We tell people to bring their whole selves to work. Be authentic. Come as you are. And then, in a debrief, someone says, “They’re just not a culture fit.”
I’ve heard that sentence a lot in my years in HR, and when I ask what it means, the answer is rarely about values. It’s “they speak unprofessionally” when using the regional dialect or colloquialisms that came naturally to them. Or “they don’t appear professional” when wearing clothes or having hairstyles or head coverings of their cultural upbringing. Or “they’re aggressive” when the person is simply being direct. That’s not culture. That’s assimilation wearing culture’s name tag.
The culture on paper vs. the culture in the room
Let me tell you about a company I worked with. On paper, it was doing so much right. It talked openly about inclusion, belonging, and being yourself at work, and I loved that. When people aren’t spending their brain power trying to fit the unspoken mold, that energy is free for creativity in meeting goals and expectations. Outwardly, the company also said people were free to learn and make mistakes, because that’s how we grow.
Then there was the day-to-day. A leader or manager in the department led with fear. It was never an outright threat. It was a steady drumbeat of “jobs are on the line”, “heads are going to roll”, and “leadership won’t tolerate mistakes.” And for the most part, that wasn’t anyone’s actual experience of leadership. But it was how conversations started, and the team stayed afraid. That fear was the control.
Everyone did things exactly the way that leader wanted, and everyone had to talk the same way. A regional phrase from where you grew up? Not allowed. You used the approved, polished, professional voice, and you knew your place in the ranks. The people who went along got promoted, and their mistakes were quietly overlooked. The people who pushed back, asked questions, or spoke with a different accent or different colloquialisms got no stretch opportunities and no promotions. Why? “They don’t fit the culture.”
But the stated culture was be who you are, and we’ll find a space for you. How someone speaks, dresses, or wears their hair says nothing about how they do their work, and it says nothing about whether they share the organization’s values.
What it cost
Here’s what happens when people are managing fear and policing how they sound: they stop engaging with each other. Conflict starts bubbling up inside the teams. Complaints multiply. It gets catty and confrontational. Nobody wants to share an idea, but everybody is ready to criticize someone else’s. When it isn’t safe to speak up to the person with the power, the frustration doesn’t go away. It leaks sideways.
The company thought it was buying consistency. It was paying for it in trust, creativity, and collaboration.
Culture is not assimilation
Culture is shared values and how the work gets done. Assimilation is asking people to sand themselves down until they match the group. A homogenous team isn’t a strong culture. It’s a quiet one, and quiet is not the same as healthy.
So the next time you hear “not a culture fit,” ask one question: is this person violating a value, or are they just unfamiliar to us? If you can’t name the value, it isn’t a culture issue.
You knew exactly what they meant
I’ve watched this play out with almost every client I’ve worked with. Someone says, in informal communication, “gonna” or “finna.” Someone greets a colleague with “I see you, new ‘do” or “you did your thing on that project” and means it as a compliment. Someone says “No” or “that doesn’t make sense.” And someone else decides that wasn’t professional.
Here’s the question I ask: did you understand what they meant? Almost always, the answer is yes. You may not have liked how it was said, but you knew exactly what they intended. And neither the words nor the meaning broke a policy or violated a value.
That’s not a professionalism problem. That’s discomfort with something unfamiliar. And the people on the receiving end learn quickly to adapt. They code switch, trimming the way they speak, where they’re from, and how they sound, until they pass the test nobody wrote down. It’s exhausting, and it costs the company the very authenticity and creativity it says it wants.
Think of it this way. When a room is full of people shouting “they not like us,” or “she doesn’t even go here,” it’s funny, because we all know the feeling of being on one side of that line or the other. In a movie or a song, it’s a joke. At work, it’s a culture problem. A culture invites people in around shared values. A cult polices the boundary and punishes anyone who doesn’t match. If someone can be a great performer and still be told they don’t go here, you may be closer to a cult than you think.
It starts with us
HR is responsible for culture, which means it starts with HR’s own behavior. If we aren’t modeling it inside our own department, we can’t teach it, train it, or enforce it, and we end up looking like hypocrites. So before we roll anything out to managers, we define culture as observable behaviors tied to our values, and then we look in the mirror. Here are the questions I’d ask any HR leader to start with:
- Do people on my team feel safe disagreeing with me, and when someone last pushed back, how did I respond?
- When a mistake happens, do I treat it as a learning moment, or do I quietly hold it against that person?
- Am I invoking leadership to motivate people, or am I explaining the actual reason?
- Who have I promoted or given stretch opportunities to, and do they all communicate like me?
- When I say someone isn’t a fit, can I point to a specific value they violated, or is it about accent, vocabulary, dress, hair, or style?
- Do I know how my team actually experiences me, or am I only guessing?
If the honest answers are uncomfortable, good. That’s where the real culture shows up, and that’s where the work begins.