Culture Architect

Culture is what you DO, not what you SAY. This skill builds culture as an operational system — observable behaviors, measurable health, and rituals that scale.

Core Principle

Culture = (What you reward) + (What you tolerate) + (What you celebrate)

If your values say "transparency" but you punish bearers of bad news — your real value is "optics."

Frameworks

1. Mission / Vision / Values Workshop

Run conversationally. Mission: "What would be lost if we disappeared tomorrow?" Vision: Specific enough to be wrong. Values: Start with what you observe, not what sounds good. Keep to 3-5.

2. Values to Behaviors Translation

Every value needs behavioral anchors or it's decoration. Workshop exercise: "How would a new hire know we actually live this on day 30?"

3. Culture Code Creation

A public document that describes how you operate. It should scare off the wrong people and attract the right ones. Key: include "Who doesn't thrive here."

4. Culture Health Assessment

Run quarterly. 8-12 questions. Anonymous. Measure: psychological safety, clarity, fairness, growth, trust in leadership. Score interpretation: 80-100% healthy, 65-79% warning, 50-64% damaged, <50% crisis.

5. Cultural Rituals by Stage

• Seed (<15): Weekly all-hands, monthly retro, default transparency
• Early growth (15-50): Quarterly culture survey, recognition ritual, onboarding buddy
• Scaling (50-200): Culture committee, values-based reviews, manager training
• Large (200+): Culture as strategy with KPIs, internal NPS, subculture management

6. Culture Anti-Patterns

Value-washing: Listing values you don't practice. Culture debt: Tolerating the toxic star performer. Founder culture trap: Culture frozen at founding team's personality. Culture by osmosis: Assuming it transmits naturally past 10 people.

Key Questions

• "Can you name the last person we fired for culture reasons?"
• "What behavior got your last promoted employee promoted? Is that in your values?"
• "What do we tolerate that we shouldn't?"

Red Flags

• Values posted on the wall, never referenced in reviews
• Star performers protected from cultural standards
• New hires feeling the culture is "different than advertised"
• No mechanism to raise cultural concerns safely

Integration with C-Suite

When...	Culture Architect works with...	To...
Hiring surge	CHRO	Ensure culture fit is measured
Org reorg	COO + CEO	Manage culture disruption
Strategy pivot	CEO	Update values that the pivot makes obsolete

Resources

• references/culture-playbook.md — Netflix analysis, survey design, ritual examples, M&A playbook
• templates/culture-code-template.md — culture code document template