Why Culture Has to Be Written Down

Step Two: Write It — Why Culture Has to Be Written Down

Most Americans can’t cook without a recipe anymore. In fact, over 90% of us rely on online recipes to get a meal right.

And that has everything to do with culture.

If you want something to last, you have to write it down.

The same is true in leadership. If your culture only lives in your head, your team will create their own version, and it won’t be the one you intended. That gap between what you imagined and what they created becomes the culture you’ll spend years trying to fix.

We assume people “get it.” Volunteers. Staff. Leaders.
But assumption is where culture goes to die.

My Aunt Joyce made the best chocolate fudge, Legendary. But she never wrote the recipe down. After she passed, we tried to recreate it. We got close… which is a nice way of saying it was terrible.

That’s culture. If it isn’t written down, it disappears.

Culture isn’t mystical. It’s a recipe. And recipes only work when they’re written.

So sit with your team and write Culture Commandments, clear, simple behaviors anyone can follow:

• Smile (a real one).

• Walk people where they need to go.

• Pick up trash when you see it.

• Never say, “That’s not my job.”

If you don’t define your culture, someone else will.

Design your culture before it designs you.

This is Step Two in The Great Church Culture Blueprint—available soon on Amazon and Buy Me a Coffee, free for a limited time.