Recognise Cultural Debt Before It Costs You Your Best People
A quick pulse check on whether unresolved conflicts and embedded shortcuts are hardening into norms that are costing you talent and velocity.
Overview
Your best engineer resigns with "it's a culture fit issue." Three months earlier, your head of marketing left for something undefined. Exit interviews mention "the culture" without specifics. That vagueness should worry you.
These aren't isolated departures. They're symptoms of cultural debt - the accumulation of unresolved conflicts, embedded shortcuts, and early-stage norms that harden as an organisation scales. Like any debt, it doesn't disappear when you ignore it. It compounds.
The Cultural Debt Diagnostic is a 5-minute self-assessment designed to help you recognise whether cultural debt is accumulating in your organisation - and where it's most visible.
What You'll Get
A 12-question assessment
Rate your honest agreement on a scale of 1 to 5 across five key areas:
- How decisions actually get made
- What people say about work (inside and outside the office)
- How and why strong performers leave
- How problems get surfaced (or don't)
- What unwritten rules you're operating by
You'll score into one of four categories - Low Risk, Emerging Patterns, Significant Debt, or Heavy Debt - with tailored guidance for each.
How to Use it
Quick Pulse Check (5 minutes)
Complete it individually and get an immediate sense of whether cultural debt is accumulating. No analysis paralysis, no lengthy process. Just honest assessment.
As a Leadership Conversation
Have your leadership team complete it separately (without talking to each other first). Compare scores. The gaps between what leaders see and what's actually happening are often the most revealing data you'll get.
As a Baseline for Change
If you're addressing cultural issues, use this as your starting point. Come back to it quarterly or biannually to see whether your interventions are actually shifting the patterns.
Who is This For?
Founders and heads of small teams (1–50 people) who are noticing talent departures and wondering if there's a pattern
Leaders scaling from startup operating model to something more structured
Anyone who suspects decisions are looping, certain topics are untouchable, or people are speaking differently inside and outside the office
Next Steps
Take the diagnostic now. It'll take 5 minutes and you'll have a clear picture of where your cultural debt is most visible.
Then read Cultural Debt, which explains how cultural debt forms, why it persists, and five concrete tools for addressing it, including what to expect when you start (including which people may leave, and why culture change runs at human speed).
FAQs
Is this diagnostic a judgment?
What if my score is low?
What if my score is high?
Should everyone complete it, or just leadership?
What do I do with the results?
Related
Primer
Read the full article to understand the patterns and what to do about them: Cultural Debt
Explore the broader organisational debt framework: Organisational Debt Diagnostic
Explore what’s getting in the way
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