these as stand-alone culture values, but as areas of tension that are present in every organization to varying degrees. This tension is not a problem that you should want to solve; in Agile working, you actually want to learn to deal with it without absolutizing one side.

The six culture questions we explore together

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing much of my real-world knowledge with you. I will do this by addressing 6 very important questions about culture. Of course, I will share answers to those questions. But perhaps it will be much more valuable if you ask yourself (and your team) these 6 questions.

1. How does it actually feel here?
2. How is leadership provided here?
3. How do people work together here?
4. What keeps us together here?
5. What are we actually betting on here?
6. When do we think we are doing well here?

So with each question, we explore the four possible culture values: innovate & discover, perform & win, manage & secure, collaborate & connect. Not to choose which is better, but to explore what is dominant and what that means for the other three.

What to expect from this series

• No quick conclusions
• No right/wrong thinking
• Well recognition, reflection and sharp questions

My invitation is simple: read these articles not as theory, but as a mirror. For yourself. For your team. For your organization. We’ll start at the beginning with the following blog on the question: how does it actually feel here?