Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Workplace cultures can have any number of problems.
Many of these problems have existed for a long time.
Such problems are systemic ... even systematic.
If/when executives have the appetite, skills, and incentives to solve these problems, they solve those problems.
But executives are not solving all the workplace culture problems.
Enter AI.
When "Collective Human Intelligence" (CHI) cannot solve workplace culture problems, do you believe and expect that AI can solve these culture problems?
Backing up, what are our biggest workplace culture problems?
To try to leap ahead and reduce the ambiguity of one obvious and inevitable idea, trustworthiness contains two huge systemic, systematic, STUBBORN problems (individual trustworthiness & team trustworthiness). If you agree, please expound on what I've started here. 😊
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Excellent question. I'd challenge one underlying assumption: many workplace culture problems persist not because organizations lack information, but because they continue to operate with misaligned incentives, inconsistent decisions or weak accountability. AI can help make patterns more visible, but visibility alone does not change culture. The real question is not whether AI can solve cultural problems, but whether organizations have the authority, discipline and willingness to act consistently on the patterns it helps surface. Without that, AI may simply make the existing culture more efficient rather than better. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Thank you, Luis. “Yes And.” 😊
Floating some questions … some maybe rhetorical, but some maybe worth taking a stance.
Some stances are squishy and ambiguous.
Some points of view are pointy. 😊
On the topic of misaligned incentives, the frameworks of Prisoners Dilemma and Wilson-Lowi help us to understand incentives and help us to change incentives … carrot, stick, and consequences.
On the topic of misaligned incentives, do we have role models for *aligned* incentives? Do we have role models for culture? I think we do. What role models come to mind?
I love the idea of decision consistency, routines, rhythm, muscle memory, and not reinventing the wheel. Smooth is fast. Lumpy is not fast.
Where are the best places for us to store our most important decisions for later usage?
What patterns do we want to see?
What patterns do we want to discontinue and prevent?
What should we standardize?
What should be methodical?
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1 reply by Luis Branco
Jul 22, 2026 11:13 AM
Luis Branco
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I think your questions point to an important distinction. Identifying patterns, preserving important decisions, and standardizing good practices can certainly improve organizational consistency. But consistency alone does not create culture. Culture evolves when consistent decisions are translated into aligned incentives, shared expectations, and everyday behaviors that are reinforced over time.
Perhaps AI's greatest contribution is not deciding what should become standard, but helping organizations reveal whether the patterns of decisions they repeatedly make are actually consistent with the culture they aspire to build.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
I don't think AI can solve workplace culture problems on its own. It can help identify patterns, surface insights, and support better decision-making, but culture is ultimately shaped by leadership behaviors and the actions people take every day. Trust is a good example. AI may help detect trends in engagement or collaboration, but building trust still requires consistent leadership, transparency, and accountability. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Lissette, is it fair to say you agree that trust is a problem? If so, I'd love more detail.
I see trustworthiness as competence, honesty, dependability, and benevolence. I use the word "trustworthiness" because I'd like executives to be more trustworthy. I see untrustworthiness as the problem.
You use the word "trust." Is that because you'd like Person/Population A to trust Person/Population B more?
Do you see the lack of giving trust as the problem? Person/Population A is the problem, not Person/Population B?
Do you assume anything about the trustworthiness of A or B? Saving Changes...
Padmavathi RamanathanBusiness Line Head| Jasmin Infotech Pvt. Ltd.Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Totally agree with individual trustworthiness & team trustworthiness plus the importance of authority, discipline and willingness to act consistently.
I have been mulling over a couple of questions on this topic. Is organization culture largely influenced by Sr. Management or Middle Management? Culture seems to be a dynamic entity. So, can we define workplace culture problems precisely at all? Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Jul 20, 2026 11:07 AM
Replying to Robert Snyder
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Thank you, Luis. “Yes And.” 😊
Floating some questions … some maybe rhetorical, but some maybe worth taking a stance.
Some stances are squishy and ambiguous.
Some points of view are pointy. 😊
On the topic of misaligned incentives, the frameworks of Prisoners Dilemma and Wilson-Lowi help us to understand incentives and help us to change incentives … carrot, stick, and consequences.
On the topic of misaligned incentives, do we have role models for *aligned* incentives? Do we have role models for culture? I think we do. What role models come to mind?
I love the idea of decision consistency, routines, rhythm, muscle memory, and not reinventing the wheel. Smooth is fast. Lumpy is not fast.
Where are the best places for us to store our most important decisions for later usage?
What patterns do we want to see?
What patterns do we want to discontinue and prevent?
What should we standardize?
What should be methodical?
I think your questions point to an important distinction. Identifying patterns, preserving important decisions, and standardizing good practices can certainly improve organizational consistency. But consistency alone does not create culture. Culture evolves when consistent decisions are translated into aligned incentives, shared expectations, and everyday behaviors that are reinforced over time.
Perhaps AI's greatest contribution is not deciding what should become standard, but helping organizations reveal whether the patterns of decisions they repeatedly make are actually consistent with the culture they aspire to build. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Padmavathi, thank you for your thoughtful post!
I believe workplace culture is shaped by some combination of 1) those who feel psychologically safe to do so (minimal personal downside) and 2) the most ambitious stakeholders (maximum personal upside).
I believe large companies have multiple localized cultures. I believe a uniform culture in a large company is rare and unlikely. That would be a lot of upfront work, incredible discipline, and incredible empathy to shape a uniform culture in a large company.
I believe we *can* and *should* articulate workplace culture problems as precisely as possible. To quote a local "Business Humorist" named Todd Hunt, "It is our responsibility to communicate so clearly that we are understood and so precisely that we cannot possibly be misunderstood." 😊 Saving Changes...
Padmavathi RamanathanBusiness Line Head| Jasmin Infotech Pvt. Ltd.Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Thanks for sharing your thoughts....very useful! Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
In case anyone sees as worthwhile to minimize ambiguity about problems in workplace culture, I'll list what comes to mind for me ...
Pacing. Most teams don't organize their work, interdependencies, assignments, and duration with thoughtful pacing in mind.
Listening. Senior employees are busying climbing, not listening.
High latency. There's passion around minimizing duration of work, but there is a lot of shrugging about the duration between the work ... the time that work is idle.
Reinventing the wheel. Many teams reinvent the wheel - complex organizations because there is little interest in simplifying the culture.
Marginal cost. The communication channel of scale and low marginal cost is documentation. Documentation is out of favor. Teams drive work through meetings, not documentation, Teams drive work emphasizing activity not productivity. Meetings have high marginal cost.
Boundaries. Many teams move around where employees don't know or don't respect lanes ... because teams don't define lanes.
Mystery. Teams don't see value in plainness. There is tolerance and affinity for mystery and VUCA.
I built this list by thinking about what the metaphor of a symphony brings to project work.
At the moment, most teams imitate the metaphor of a traffic jam.
Someday, I hope teams will want to convert from decision traffic jams into decision symphonies.
But for now, many teams gravitate toward chaos not poise.
We keep VUCA high instead of trying to reduce VUCA.
Reactions, additions, disagreements welcome. But these are seven problems I see and am trying to solve ... AI or otherwise.
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
AI is a board term. Just talking about generative AI the use of it prevents cultural problems from the very begining before the initiative starts up to the initiative ends. Saving Changes...
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