Culture Is the Operating System Behind How an Organization Actually Works
Every organization has a culture, whether it has been intentionally shaped or not.
Culture is revealed not only in stated values, but in the assumptions, behaviors, relationships, decisions, and unwritten rules that become normalized over time. It influences how people respond to pressure, how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, what gets rewarded or tolerated, and what people learn they must do to succeed within the organization.
This distinction between declared culture and lived culture is essential.
An organization may communicate collaboration while rewarding individual competition. It may value innovation while making failure unsafe. It may advocate accountability while tolerating behaviors that contradict it.
Understanding these gaps requires more than an employee survey or a conversation about values. It requires examining the deeper patterns shaping organizational behavior.
Cristianeâs approach combines organizational culture theory with structured diagnostic methods, drawing particularly on the work of Edgar Schein, Richard Barrett, and Frederic Laloux, alongside established research in organizational behavior, leadership, and group dynamics.
Scheinâs work helps us understand culture beyond visible behaviors and stated values, exploring the underlying assumptions that become embedded in the way an organization operates.
Barrett provides a structured, values-based methodology for examining alignment between personal values, current organizational culture, and the culture people believe is needed for the future.
Laloux adds an evolutionary perspective, inviting leaders to consider how organizational structures, decision-making, autonomy, purpose, and ways of working may need to evolve as the organization itself develops.
Together, these perspectives allow culture to be examined not as an isolated HR initiative, but as an organizational system connected to leadership, strategy, relationships, decision-making, and performance.
When the Barrett Values Centre methodology is used, participants identify their personal values, current culture values, and desired culture values. The resulting data provides a structured view of cultural alignment and potentially limiting values and behaviors, including the methodologyâs measure of cultural entropy.
The data is not treated as a verdict.
It becomes the starting point for deeper organizational inquiry: What patterns are we seeing? What may be sustaining them? What leadership behaviors reinforce them? What needs to be preserved? What needs to change? And what culture will better support the organizationâs future?
The purpose of the diagnostic is therefore not simply to measure culture.
It is to make culture discussable, understandable, and actionable.
Right for You IfâŠ
- Your leaders sense cultural misalignment but struggle to identify what is driving it
- There is a visible gap between stated values and everyday organizational behavior
- Your organization is experiencing growth, restructuring, integration, or significant change
- Leadership behaviors are creating unintended cultural consequences
- Internal conflict, silos, or communication patterns are affecting collaboration and decision-making
- Your organization wants to revisit its values and ensure they are reflected in actual behaviors and management practices
- Your leadership team wants to understand what aspects of the current culture should be preserved, evolved, or intentionally changed
- The organization is preparing for its next stage and needs its culture to evolve alongside its strategy
The Process
Context & Diagnostic Design
The work begins by understanding the organizationâs context, history, strategic direction, leadership environment, and reasons for examining culture.
Cristiane defines the appropriate diagnostic approach and, when applicable, configures the Barrett Values Centre Cultural Values Assessment for the organization.
Data Collection
Participants complete the assessment confidentially, providing perspectives on personal values, the values they experience in the current culture, and the values they believe are important for the organizationâs future.
Depending on the engagement, quantitative data may be complemented by leadership interviews, facilitated conversations, or other qualitative methods to provide greater context.
Cultural Analysis
Cristiane analyzes patterns across the data, looking beyond individual responses to identify areas of alignment, tension, potentially limiting values, and differences between current and desired culture.
The analysis considers both what is visible in the data and the organizational context in which those patterns have developed.
Leadership Debrief
The leadership team participates in a facilitated session to interpret the findings.
Rather than simply presenting scores, Cristiane helps leaders explore what the patterns may mean, which assumptions or behaviors may be sustaining them, and how leadership practices may be influencing the culture.
Cultural Alignment Roadmap
The diagnostic is translated into a focused set of priorities.
Leaders identify what should be preserved, what needs to evolve, which behaviors require attention, and what organizational practices may need to change.
The result is a practical roadmap with priorities, responsibilities, and initial milestones for cultural development.
Deliverables & Outcomes
Cultural Values Report
A structured view of personal values, current culture, and desired culture using the Barrett Values Centre methodology, when included in the engagement.
Cultural Alignment Analysis
Identification of areas where organizational values, leadership behaviors, and everyday experience are aligned â and where meaningful gaps exist.
Cultural Entropy Analysis
Assessment of potentially limiting values and behaviors that may be consuming organizational energy and affecting trust, collaboration, adaptability, or execution, interpreted within the Barrett methodology and the organizationâs context.
Leadership & Behavioral Patterns
Analysis of recurring behaviors and leadership practices that may be reinforcing the current culture. The objective is not to assign blame, but to understand how organizational patterns are created and sustained.
Current-to-Desired Culture Map
A structured comparison between how the organization is experienced today and the culture participants believe will better support its future direction.
Cultural Alignment Roadmap
Prioritized actions connecting cultural findings to leadership behavior, organizational practices, and strategic priorities.
Leadership Debrief
A facilitated executive conversation designed to move through: Data â Interpretation â Awareness â Responsibility â Action
The Cristiane Barreto Difference
Cristiane approaches culture through the intersection of organizational strategy, social psychology, leadership, group dynamics, and organizational behavior.
Her work is informed by more than 20 years of experience with organizations across different industries and contexts, combined with formal training and certification in organizational culture and behavioral sciences.
As a Barrett Values Centre Certified Practitioner, Cristiane uses structured cultural data as one component of a broader organizational diagnosis.
The assessment provides evidence.
The facilitated process gives that evidence meaning.
And the work that follows connects cultural understanding with leadership behavior, organizational practices, and strategic direction.
This distinction matters because culture rarely changes through communication campaigns or newly written values alone.
Meaningful cultural change requires leaders to examine the systems, behaviors, assumptions, incentives, and everyday practices that continuously reproduce the existing culture.
Barrett Values Centre Certified
Certified to apply and interpret the Barrett Values Centre methodology and its organizational culture assessment tools.
20+ Years of Organizational Experience
More than two decades working with leaders and organizations across industries and different stages of development.
Multidisciplinary Perspective
An approach integrating organizational culture, Social Psychology, leadership, group dynamics, strategy, and behavioral sciences.
Multilingual Delivery â EN | PT | ES
Engagements and materials can be delivered in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, supporting organizations and leadership teams operating across different cultural and geographic contexts.
Common Questions
What is an organizational culture diagnostic?
A culture diagnostic is a structured process for understanding the patterns of values, assumptions, behaviors, and organizational practices that influence how people work and make decisions.
When the Barrett Values Centre methodology is used, the assessment examines three perspectives: personal values, current culture values, and desired culture values.
Cristiane interprets these results within the broader organizational context rather than treating the assessment as a standalone measure of culture.
What is cultural entropy?
Within the Barrett Values Centre methodology, cultural entropy is an indicator associated with potentially limiting values and behaviors that may consume organizational energy.
Examples may include excessive bureaucracy, control, internal competition, blame, confusion, or other patterns that can interfere with trust, collaboration, adaptability, and effective execution.
The percentage itself should not be interpreted in isolation. Its value comes from understanding which patterns are contributing to it, why they may exist, and what organizational conditions continue to reinforce them.
Why look beyond stated organizational values?
Because stated values represent only one layer of culture.
Edgar Scheinâs work distinguishes between what organizations visibly express and the deeper assumptions that develop through shared experience and eventually influence behavior.
An organization may therefore declare one set of values while everyday decisions, incentives, leadership behaviors, and unwritten rules reinforce something very different.
The diagnostic helps make those differences visible.
Who should participate?
Participation depends on the size, structure, and purpose of the engagement.
When an organization-wide assessment is appropriate, representation across different levels and functions provides a broader view of how culture is experienced throughout the system.
Confidentiality is protected according to the methodology and assessment design.
Is culture primarily determined by leadership?
Leadership has a significant influence on culture, but culture should not be reduced to leadership behavior alone.
Leaders shape what receives attention, what is rewarded, how decisions are made, and what behaviors become acceptable. At the same time, culture is reinforced through structures, systems, history, group norms, incentives, routines, and shared assumptions.
For this reason, the diagnostic examines the organizational system, not simply individual leaders.
How is this different from an employee engagement or satisfaction survey?
They answer different questions.
Engagement and satisfaction surveys generally examine employeesâ attitudes and experiences regarding aspects of work.
A culture diagnostic examines deeper organizational patterns: the values and behaviors people experience, the assumptions and practices that may sustain them, and the distance between current culture and the culture needed for the future.
The approaches can complement one another, but they should not be treated as interchangeable.
Does a culture diagnostic tell us what our culture should be?
No.
There is no single ideal organizational culture.
The relevant question is whether the organizationâs culture supports its purpose, strategy, people, environment, and stage of development.
A behavior or organizational practice that works in one context may be ineffective in another.
The objective is therefore not to impose a predefined model, but to understand the existing culture and determine what should be preserved, strengthened, or evolved.
Can this work with international or multicultural teams?
Yes.
Culture must always be interpreted within context, particularly when teams operate across countries, languages, and national cultures.
Assessments and facilitated sessions can be conducted in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, allowing different groups to participate while maintaining a shared diagnostic framework.
What happens after the diagnostic?
The diagnostic should be the beginning of the work, not its conclusion.
Findings are translated into a Cultural Alignment Roadmap connecting cultural priorities with leadership behaviors, management practices, organizational systems, and concrete actions.
Depending on the organizationâs needs, implementation may continue through leadership development, executive mentoring, team facilitation, strategic advisory, or periodic cultural reviews.
The objective is not simply to define new values.
It is to create greater coherence between what the organization believes, what leaders reinforce, how people behave, and what the organization is trying to achieve.
Intellectual Foundations
Cristianeâs approach to organizational culture is informed by established thinkers and methodologies in the field, including:
Edgar H. Schein
organizational culture, leadership, artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions.
Richard Barrett
values-based culture, cultural transformation, alignment, and cultural entropy.
Frederic Laloux
organizational evolution, purpose, self-management, and new organizational models.
Geert Hofstede
national and organizational cultural differences and the importance of context when working across cultures.
These perspectives are integrated with Cristianeâs background in Social Psychology, organizational strategy, leadership, group dynamics, and behavioral sciences.