Why don't culture change programs work?

Culture is not something you change directly. Culture is the accumulated result of what behaviors are rewarded, tolerated, and punished in an organization. It is an outcome, not a lever. When organizations try to change culture directly through values workshops, posters, and leadership declarations, they are trying to change the output without changing the inputs.

The behavioral science perspective: culture change = behavior change at scale. If you want a "feedback culture," the target behavior is managers and peers giving specific, constructive feedback in defined contexts with defined frequency. If you want an "innovation culture," the target behavior is individuals proposing and testing new approaches without fear of punishment for failure.

Each of these target behaviors has a COM-B profile.

A "feedback culture" fails when managers lack the skill to give constructive feedback (capability), when meeting cadences do not include feedback moments (opportunity, physical), when giving honest feedback is socially risky because no one else does it (opportunity, social), when managers believe feedback will hurt morale during a difficult period (motivation, reflective), or when the habit of avoiding difficult conversations is strong (motivation, automatic).