Workplace Culture: This Week’s Culture Killer

A culture killer is what ruins workplace culture in spite of your every effort. When we were researching our new book, Happy to Work Here: understanding and improving the culture at work, we came to the conclusion that some toxic cultural behavior was the result of people adhering to certain unspoken rules. These rules are unspoken because they are, frankly, unspeakable. But despite the fact that you never hear anybody say them out loud, they can do considerable damage to your workplace culture. It’s these unspeakable unspoken rules that we refer to as “culture killers.”

This week’s Unspoken Rule is the one that enables:

The Stepford Hires

The Stepford Wives is a movie (it’s been made twice, actually) based on a book by Ira Levin wherein all the women of Stepford, Connecticut are practically identical. They dress the same way, talk the same way about the same things, and behave towards their husbands in the same manner. It turns out that they are all animatronic robots. (Sorry if this spoils the movie for you.)

Some organizations, particularly successful and popular ones, turn themselves into Stepford by hiring only those people who walk and talk just like the people already in the organization.

Sometimes, and this is a bit more insidious; HR people only hire people who look like themselves. Again, the organization begins to become Stepford.

Naturally enough, if there is no beneficial disruption, no influx of fresh faces and fresh thinking, the organization becomes predictable and eventually moribund. 

A Stepford organization has this unspoken rule:

Play safe and avoid variations. Hire people only if they are essentially indistinguishable from the people already working here.

By James Robertson · September 29, 2025 · #culture, #hr, #work, #workplaceculture, hiring, workplaceculture