Culture Debt vs Technical Debt

One of the biggest leadership mistakes we see happening in young businesses is this: "Morale is low, performance is down, let's replace key staff." It's a case of confusing the cause and the symptom...the organisation's Culture is the problem, not a bad hire.

When performance dips, when teams feel stuck, when communication breaks down — the instinct is to fix the output. Change the process. Bring in a new tool. Restructure the team.

But if the root cause is cultural, none of that moves the needle. The debt keeps compounding.

Last week, Rachel Sosin joined The Culture Co-Lab partners Florencia Salim Valdivia, James Kusena PhD, and Oyin Williams on for a webinar to unpack what culture debt actually is — how it accumulates invisibly, and why leaders consistently misidentify it until it's already costly.

Making culture visible requires psychological safety, intentional systems, and data you can trust. Without that infrastructure in place, leadership decisions are made in the dark.

If you lead people — whether that's a team of three or a company of three hundred — this conversation is worth your time.


▶️ Watch the recording here