At the atomic level, a company is just two things: people’s relationships and people’s decisions. Capital, technology, products — all of it came from someone’s idea, someone’s decision, and someone’s relationship that made execution possible.
“Most companies can’t tell you how decisions are made in their company.”
This reframe makes culture improvement concrete rather than abstract. If you find a 10% better way to make decisions, that’s a massive multiplier. If meetings shift from “ugh, I have to go” to “I can’t wait for this meeting,” that transforms performance — because meetings are where relationships and decisions intersect.
Joe notes that culture doesn’t require extra time or resources. You have to do the work anyway — make decisions, have meetings, communicate. Culture is how you do those things. It just takes consciousness and intention, not additional budget.
“Culture doesn’t take time. It takes consciousness.”
Related Concepts
- All cultural dysfunction comes from two questions
- Structural changes beat direct interventions
- Your life is the sum of the decisions you’ve made
- Hearing objections before deciding — even if you decide the same thing — changes everything