Most organizations spend significant time identifying and communicating what they value.
A nonprofit might emphasize collaboration, equity and community. A school district may prioritize belonging, student success and respect. These values appear in strategic plans, staff meetings, websites and organizational messaging.
But ask employees what it feels like to work there, and a different picture can sometimes emerge.
That disconnect is something Ryan Virden, founder of Lir Cultural Coaching, believes leaders should pay closer attention to. His work with organizations focuses on the relationship between identity, culture and the systems that shape how people experience their workplaces.
“The challenge for most organizations isn’t that they don’t have meaningful values,” Virden says. “The challenge is alignment. Do people actually experience those values in the way decisions are made, relationships are built and the organization operates every day?”
Where Values and Experience Diverge
The gap is not always obvious. Consider a nonprofit whose leadership deeply values collaboration. Staff members are encouraged to contribute ideas and work across teams. Yet important decisions are consistently made among a small group of senior leaders before the broader team is brought into the conversation.
Nothing in the organization’s mission or policies says collaboration is unimportant. In fact, leadership may genuinely believe the opposite. But the system employees experience sends a different message.
“You can value collaboration and still have a decision-making process that unintentionally makes people feel like their voice doesn’t matter,” Virden explains. “Alignment means looking at both. What are we saying we value, and what are people learning from the way we actually operate?”
The same disconnect can emerge in schools.
A principal may be deeply committed to creating a school where teachers and students feel supported. But if educators are routinely asked to implement new initiatives without adequate time, context or opportunities to provide feedback, the everyday experience may not reflect that commitment.
Virden says these contradictions matter because employees experience culture through far more than an organization’s stated beliefs.
“Imagine a school that says it values belonging,” he says. “If teachers feel like decisions are constantly happening to them instead of with them, that’s part of their experience of belonging. The question isn’t whether the principal cares about belonging. I’m sure they do. The question is whether the systems around that value reinforce it.”
Culture Is Built Through Systems
This difference between intention and experience is central to Virden’s evolving work at Lir Cultural Coaching.
Organizations often respond to culture challenges by focusing on individual behaviors. Leaders may introduce new training, encourage better communication or revisit organizational values.
Those efforts can be useful, but Virden argues that sustainable change also requires examining the systems through which culture is experienced.
People experience an organization through how decisions are made, how information is shared, how conflict and accountability are handled, how relationships are formed and how leadership shows up when values are tested.
Those experiences collectively tell employees what an organization truly prioritizes.
“Think about an organization that says it values equity,” Virden says. “You can put that value everywhere. But then look at who gets access to leadership, whose ideas move forward, how opportunities are distributed and what happens when someone raises a concern. Those everyday experiences are where employees decide what equity actually feels like inside that organization.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean leaders are being disingenuous when there is a disconnect. In many cases, the gap develops precisely because leaders have focused heavily on defining the culture they want without examining the systems required to sustain it.
Moving From Intention to Alignment
For a nonprofit executive director or school administrator, that distinction can be important.
Leaders often bear responsibility for both the organization’s mission and the experience of the people responsible for delivering it. When those two become misaligned, even well-intentioned organizations can struggle with morale, trust, retention and their ability to work effectively across differences.
Virden believes leaders can begin by asking a different set of questions.
Rather than simply asking whether employees understand the organization’s values, leaders can examine where those values show up in practice. Where do employees experience collaboration? Where do they experience belonging? What organizational processes reinforce those values, and which ones may unintentionally undermine them?
This approach reflects the broader methodology Virden is developing through Lir Cultural Coaching, which looks at several interconnected areas that shape organizational culture. The goal is not simply to help organizations articulate better values, but to strengthen the areas that allow people to experience those values consistently.
“Alignment isn’t about creating a perfect organization where everyone’s experience is the same,” Virden says. “It’s about reducing the distance between what you say matters and what people experience. If we say relationships matter, our systems should make space for relationships. If we say people have a voice, they should be able to see where their voice matters. If we say we value belonging, people shouldn’t have to work around the organization to find it.”
For leaders, that can require looking beyond whether a policy or initiative is working as intended and becoming curious about how it is actually being experienced.
That shift can be uncomfortable. It may reveal inconsistencies leaders did not realize existed. But it can also provide a clearer path forward.
Because the strength of an organization’s culture is not determined solely by the values displayed on its walls or written in its strategic plan.
It is shaped by what people experience when they walk through the door.
