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Culture Isn't Free Bagels. It's What Happens to the Person Who Calls Out Jim.

Everyone knows a Jim.

Director level. Beloved. He's the one who approves the Christmas party budget. He makes sure anniversaries are recognized. He champions staff appreciation days and sends personalized notes when people hit milestones. Everyone loves Jim.

However, the primary role of his 10-person function was solved two years ago by a system integration. His team creates meetings, takes up budget, and injects chaos into everything upstream. Not because they're bad people. Because their job shouldn't exist anymore, Jim doesn't realize that, and the culture has made it unsayable.

Here's the test.

A new employee shows up. They came from a low-margin industry where waste elimination wasn't optional. They had excelled because they got good at seeing what shouldn't exist. They look around for two weeks and ask the obvious question: "What does Jim's team actually do?"

In that moment, your culture reveals itself. Not the one on the wall. The real one.

Two Possible Responses

Response A: Someone pulls the new hire aside. "That's just how things work here. Jim's been here forever. He's connected. Give it time. You'll understand eventually."

Translation: hierarchy and relationships determine what's sayable. New voices get assimilated or ejected. Jim is protected because Jim is liked, and liked beats useful.

Response B: Someone says, "Let's figure this out together. What are you seeing?"

Translation: data and outcomes matter more than tenure and relationships. New perspectives are signal, not noise. The organization might actually want to hear the truth.

One response has a high-safety culture. The other has a high-honesty culture. They're not the same thing. And it's very difficult to make significant change without a high-honesty culture.

The Uncomfortable Definition

Culture isn't what you celebrate. It's what you tolerate.

And what you tolerate is determined by what happens to people who name the uncomfortable truth.

Read all the culture books you want. Run all the engagement surveys you want. Your actual culture is the answer to one question: What happens to the person who calls out Jim?

If they get told to learn how things work around here, you have a high-safety culture. Safe for incumbents. Dangerous for truth-tellers.

If they get thanked for the observation and the organization investigates, you might have a high-honesty culture. Or at least you're building one.

High Performance Cultures Aren't Nice. They're Honest.

The leaders who build dynasties don't get there by being liked. They get there by being clear.

Nick Saban benched five-star recruits in front of millions of people. Curt Cignetti walked into Indiana, a program where losing was literally the identity, and told players on day one that what they'd been doing wasn't good enough. I've written before about why these coaches don't need political cover: their standards are visible. Their consequences are public. Everyone knows what they're signing up for. High-performers absolutely love it.

What makes them different isn't meanness. It's the willingness to say obvious things that most people avoid. And here's the thing: companies with high-trust cultures generate 8.5x more revenue per employee than the market average. High trust isn't soft. It's profitable.

This isn't a critique of people who blend into a low trust environment. You're trying to be good at your job, and somewhere along the way you learned that fitting into the culture matters if you want to be effective. The real problem is that much of Corporate America has the opposite incentive structure. In many organizations, fitting in and adding scope to a department creates promotions. The new hire who asks "What does Jim's team actually do?" isn't rewarded for noticing. They're trained to stop noticing. You may have been there at some point in your career. The question is, can you do something about it?

The Math That Most Organizations Get Wrong

Recent surveys show that 70.9% of employees say their employer has a company-wide focus on blame rather than finding solutions. 62% report poor collaboration. And 62% say employees are afraid to speak up and share their opinions.

Those numbers don't reflect the culture statement on the wall. They tell a story of accumulated silence. And guess what, they almost exactly match the percentage of failed transformation attempts. BCG found that most failed transformations "digitize the dysfunction rather than reimagine the foundation". Core workflows remain untouched, or worse, get layered with additional complexity. The Eliminate, Simplify, Systematize, Automate (ESSA) transformation framework isn't just a set of steps. It's a readiness test. If you can't eliminate obvious work, you're not ready for a transformation. Unnecessary work creates chaos upstream. You can't automate chaos.

Every time someone stays quiet to avoid conflict, the culture shifts slightly toward silence. Every time someone gets marked as "not a culture fit" for naming a problem, the culture gets a little more captured. Every time a Jim survives because touching him is too expensive, the cost of honesty goes up for everyone.

I've watched this math compound. I've been in organizations where the debt got so high that internal people couldn't afford to pay it. The only way to hear the truth was to hire someone from outside who didn't owe anyone anything yet.

That's what a lot of consulting actually buys: a clean political balance sheet.

The Jim Problem Is Everywhere

You probably know a Jim. Right now. You might even work for one.

But Jim isn't always a person. Sometimes Jim is a process. A meeting series. A reporting structure. A technology platform. A strategy that made sense five years ago and hasn't been questioned since.

The common thread is this: everyone knows it shouldn't exist in its current form, and nobody can say it.

The reasons vary. Jim has tenure. Jim helped you get promoted. Jim survived the last three reorgs and will probably survive the next one. Jim knows where things are buried. Jim is connected to someone who matters. Maybe it's as simple as, Jim is liked, and liked beats useful.

So Jim persists. And every new employee who notices gets quietly socialized into pretending they don't.

Here's the thing: addressing Jim doesn't mean firing Jim. You probably have overworked people elsewhere in the organization. Eliminate that process and shift work to Jim's team. Fold them into functions that need capacity. The problem isn't Jim's existence. It's the pretending. Once you can name it, you may be able to solve it in ways that don't require anyone to lose their job.

What This Actually Requires

Building a high-honesty culture isn't about being harsh. It's about being clear. And clarity requires three things many leaders avoid.

First, you have to reward the uncomfortable truth. Not tolerate it. Reward it. When someone names a Jim problem, they should get thanked publicly. Promoted eventually. Recognized as someone who makes the organization better by making it honest.

Research shows that only 36% of organizations teach situational humility in their leadership development programs. That means two-thirds of leaders aren't taught to say "I might be wrong about this" or "Tell me what I'm missing." Without that skill, they can't receive the uncomfortable truth even when someone is brave enough to offer it.

Second, you have to protect truth-tellers from retaliation. 21% of employees report experiencing retaliation after speaking up. Nearly a third of those who raised concerns faced personal disadvantage as a result. When people watch their colleagues get punished for honesty, they learn to stay quiet.

The signal you send in those moments matters more than any values statement on the wall.

Third, you have to be willing to address the Jim problem yourself. Not delegate it. Not wait for someone else to name it. Actually look at what's protected because it's politically expensive to touch and decide whether you're willing to pay that cost.

If you're not willing to address your own Jim problem, why would anyone else be willing to address theirs?

The Reality Check

Here's where this gets personal.

The Question That Matters

Every leader reading this has a Jim. Or is afraid of becoming the person who calls out Jim. Or is Jim.

The question isn't whether you agree with this article. It's what you're going to do Monday morning.

You know which processes shouldn't exist. You know which meetings accomplish nothing. You know which strategies stopped making sense years ago.

This is the article on leadership and culture I've always wanted to write. It's what I mean when I say "Action-Based Leadership." Some people read this and don't quite see it. The consistent theme? They've never spotted a Jim. If that's you, good for you. You probably operate in a high-trust environment and always have. Keep doing what you're doing.

But if you've spotted a Jim, if you understand exactly what I'm saying, this article is for you.

Be honest with yourself, even if you can't say it out loud. If you see it but you're not sure you can be more courageous, I get it. Culture is whether people can tell the truth and survive. Some cultures have so much political debt that looking the other way is survival. If you need to survive right now, survive. But build the muscle. Take one small step. Name one thing privately. The moment will come when you can act, and you'll need to be ready.

If you want to be a transformational leader, a high-honesty culture is the price of admission.

The bagels are fine. They're just not culture.

FAQ

What's the difference between psychological safety and a "high safety" culture? Psychological safety means people can speak up without fear of punishment. A "high safety" culture often means the opposite: safety for incumbents, danger for truth-tellers. Real psychological safety includes the freedom to name uncomfortable truths, not just the freedom to avoid conflict.

How do I know if my organization has a "Jim problem"? Ask yourself: Is there work that everyone knows shouldn't exist, but nobody can say it? Are there people or processes protected by tenure or relationships rather than results? Do new employees get socialized into silence when they notice obvious problems?

What's the first step to building a high-honesty culture? Start with one decision: the next time someone tells you an uncomfortable truth, reward them for it. Visibly. In a way that everyone watching understands. That single action signals more about your culture than any policy or values statement.