Organizational Memory
Culture card, MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
Card 12 of 66 · MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
  • ThemePeople & Culture
  • CardCard 12 of 66
  • Questions5 to explore
People & Culture

Culture

Company culture, people & traditions

Culture is the sum of how people actually behave when no one is watching, and it is one of the hardest things to hand over.

Every organization has a culture whether it has named it or not. It shows up in how decisions get made, how disagreements are handled, which behaviors get rewarded, and what nobody talks about openly. Most of it is never written down.

Capturing culture is not about writing a values poster. It is about describing the patterns that new people need to recognize, the unwritten rules that shape daily life, and the traditions that make the place feel like itself. When that is documented, a new hire can orient faster and a departing colleague leaves something behind.

Start with the specific and observable: what does a good day look like here, what gets celebrated, what is considered bad form. The concrete details carry more information than any abstract statement about values.

What to capture

For this part of the company brain, what is worth writing down and keeping current. The goal is not a complete archive but a living record that new people can read and returning people can trust.

Unwritten norms

The behaviors that are expected but never formally stated, because losing them is how culture quietly erodes when people leave.

Rituals & traditions

Recurring practices that give the team a sense of shared identity, from weekly standups to how you mark someone's last day.

How conflict is handled

Whether disagreement is aired directly or avoided, and how that shapes what actually gets decided, since new people need to understand this early.

What success looks like

The informal signals that tell people they are doing well, not just the formal review criteria, because that gap is where confusion about fit tends to grow.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. What do people here do that you would never find written in a policy?

  2. How would you describe the culture to a friend who is deciding whether to join?

  3. What behavior, if you stopped doing it, would feel like a betrayal of the place?

  4. What does the organization celebrate and how?

  5. What is considered bad form here, even if it is not against any rule?

Things to notice

  • Culture documents can turn into aspirational fiction: write what is true now, not what you wish were true.
  • The informal culture and the stated culture often differ; capturing only the stated version gives new hires a false map.
  • Culture shifts when teams grow or leaders change, so treat this as a living document that needs revisiting, not a one-time capture.