What if Defining Culture Was Less About Lists and More About Choices?
Ever sat through a discussion on company culture that felt like running in circles? Everyone tossing out words like innovation, collaboration, respect—but nothing really sticks in a way that shapes decisions? Most of us have.
And it makes me wonder—how do we actually define culture in a way that’s meaningful and useful? How do we create clarity without just listing generic values that could apply anywhere?
The Power of Even/Over Statements
Lately, I came across the concept of Even/Over statements, as explained by Gustavo Razzetti in Remote, Not Distant. The idea is simple but thought-provoking: instead of listing values in isolation, what if we framed them as trade-offs? For example -
Quality even over speed
Results even over consensus
Long-term impact even over short-term wins
It’s an interesting shift. Instead of trying to be everything at once, we’re forced to get clear on what actually matters when push comes to shove. Because let’s be honest—when everything is a priority, nothing is.
Culture is Contextual: The Global Leadership Challenge
But here’s where it gets complicated. What seems like a clear trade-off in one setting might feel completely different somewhere else.
Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map provides a brilliant introduction to the reality of some of the spectrums of values and behavioural norms operating across cultures. For instance, decision-making norms are central to every company culture, but can play out very differently across different global cultures.
Meyer points out that while Americans often see German businesses as hierarchical because of formal structures and titles, Germans see American businesses as hierarchical because decision-making power is concentrated in individuals rather than built through consensus.
That raises a crucial question – how do we navigate these tensions when leading in a global context? Could we define our Even/Over statements in a way that respects different cultural norms while still providing clarity? How can we better understand what values like ‘consultation’ or ‘respect’ actually look like in practice across different cultures?
Maybe in some global teams, it’s clarity even over consensus, while in others, it’s collaboration even over efficiency. It seems like a challenge worth wrestling with.
Priority, Not Priorities
Greg McKeown’s Essentialism is also relevant to this topic. He reminds us that the word priority was singular for 500 years. Then, at some point, we pluralised it—as if we could have multiple “first” things. But reality doesn’t work that way.
GitLab’s CEO Sid Sijbrandij has been deliberate not just about clarifying and codifying their values, but also framing them in a hierarchy. ‘Results’ is at the top, above the other five values. Their Even/Over values then becomes clear – in any situation where a trade-off has to be made, team members know to prioritise results even over other good things like collaboration.
So, what if our Even/Over statements helped us reclaim the idea of a singular priority? What if they forced us to cut through the noise and answer: When a trade-off is necessary, what truly comes first?
Separating Core from Generic: What Makes Us Us?
Patrick Lencioni, in The Advantage, talks about how most company values are just Permission-to-Play values—things so generic they don’t actually differentiate us. If our values could just as easily belong to any other organisation, are they really core values at all?
That’s a question worth sitting with. Lencioni suggests one approach to get to the heart of real culture:
Identify the employees who best represent what’s great about your organisation.
Observe what makes them stand out.
Turn those qualities into your actual core values.
If we turn back then to Razzetti, those values then give you the ingredients to further clarify with Even/Over statements.
Wrestling with It Together
I don’t have all the answers here, but I do think this is a shift worth exploring. Culture isn’t built on feel-good words on a wall—it’s shaped by the decisions we make when trade-offs are required.
What if the strength of an organisation wasn’t just in the values it lists, but in how clearly it navigates the moments when those values comes into conflict?