Two years ago, I visited the office of a tech firm in Nairobi. Bright lights. Good coffee. A room labelled “Innovation Hub” is filled with beanbags and sticky notes. The CEO told me, “Our culture is amazing. People are free to speak. We even have pizza Fridays.” I smiled. Then I asked the janitor how long the company delays salary payment without any explanation. He said three weeks and sometimes more.
That’s the culture.
You see, culture is not the playlist at your staff party. It is those who do the dirty work without applause. It is whether people can say the truth without being punished. It’s whether leaders show up to staff funerals, not just AGMs.
You want a strong culture? Stop funding vibes and start enforcing standards. Because culture isn’t what excites you. It is what you tolerate when you’re tired.
Take it from me: If your team smiles in meetings and mocks leadership on WhatsApp, that’s your real culture. If people clap at your vision but dodge responsibility, that’s your culture. If your best staff are always “burnt out” and your worst ones are “always available,” your culture is broken.
I don’t care about your mission statement. Show me who gets promoted. Who gets blamed? Who gets protected? That is your culture. Not what you write. What you allow.
And yes, this applies in Kampala, Nairobi, and Kigali. You’re not building a startup. You’re building a jungle. The loudest animals will dominate if the leader doesn’t enforce the rules.
If what you tolerate is killing your team’s fire, it is time to stop talking and start acting. At Summit Consulting, we do not give you generic workshops with colourful slides and buzzwords. We enter your trenches. We observe. We investigate. We diagnose. Then we rebuild with you.
From culture audits, executive team re-alignment, DISC personality reviews, to custom culture dashboards that show you exactly where the rot is we deliver truth, not theatre. Because culture is not what you say. It’s what your people survive.
Let Summit Consulting help you turn your culture from a slogan into a system.
Ready to fix it? Visit www.summitcl.com to start your culture reset.
Stop managing symptoms. Start curing the cause.
