What Is Cultural Drift? How To Keep Workplace Progress From Slipping
What Is Cultural Drift? How To Keep Workplace Progress From Slipping
In one of the courses I teach, my students are asked if it's harder to change an individual's way of thinking about things or to change an organization's culture. The truth is, both are complicated. Individuals come with their own beliefs, experiences, and perceptions that can lead to resistance. Organizations come with systems, hierarchies, and unspoken rules. But it's important to recognize that culture starts at the top. So, leadership sets the tone, and the rest of the organization either follows it or quietly resists it. The leaders who contact me for help already understand this and are the ones looking to build something better, more curious, and more innovative. They are easier to deal with, because they already value change. Those leaders are more likely to keep their organizations from experiencing cultural drift.
What Is Cultural Drift?
Cultural drift is the gradual return to old ways of doing things, especially after a period of growth or progress. It's a slow slide into the habits that once held the organization back. You may not notice it at first, but over time, the effects include less innovation, less engagement, and fewer people willing to speak up.
Why Cultural Drift Became So Common After The Pandemic
According to PwC's 2021 Global Culture Survey, organizations with a distinctive culture were 79% more likely to report increased employee satisfaction during the pandemic. These companies also saw greater improvements in performance and morale, especially when culture was intentionally supported by leadership. That may seem surprising, given the stress and uncertainty of those years. But the shift to remote work brought unexpected benefits. People had more flexibility, more autonomy, and in many cases, more empathy from their leaders. It became acceptable to say you were struggling. Leaders learned to check in more often, listen more carefully, and communicate more clearly.
Even so, there's a growing recognition that remote work is not the right fit for every role or every person. Some jobs require in-person collaboration, access to physical equipment, or constant coordination. And not everyone thrived in a virtual setting. Some took advantage of the system. Others struggled with isolation or a lack of structure. For those reasons, bringing people back to the office has been a better solution in some cases. But when that return is handled poorly, driven by fear or control instead of purpose and flexibility, it can trigger culture drift.
Now, a few years later, I'm seeing some of that progress start to slip. Cultural drift happens gradually. You might start to notice that people stop asking questions, meetings feel more like going through the motions than solving real problems, and it starts to feel like leaders are managing people instead of working with them. Then fear starts to take the place of psychological safety.
What Causes Cultural Drift To Happen?
One cause of cultural drift is fear. Some leaders experience fear of losing control, fear of falling behind, and fear of looking unproductive. After a period where leaders trusted their employees to manage their time and workload from home, some companies are now swinging back toward micromanagement. While it might make them feel more in control, it also sends a message, even if it's unintentional. It says, "We don't trust you anymore."
Another factor is habit. The status quo is comfortable. It's easy to slip back into old ways of doing things, especially when those old habits are familiar and predictable. Leaders start defaulting to the same routines, the same hierarchies, the same top-down decision-making. Even small signals, like bringing back mandatory in-person meetings or eliminating flexible schedules, can start to undo the gains made during the pandemic.
The truth is, change requires maintenance. You can't build a healthy culture once and expect it to stay that way. It needs to be protected, reinforced, and adapted as new challenges arise. That's what many leaders are forgetting right now.
How Can You Tell Cultural Drift Is Happening?
Cultural drift is not always obvious. You start to notice that employees who used to contribute ideas now stay quiet. Managers spend more time defending decisions than listening. Teams lose their edge because no one wants to take risks. These are signs that something is shifting underneath the surface.
You might also see turnover among the very people who once championed the changes you made. When employees who thrived under your more flexible, supportive culture start leaving, it can be a signal that your culture may no longer be supporting the people it was built for.
Why Cultural Drift Pushes Curiosity Out
Curiosity is one of the first things to fade when cultural drift happens. In healthy cultures, people feel safe to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and explore new ideas. They're encouraged to speak up, not penalized for it. That's what makes curiosity so powerful. It's both a driver of change and a signal that the culture is still healthy.
When curiosity is missing, people stop exploring. They avoid hard conversations, which keeps things from evolving. If your goal is to maintain a workplace where people can think, grow, and contribute meaningfully, curiosity must be part of the process.
How Leaders Can Prevent Cultural Drift
Start by acknowledging that culture work never ends. Leaders should regularly ask themselves, "What are we doing today that supports the kind of culture we want? And what might be slowly pulling us in the wrong direction?"
Make time to revisit the values you set during the pandemic. Which ones mattered most? Which ones did your team respond to? Recommit to those values publicly and often. That includes modeling behaviors like transparency, empathy, and flexibility.
Create spaces where people can share concerns without fear of backlash. That doesn't mean you'll always agree, but it shows you're listening. People will keep speaking up if they believe it matters. If they feel ignored or punished for doing so, the silence that follows is a sign your culture is drifting.
Encourage your teams to challenge how things are done, ask better questions, and reward thoughtful push back. Make it easier for people to test new ideas without having to justify them with a ten-slide deck. Those are the actions that build momentum and keep culture moving in the right direction.
What Can You Do Now To Address Cultural Drift?
If your workplace experienced growth, connection, or resilience during the pandemic, that came from deliberate choices. It came from empathy, trust, and flexibility. If those things start to slip, so will your culture. Cultural drift can be reversed, but it takes intention. You have to notice it and then decide what kind of culture you want to move toward. Daily actions matter. Keeping curiosity alive in your workplace is the best way to protect the culture you've worked hard to build.
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