Your epic learning journey · Stop 6 of 10 · Explore Culture
Start
Commit
Field Journal · Organizational Culture Quest
What does your organization
actually reward?
Every organization has two sets of values. The ones written on the wall. The ones that drive what actually happens. This quest is about learning to see the difference.
A note before you begin
This quest asks you to look honestly at the organization you are part of. Not to judge it. To understand it. That kind of clarity takes courage and it is the first step toward change.
1
Mission 1
Read
Heart
I have had the privilege of working in many schools across public, private, and international settings around the world. One thing has remained consistent across every single one of them: the gap between the values an organization claims and the values it actually lives.
I remember being hired by a school that presented beautifully on paper. Their website spoke about inquiry-based learning, learner independence, and a commitment to progressive education. I was excited. I believed them.
The reality was different. Those approaches existed in a dedicated window of the school day. Outside of that window, everything was traditional, teacher-led, and compliance-driven. The values on the website were real to someone. They just were not driving what happened in classrooms.
I tried to innovate within my own practice. I minimized the gap where I could. But I learned something important through that experience: value misalignment is a whole-organization problem. It cannot be solved by one person working quietly against the current.
The insight
When what an organization says it believes and what it actually does are two different things, the people working inside it carry that tension every single day. Sometimes they leave. Sometimes they go quiet. Sometimes they stop believing change is possible at all.
What stayed with me most was this: the gap was not an accident. It was a product of misalignment between the values of those at the top and the values of those in the rooms. Schein would say the underlying assumptions of that organization had never been examined. The artifacts looked right. The espoused values sounded right. But the deepest layer, what that organization actually believed about learning and about people, told a different story entirely. That school taught me the power of value alignment. Not as an abstract ideal, but as a practical reality.
Pause here
Where have you felt this gap in an organization you have been part of? What did it cost you to work inside it?
2
Mission 2
Understand
Head
The story in Mission 1 probably resonated because you have felt this gap yourself. Now we give that feeling a framework.
Edgar Schein spent decades studying how organizations actually work beneath the surface. His book Organizational Culture and Leadership gives us a model to see what is usually invisible.
Schein identified three levels of culture. Each one sits deeper than the last and each one is harder to see and harder to change.
Level 1 — Most visible
Artifacts
Everything you can see, hear, and feel when you walk into an organization. The physical space, the displays on the walls, how people dress, how meetings are run, what gets celebrated publicly. Artifacts are easy to observe but hard to interpret without knowing what sits beneath them.
Level 2 — Stated but not always lived
Espoused Values
The values an organization says it holds. The mission statement, the strategic plan, the words in the staff handbook, the language used in interviews and induction days. These are the values an organization aspires to. They may or may not match what actually drives decisions.
Level 3 — Deepest and most powerful
Underlying Assumptions
The beliefs so deeply embedded in an organization that most people are not even aware they hold them. These are the real drivers of behavior. They shape what questions get asked, whose voice carries weight, what risks are taken, and what is never spoken aloud. Changing underlying assumptions is the hardest work in organizational culture.
Pause here
Which level of Schein's model do you think is most visible in your organization right now? Which level do you think is most misunderstood?
3
Mission 3
Reflect
Heart
We move through organizations every single day. Not just the school or workplace we are paid to show up to. The gym. The place of worship. The parent association. The sports club. The community group. Each one has artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions. Most of the time we feel them without ever naming them.
Some of these organizations feel like home. You walk in and something relaxes in you. The values you see operating match the values you carry. You feel seen, trusted, and free to be yourself.
Others create friction. Not always dramatically. Sometimes it is a quiet tension you carry home without being able to name it. Schein's framework gives you the language to understand why.
Journal prompts
Think about the organizations you belong to outside of work. Then open your journal and explore:
- Which organization in your everyday life feels most aligned with who you are? What do you see, hear, or feel there that tells you that?
- Which one creates the most friction? Where does that friction live: in the artifacts, the espoused values, or the underlying assumptions?
- What does the difference between these two organizations teach you about what you actually value most?
4
Mission 4
Reflect
Hands
Read back through what you wrote in Mission 3. Let it settle. Then open your journal one more time and sit with this question privately. It belongs to you alone.
Your private question
What did reflecting on your everyday organizations teach you about what you truly value?
Write as much or as little as feels right. This is not submitted anywhere. It is the most honest conversation you can have with yourself.
Closing Field Note
You came into this quest with a feeling you may not have been able to name. A tension you recognized. A gap between what an organization said it was and what it actually felt like to work inside it.
Now you have a framework for that feeling. Schein gives you the language. Artifacts, espoused values, underlying assumptions. Three levels, each one harder to see and harder to change than the last.
Clarity is not comfort. But it is power.
The next quest asks the hardest question of all. Not what does your organization believe, but what is your school actually doing to the people inside it.
Making sense of what we feel is how we find the courage to act.
What is next
Three quests. One framework.
You are building layer by layer. The journey continues.
think. chat. create.
thinkchat consultancy · lugerlach.com