You can grow without losing who you are and proactively protect company culture, but only if you intentionally mature your culture.

Imagine bumping into an old friend from the distant and hazy past. Let’s say an old high school friend.

It’s exciting to feel that old “click.” It’s almost like you can pick up where you left off. “You haven’t changed a bit!” That’s a fun feeling.

But you don’t actually hope that they are exactly the same as they were in high school. In fact, you probably hope they’ve changed some. Over the decades, there should be some growth and maturation. You look forward to hearing about the family they’ve built or the career that took off.

It would be uncomfortable, even awkward, to discover they still work at the old music store in the mall from your high school days. (I didn’t know that place was still open!)

Well, it might not feel that way if you found out they bought it or are managing it. But it does if they’re still in the same position they had in high school.

Because we intuitively know: There should be movement. There should be growth.

Life, by nature, grows.

But business growth can be uncomfortable.

“We don’t want to lose our culture.”

“We don’t want to become corporate.”

These are the two most common hesitations I hear from leaders who want to grow their companies.

At the core is this message: We want to grow, but we don’t want to stop being us. We don’t want to change.

The good news is: You don’t have to stop being you.

The honest news is: You will need to mature.

If you’ve built a great culture, it’s so valuable that you should protect it. But protecting it isn’t the same as freezing it in place.

You can grow and protect your company culture. Here’s how:

1. Define and Align on Core Values

Your core values define how decisions are made and what behaviors are expected. When consistently aligned, this becomes your culture and helps protect company culture.

Most companies developed these organically, which is a polite way of saying “accidentally,” which rarely helps protect company culture. If your culture is so valuable you’re afraid of losing it, you probably don’t want to depend on “happy little accidents,” as Bob Ross might have called them.

Be on purpose and protect company culture. Tell people what the values are.

Let’s say ACME Corp, Inc.’s values are: Integrity, Respect, and Quality.

Now I know something about that company. Not much. But it’s different than if you said: Timeliness, Profitability, and Safety.

Neither is right nor wrong, especially if you plan to protect company culture. But they aren’t the same. And they lead to different priorities and ways of relating, which create different cultures.

2. Clarify How Values Inform Decisions and Behavior

But not everyone hired at ACME Corp, Inc. will automatically interpret Integrity, Respect, or Quality the same way. In fact, it’s unlikely.

That will create problems. To prevent those problems and protect company culture, make short, specific definitions that connect values to decisions and actions.

For example, at ACME Corp, Inc., their values are further defined to mean:

• Integrity: We tell the truth even when it hurts. We are transparent in our pricing.
• Respect: We treat others as we would like to be treated.
• Quality: We do our best to do the best we can. We don’t cut corners, go cheap, or skip steps.

You may or may not agree with those definitions.

But even those simple definitions allow a much clearer picture of their culture to emerge. And the important thing is: Everyone at ACME Corp, Inc. understands what they mean here.

3. Build Systems and Rituals That Support Culture

Translate these value definitions across core functions and processes to protect company culture. For example:

• What does Integrity look like in Sales?
• What does Respect look like in Hiring?
• What does Quality look like in Billing?

Even the same values look different in different contexts. So, when everyone in Sales (or HR or Finance) has the same understanding of how those values apply in their role, performance will improve.

• Embed in systems: Hire, promote, train, and part ways based on values alignment to protect company culture. Let values shape how you hire, sell, account, administrate, manage, and serve.
• Use values as filters: When making decisions or writing policy or processes to protect company culture, ask, “What option best reflects our principles?”
• Measure and adjust: If a chronic problem keeps surfacing, ask: Was a value undefined, unreinforced, or violated? Correct it.

4. Leadership Modeling and Accountability

“Accidental” culture reflects the values of your most influential leaders.

People believe what they see you do more than what you say, which helps protect company culture. As your company grows, one of the most immediately influential leader to any given employee is usually their direct supervisor. This is because they see that supervisor the most. There are more opportunities to model culture.

Accidental cultures mean that your supervisors start building their own cultures in their teams or divisions. This creates silos and problems.

Executive leaders should be the architects of culture. Mid-level and line management reinforce and do much of the modeling, championing, celebrating, and protecting of the values. This takes intentionality.

As opposed to feeling onerous, most teams appreciate this. They value the sense of clarity, consistency, and the sense of “we” that it creates across the company.

I’ve never met a company where people are thankful for the silos and turf battles. But I have heard people express gratitude for a consistent culture.

5. Adapting Culture During Growth

Organizations hit natural inflection points based on complexity and relational dynamics. These roughly occur around the following employee counts, a pattern recognized in organizational design research, and what most CEOs discover the hard way:

• 25: Basic systems and financial management are needed.
• 50: Clear functions defined, management structures develop (usually senior and line), standardization of processes.
• 100: Middle management appears. Senior leaders may not hire everyone and may no longer know everyone
• 150: Around this size, most leaders can no longer maintain personal relationships across the entire organization. This aligns with Dunbar’s number, a cognitive limit (around 150 people) on the number of stable relationships we can manage. Beyond this, subcultures form, silos grow, and cultural cohesion breaks unless values are clearly codified.
• 250+: Multiple locations, layers, specialization.

As you grow, adaptations will be required. None of these changes are necessarily a threat to your culture. In fact, they can strengthen it, if managed intentionally.

The better accounting a larger company can provide, can support Integrity. Specialized customer service reps can enhance Respect. A larger talent pool can improve Quality.

But this won’t happen by accident. The “recipe” must be written down. Leaders must model and talk about it to protect company culture.

Important caveat: Not all values are scalable. Some are incompatible with growth. For example, a preference for informality to the point of not defining roles or processes, spontaneity in priorities or strategy, or granular management oversight tends to limit growth.

Conclusion

Culture is either a strategic asset or a liability. It depends on the culture—and your intentionality.

You can’t put culture in a museum. Just like you can’t reconnect with your high school buddies and relive the “good old days” exactly as they were.

Even if you could, that’s regression.

Growth is maturity. Maturity is change. And maturity is deeply connected to responsibility, consistency, and intention.

Maturation helps you become a better version of you.

This can be true of your company as well.

Take good care,

Christian