Culture Is What You Do When Nobody Is Watching: Building a High-Performance Culture

Culture is not crafted in glossy boardroom strategies or laminated value statements. It is forged in the unseen, those moments when no one is watching. It shows up in how mistakes are handled, how credit is shared, and how people behave when the pressure is off and the spotlight isn’t on them.

As the saying goes: “Culture is how people behave when nobody is watching.” It is not what leaders declare in town halls, but the hidden norms and unspoken rules that govern daily life inside an organisation. Culture lives in the everyday behaviours and decisions that often go unnoticed, yet ultimately define performance.

Herb Kelleher, the maverick founder of Southwest Airlines, captured it perfectly: values plus behaviour. You can have the most stirring mission statement in the world, but unless those words translate into daily conduct, they remain meaningless.

Research consistently shows that culture is the difference between transformation that sticks and transformation that fades. McKinsey has found that only one in four large-scale change efforts succeed long term, and the differentiator is not strategy but organisational health, how culture underpins performance.

When leaders invest in culture, the results are striking. Companies with high-performance cultures deliver three times the revenue and twelve times the value compared to peers. Bain & Company found that organisations combining performance, inspiration and inclusion achieve five times higher shareholder returns, ten times revenue growth, and five times earnings growth.

The message is clear, culture is not a side issue or a soft concept. It is the performance engine. So, how do organisations deliberately shape a culture where high performance is the norm rather than the exception? The building blocks are clear:

1. Define the behaviours that matter.
High-performing cultures start with clarity. Leaders must articulate the specific behaviours that drive success, what good looks like, so people share a common standard. This goes deeper than rules; it requires reshaping the mindsets and assumptions that guide behaviour in the first place.

2. Leaders must role-model relentlessly.
Culture is signalled by what leaders reward, ignore, and tolerate. People watch leaders far more than they listen to them. High-performance leaders understand this, acting as “constant gardeners”, weeding out toxic behaviours, reinforcing positive ones, and nurturing the right conditions for culture to thrive.

3. Grow from small proof points.
Cultural change rarely succeeds through top-down decrees. It takes hold when small experiments work, when one team lives the values and produces visible results. These wins spark belief, generate stories, and create momentum that spreads organically.

4. Anchor culture at the heart of strategy.
Culture is not a perk or a “nice-to-have.” It is the foundation. Companies that neglect culture suffer talent drain, stalled innovation, and eroded trust. Those that prioritise it embed resilience, agility, and long-term performance.

If there is one non-negotiable in a high-performance culture, it is psychological safety. People must feel able to challenge, experiment, and even fail, without fear of punishment. When employees know they can speak up, admit mistakes, and learn openly, performance accelerates. When they don’t, creativity is stifled, risks go unspoken, and energy dissipates into self-protection.

Every system, every process, every leadership signal should reinforce this norm.

Where can you start? Culture change can feel daunting, but leaders can start small and act immediately. Five practical steps stand out:

• Name the behaviours that matter most. Keep them simple, visible, and consistent.

• Audit leadership signals. Ask: what are managers actually rewarding, ignoring, or discouraging? Align actions with stated values.

• Pilot cultural experiments. Test in one team or process. Celebrate and amplify the wins.

• Tell the stories. Culture spreads through narrative; highlight real examples of values in action.

• Protect psychological safety. Encourage open voices, treat mistakes as learning, and reward curiosity.

Culture is not what you say. It is what you do, especially when nobody is watching. High-performance cultures grow out of the quiet consistency of daily choices, scaled by leadership, and anchored in values that endure.

The organisations that master this truth don’t just deliver better results. They build resilience, loyalty, and a legacy that outlasts any strategy cycle.