Entirely too often, founders and HR folk get pulled into situations that need not be handled by them, and often, in looking elsewhere, miss out on looking at other essential things that did need their attention.
Leaders I work with ask a version of the question, usually sideways, over a second cup of chai: is this really mine to fix? The attrition, the silent all-hands, the manager who keeps hoarding work, the quarterly “culture score” laced with scepticism.
If culture is the sum of what an organisation rewards, tolerates and quietly punishes, the honest answer is that most of it is your circus. But not every monkey is native to your ecosystem. Some are your monkeys, some are only signals telling you the circus is on fire. And some are the outcomes that turn up months later, wearing a different costume.
Mistaking one for the other is where good leaders burn out. They chase attrition with retention bonuses and treat a quiet room as a scheduling problem, when the monkey was three floors down all along.
So here’s a checklist:
Tick if it’s true in your organisation on an average Thursday .
Cross if it isn’t. Crosses aren’t failures. They’re a map. The last column tells you whose monkey it likely is, because culture is never a one-person job.
Part 1: What shapes culture (influences)
Direct influences are the levers you can pull on purpose. Indirect ones seep in through behaviour, and they’re often louder than anything written down.
| Type | Statement | Whose monkey? | ✓ | ✗ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | Promotions, bonuses and praise go to the behaviours we say we value, not only to results | Founders / C-suite | ||
| Direct | People know the boundaries of failure: what’s a learning, what’s a legal line, what’s a closed-room conversation | People team + Managers | ||
| Direct | We hire for how someone handles disagreement and ambiguity, not just for skill | Hiring managers | ||
| Direct | Policies (leave, flexibility, grievance) are written in plain language and used without penalty | People team | ||
| Direct | Onboarding shows new joiners how decisions actually get made here | People team | ||
| Indirect | Leaders admit mistakes out loud | Founders / C-suite | ||
| Indirect | When bad news arrives, the messenger is not sidelined | Managers | ||
| Indirect | Investor and market pressure is translated for teams, not dumped on them raw | C-suite | ||
| Indirect | The stories told in corridors about “who got ahead” match the values on the wall | Everyone | ||
| Indirect | Voice isn’t gated by seniority or tenure; a new joiner’s idea gets the same hearing | C-suite + Managers |
Part 2: What culture looks like from the inside (indicators)
Direct indicators are visible if you’re paying attention. Indirect ones live in the margins: the hallway, the coffee chats, the joke that lands a little too sharp.
| Type | Statement | Whose monkey? | ✓ | ✗ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | People disagree in the meeting, not only after it | Managers | ||
| Direct | Bad news reaches leadership early, while it’s still small | Everyone | ||
| Direct | Feedback travels up as easily as down | Founders / C-suite | ||
| Direct | Hand-offs happen without chasing, like a well-orchestrated dance | Managers | ||
| Indirect | There’s no “meeting after the meeting” where the real talk happens | Managers | ||
| Indirect | Questions in all-hands don’t dry up after the first uncomfortable one | Founders / C-suite | ||
| Indirect | People take leave without guilt, and without a laptop in the bag | Managers + Everyone | ||
| Indirect | The heroics don’t fall on the same three people every quarter | Managers | ||
| Indirect | Humour in the team is warm, not barbed | Everyone |
Part 3: What culture leaves behind (outcomes)
Direct outcomes show up in your people. Indirect ones show up in the business, and they lag. That’s exactly why they’re so tempting to chase and so hard to fix head-on.
| Type | Statement | Whose monkey? | ✓ | ✗ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | People stay for reasons beyond salary; regretted attrition is low | Founders / People team | ||
| Direct | Conflicts get resolved at the level they start, without escalating to the founder | Managers | ||
| Direct | People grow into bigger roles here rather than out of the company | C-suite + Managers | ||
| Direct | Most people would say they’re thriving, not just surviving | Everyone | ||
| Indirect | Customers experience roughly what employees experience | C-suite | ||
| Indirect | Referrals come easily, and ex-employees speak well of us | People team | ||
| Indirect | Teams handle compressed timelines and shifting priorities without breaking | Managers + C-suite | ||
| Indirect | The business scales without the founder needing to be in every room | Founders |
How to read your ticks and crosses
Don’t add it up into a score. A score turns this into a report card, and that defeats the purpose. Look at where the crosses cluster.
Crosses in Part 1? This is your clearest circus. These are design gaps, the things you rewarded, tolerated or forgot to say. They’re the most fixable and the most yours.
Crosses in Part 2? These are early warnings. Nothing has broken yet, but the culture is telling you something. Listen while it’s a whisper.
Crosses in Part 3? Resist the urge to fix these directly. You can’t bonus your way out of attrition or announce your way into ownership. Outcomes are lagging weather reports. Walk backwards to Parts 1 and 2 and find the monkey that’s actually causing them.
And what’s genuinely not your circus?
Some things aren’t. The market’s volatility, the state of the world, the baggage a person walks in with on a Monday morning. You can’t control any of it.
But how your organisation responds to those things, whether it absorbs, shares or amplifies them, is squarely in your ring. Do you plan mass layoffs on email or inform each individual personally, and have an offboarding plan designed on the rails of respect? That’s the line I keep drawing with leaders: not “Is this my problem?” but “Which part of this is mine to shape?”
Start with one line item. Find whose monkey it is, and start the conversation. With kindness and on time.
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