🌡 The Culture Gap Model

Culture health is the gap between three layers: What is Said (espoused values), What is Done (enacted behaviours), and What is Measured (reinforced outcomes). The size of each gap predicts a specific culture risk.

The three layers

• Layer 1 — What is Said: Values on the walls, in handbooks, in CEO speeches. Cheap to produce, easily forgotten.
• Layer 2 — What is Done: Actual behaviours in meetings, in decisions, in who gets promoted and who gets managed out. Employees watch this layer constantly.
• Layer 3 — What is Measured: What gets rewarded, tolerated, or punished. The most powerful layer — it overrides everything else.

The gap diagnostic

• Said ≠ Done → Cynicism. “Leadership talks one way, acts another.”
• Done ≠ Measured → Fragility. “Good behaviours only last while someone is watching.”
• Measured contradicts Said → Trust crisis. “The incentives tell the real story.”

How to apply it

1. Take your top three stated values. For each, write down the specific behaviour that lives them — and the specific metric that reinforces them.
2. Where any of the three is missing, that is the fault line. Prioritise closing the widest gap first.
3. Re-diagnose every 12 months. Culture is a moving target — the layers drift apart faster than most CHROs believe.