One crisp morning, the founder of a successful regional bakery scribbled a note on a napkin: "We always hug customers who cry." Decades later, as the company grew to 600 staff across four states, nobody could quite agree if the 'hug rule' was real, a tall tale, or a relic of the founder's charm. (It turns out it started as a joke, then became part of new staff orientation.) This is how cultures both survive and vanish: through half-remembered rituals and stories, unless someone takes the time to document them. Whether you're a leader at a bustling startup, a family business, or a mature organisation hurtling toward yet another round of hiring, now is the moment to capture your culture in a form that will outlast coffee breaks and leadership transitions. Why bother? Because company culture isn't just the mission statement—it's the collection of quirks, kindnesses, and quick decisions made in the hallway, and as you grow, it's alarmingly easy to lose. Let's dig into why documenting culture (quirks and all) is vital, and how to get started before your founder's favourite jokes vanish for good.
Secrets in the Hallways: What Culture Really Means (and Why We Lose It Fast)
Walk through any thriving business and you’ll find the real culture not in the policy manual, but in the stories whispered in the hallways, the rituals at Friday lunch, and the unwritten rules everyone seems to know. Organisational culture is the sum of these lived experiences—what Harvard Business Review calls “the way we do things around here.” As companies scale, especially from a close-knit founding team to hundreds of staff, these subtle signals become both more important and more vulnerable to loss.
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The Power of Unwritten Rules
Official values might be printed on the wall, but it’s the unwritten rules that shape day-to-day behaviour. Consider the legendary “hug rule” at a family-run firm, where every new hire received a warm embrace from the founder on their first day. Or the subversive Friday ritual at a tech startup: employees would sneak a green stapler onto the CEO’s desk as an inside joke, a tradition that outlasted three office moves. These rituals and artefacts—like the green stapler—act as cultural handprints, marking what truly matters to the team.
As CIPD UK notes, such behavioural norms reinforce engagement and belonging far more than any handbook. They are the glue that binds teams, especially in family business culture where legacy and emotional DNA are central.
Stated Values vs. Living Behaviours
There’s often a gap between what a company claims to value and what actually happens. This gap widens as the business grows. When a small team of 20 balloons to 600 staff, as seen in many scaling stories, the founder’s personal influence fades. New hires may never hear the origin story of the green stapler or experience the Friday ritual, unless these are intentionally documented and shared. As AIHW research shows, these living behaviours are what drive real workplace culture, not just stated policies.
Culture isn’t what you write down; it’s what you reward and repeat. – Edgar Schein
Cultural Erosion: How Traditions Slip Away
Rapid hiring, mergers, and acquisitions can accelerate cultural erosion. When a family business is acquired, the new parent company may unintentionally sweep away cherished rituals, replacing them with generic onboarding. Real cases abound: the Friday lunch disappears, the hug rule is dropped, and soon, the emotional DNA that made the business unique is lost. As management research highlights, these losses can undermine engagement and performance.
Legacy Planning and Leadership Blind Spots
Legacy planning is often focused on financials and legal structures, but without capturing the stories, rituals, and unwritten rules, the true essence of the business is lost. Ask the next generation—what do they remember? If the answer is just “the numbers,” something vital has slipped away. Leaders frequently overlook the importance of cultural transmission, assuming culture will survive on its own. In reality, it must be documented and actively shared, using tools like a “culture book” or digital archive (see how to create a cultural archive).
- Unwritten rules and rituals are the heartbeat of organisational culture.
- Cultural erosion is a real risk during rapid growth or integration.
- Legacy planning is incomplete without preserving the emotional DNA of your business.
How to “Sap the Walls”: Ethnographic Exploration of Your Company (Without Freaking Everyone Out)
Every company has a unique culture—its own language, rituals, and stories. But as organizations grow, these subtle handprints can fade. To truly capture the essence of your workplace before it disappears, leaders must go beyond surveys and handbooks. Enter the ethnographic study: a hands-on, human-centered approach to measuring culture and capturing stories that matter.
What Is an Ethnographic Study in Business?
In a business context, ethnography means observing, listening, and documenting how people actually work, interact, and live out company values. It’s about uncovering the unwritten rules and the “why” behind daily decisions. According to Harvard Business Review, understanding these nuances is critical for scaling, onboarding, and integration.
Techniques for Interviewing Employees and Collecting Authentic Stories
- Casual Conversations: Don’t underestimate the power of a coffee break. As Erin Meyer puts it:
If you want to know about a place, spend a day in its break room.
Informal chats reveal what people really care about—far more than scripted interviews. - Employee Interviews: Aim for 20-30 interviews per department. This sample size often uncovers recurring themes and shared values. Use open-ended questions like, “Tell me about a time you felt proud to work here.”
- Story Collection: Encourage staff to share anecdotes about daily rituals, team wins, and even inside jokes. These stories bring your culture book or digital archive to life (Evaheld’s guide offers practical templates).
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Methods for Ethnographic Study: Shadowing, Journals, and Mapping
- Shadowing: Spend a day following employees in different roles. Notice how they solve problems, celebrate, or handle stress. This method is especially useful for capturing values in action.
- Staff Journals & Photo Diaries: Invite team members to document their week through notes or photos. These artifacts reveal hidden rituals—like daily breakfasts, which appear in over 60% of high-engagement companies (AIHW).
- Workflow Mapping: Visualize how information, decisions, and energy flow through your company. This helps identify both formal and informal networks.
Pitfalls: Avoiding Over-Formalisation
Beware of making the process too official. When employees feel observed by management, they may “clam up” or perform for the clipboard. Instead, foster trust by being transparent about your goals and inviting collaborative contribution. As CIPD UK notes, a participatory approach enriches knowledge and captures diverse insights.
Using Cultural Assessment Tools and Digital Surveys
To surface hidden values and unwritten rules, combine ethnographic methods with digital tools. Anonymous surveys and cultural audits can validate what you observe and highlight gaps between stated values and daily behavior. This blended approach ensures your cultural assessment is both authentic and actionable.
The Culture Book: Creating a Living, Breathing Archive
Every company leaves handprints on its walls—quirky traditions, legendary stories, and the little rituals that make up its cultural DNA. But as organizations grow, merge, or welcome waves of new hires, these fingerprints risk fading away. That’s where the culture book comes in: a tangible, living archive that captures and protects the essence of your workplace for generations to come.
What Belongs in a Culture Book?
A truly engaging culture book is more than a list of values or a glossy brochure. It’s a curated collection of:
- Stories: Anecdotes about founding moments, inside jokes, and the heroes who shaped the company’s journey.
- Rituals: Weekly team huddles, annual costume contests, or the “infamous stapler” that mysteriously appears on new desks.
- Onboarding Quirks: The real-life tips that help new hires feel at home—like the secret to brewing the perfect office coffee or decoding the meeting room names.
- Visual Artefacts: Photos of team events, scans of doodles from brainstorming sessions, or even a digital gallery of the office’s evolving décor.
According to Harvard Business Review, capturing these elements is critical for scaling and integration, ensuring that culture is not just spoken about, but lived and remembered.
Digital Archive vs. Printed Keepsake
Should your culture book be a beautifully bound volume or a dynamic digital archive? Each approach has its merits:
- Printed Keepsake: Tangible, nostalgic, and perfect for gifting to long-timers or family members. But updates are rare, and stories can become outdated.
- Digital Archive: Easily updated—some companies refresh quarterly—and accessible from anywhere. Digital archives can include video interviews, interactive timelines, and crowdsourced content. See Evaheld’s resources for inspiration on digital culture archiving.
- Hybrid Approach: Many organizations blend both, offering a printed “greatest hits” alongside a living digital platform.
Research shows that 80% of new hires rate onboarding stories as more memorable than policy handbooks, highlighting the value of a culture book in the onboarding process.
Crowdsourcing Traditions: Everyone’s Story Matters
The most vibrant culture books are crowdsourced. Invite contributions from every corner of the company—even those tucked under the stairs. Use surveys, storytelling workshops, or a simple shared document to gather anecdotes and photos. This participatory approach not only preserves traditions but also strengthens engagement and belonging.
Future-Proofing Your Archive
To keep your archive alive during mergers or onboarding waves, assign a “culture curator” and set regular review cycles. Digital archives are especially resilient—they can evolve with the company and adapt to new chapters. For templates and best practices, explore the Management Library resources.
Culture is a verb, not a noun. Don’t let the stories fade. – Patty McCord
By assembling a culture book or digital archive, leaders create a blueprint for cultural preservation—one that resonates, inspires, and guides both today’s teams and tomorrow’s successors.
Culture Champions, Reluctant Archivists, and Living With the “Weird Stuff”
When it comes to preserving company culture, someone must take ownership. Culture doesn’t document itself, and without intentional effort, the rituals, stories, and “weird stuff” that make a workplace unique can vanish as companies grow. This is where culture champions and internal branding advocates step in, ensuring that the living values and behavioural norms of an organization are not only celebrated but also recorded for future generations.
Who Owns the Process? The Rise of Culture Champions
According to the Harvard Business Review, leadership commitment is essential for fostering a documentation culture. However, research shows that over 60% of successful culture preservation efforts are driven by grassroots champions, not just top management. These champions are often passionate employees who naturally embody and promote the organization’s values, acting as stewards of internal branding and mentoring culture.
But who are these champions? Sometimes, as Simon Sinek puts it,
“Sometimes the keeper of your culture is the least likely person in the building.”
It could be the night-shift cleaner who knows everyone’s birthday, or the accounts clerk who keeps the Friday snack tradition alive. These surprising culture bearers are often the ones who best understand the unwritten rules and quirks that define the workplace.
Reluctant Archivists: Everyone’s Role in Culture Documentation
While leaders set the tone, every employee plays a part in capturing the company’s essence. Collaborative contribution enriches the archive, ensuring diverse insights are included. The CIPD and AIHW both highlight the importance of involving all levels of staff in documenting workplace culture, from formal interviews to informal story-sharing sessions.
- Encourage team members to share stories and photos of daily rituals.
- Invite non-family executives and long-tenured staff to contribute memories and lessons learned.
- Use digital tools or platforms like Evaheld to create a living archive accessible to all.
Mentoring Culture and Succession Education
As organizations grow, succession education becomes critical. Passing on behavioural norms and unwritten rules—those “this is how we do things here” moments—can’t be left to chance. Mentoring programs, shadowing, and storytelling sessions help transmit these values beyond the executive suite, ensuring that both family and non-family leaders become effective culture carriers. In fact, non-family executives often play a pivotal role in family business transitions, acting as bridges between tradition and innovation.
Living With—and Documenting—the “Weird Stuff”
Every company has its eccentric traditions: the annual ugly sweater contest, the secret handshake, or the founder’s penchant for pineapple pizza at board meetings. Rather than whitewashing these quirks, organizations should learn to celebrate and document them. These “weird” elements are often the glue that binds teams and makes onboarding memorable for new hires. Management libraries like the University of Melbourne’s Management Library offer resources on ethnographically studying and archiving such traditions, ensuring they’re preserved as part of the company’s living values.
When Culture Hits Chaos: Preserving Your DNA Through Growth, Mergers, and Change
Growth, mergers, and rapid change are the ultimate stress tests for any organization’s culture. When the pace of scaling a business accelerates or when two companies join forces, the unwritten rules, rituals, and decision-making culture that once felt natural can quickly unravel. According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of failed mergers cite incompatible cultures as a top reason. Even without a merger, companies often see retention rates drop by 20% or more after cultural misalignment during periods of rapid expansion. As Satya Nadella wisely said,
Culture is your company’s immune system—it can repel or accept change.
Consider the case of a regional retail chain that was acquired by a national brand. Before the acquisition, the company’s customer service was legendary—employees were empowered to make decisions on the spot, and stories of above-and-beyond service were celebrated at every team meeting. Post-acquisition, a new layer of bureaucracy emerged. Decision-making slowed, and the once-vibrant service culture faded. Within a year, customer satisfaction scores plummeted and key talent left, highlighting how quickly a decision-making culture can shift when growth outpaces documentation and intentional integration.
This is where a living culture code becomes invaluable. Documenting the stories, rituals, and values that define your organization—whether in a “culture book,” a digital archive, or a set of onboarding videos—serves as a guidepost for both new hires and legacy staff. As explored by the CIPD and the AIHW, integrating these artifacts into onboarding and daily operations helps ease uncertainty, retain talent, and maintain a culture of innovation even as the organization transforms.
Yet, best practices show that slogans alone are not enough. When companies rely on posters and platitudes without embedding their values into everyday processes, the result is often confusion and disengagement. Instead, leaders must model documentation, set clear standards, and ensure that cultural artifacts are regularly updated and accessible. The University of Melbourne’s Management Library and Evaheld’s work on cultural archives offer practical frameworks for ethnographically studying your own organization and creating resources that truly capture your DNA.
Change management tools, regular measurement of cultural health, and transparent communication are essential for protecting culture as a strategic advantage. When leaders treat culture documentation as an ongoing process—integrated into every stage of scaling, mergers, and onboarding—they create a resilient foundation that supports decision-making, innovation, and talent retention.
In times of transformation, documenting your culture is the ultimate insurance policy. It preserves the handprints on the wall—those unique stories, rituals, and values that make your organization more than just a business. By capturing your culture before chaos hits, you ensure that your company’s DNA not only survives, but thrives, through every chapter of growth and change.
Future-Proof Your Legacy: Stories, Wishes, and Documents in One Secure Vault
Your life is a rich tapestry of stories, relationships, and intentions. The Evaheld Legacy Vault is the dedicated platform to protect it all, giving your family the priceless gift of clarity, connection, and peace of mind for generations to come.
And you're never on your own. Charli, your dedicated AI Legacy Preservation Assistant, is there to guide you. From the moment you start your Vault, Charli provides personalised support—helping you set up your account, inviting family members, sending content requests, and articulating your stories and care wishes with empathy and clarity.
Take control of your legacy today. Your free Evaheld Legacy Vault is the secure home for your most precious assets—ensuring your family memories, advance care plans, and vital documents are organised, safe, and instantly shareable.
Take control of what matters most — set up your free Evaheld Legacy Vault to keep your stories, care wishes, and essential documents safe, organised, and instantly shareable with loved ones and advisers, for life.
1. Preserve Your Family’s Living Story & History
Transform your memories into a timeless family archive that future generations can truly experience. Within the Evaheld Legacy Vault, you can record videos, capture photos, write reflections, and create Legacy Letters — weaving together the laughter, lessons, and love that define your family’s identity.
Preserve more than moments: build a living digital time capsule where your heritage, traditions, and wisdom are safe, searchable, and shareable. From everyday memories to milestone events, your family’s story will remain a permanent bridge between generations — a place your loved ones can return to whenever they need comfort, connection, or inspiration.
2. Secure Your Care & Health Wishes
Ensure your voice is heard when it matters most. With the Evaheld Legacy Vault, you can create and store a digital Advance Care Directive, record your healthcare preferences, and legally appoint your Medical Decision Maker. Grant secure, instant access to family and clinicians, and link it all to your Emergency QR Access Card for first responders—ensuring your wishes are always honored.
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Consolidate your critical records in one bank-grade encrypted vault. Safely store your will, power of attorney, insurance policies, and financial documents with precise permission controls. Never worry about lost, damaged, or inaccessible paperwork again. Your documents are organised and available only to those you explicitly trust.
4. Strengthen Family Bonds with Your Living, Collaborative Legacy
Transform your Legacy Vault from a static archive into a living, breathing family hub that actively deepens connections across generations and distances. This is where your legacy is built together, in real-time.
Let Charli, Your AI Legacy Preservation Assistant, Be Your Collaboration Catalyst. Charli proactively helps your family connect and create. She can suggest content requests, prompt family members to share specific memories, and help organise contributions—making it effortless for everyone to participate in building your shared story.
Create private or shared Family Rooms to connect with loved ones, carers, and trusted advisors. Within these Rooms, you can:
- Share precious memories as they happen, making your Vault a dynamic, growing timeline of your family's life.
- Send and fulfill collaborative content requests, ensuring you preserve exactly what your family cherishes most—from that funny holiday story to cherished family recipes.
- Schedule future-dated messages for birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones, allowing you to offer wisdom, love, and connection for years to come.
Evaheld is more than a digital vault; it's your family's private collaboration platform for intergenerational storytelling. It’s the simplest way to ensure every voice is heard, every memory is captured, and every bond is strengthened—today and for the future.
Start Your Free Evaheld Legacy Vault in Minutes
Join thousands of families who have found peace of mind. Setting up your free, permanent Vault is quick and simple.
- Safeguard your story for future generations.
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The Best 3 Resources to Get Started
- Create Your Legacy Statement in 10 Minutes Flat
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If you are facing financial hardship, contact our team to learn how we can provide a free Vault. We are here to help you secure what matters most.
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