Culture Drift- How Fast-Growing Teams Lose Their Way

The Real Challenge 

High-growth organizations often assume that culture established early will naturally scale. In reality, culture erodes quickly when new people, new pressures, and new systems enter the picture. What worked for a team of ten rarely works for a team of fifty. McKinsey’s research notes that leaders often believe they are the culture and underestimate the need to deliberately sustain, evolve, and reinforce it (McKinsey, When Building New Businesses, Culture Matters, 2025). Without intentional stewardship, culture becomes diluted, inconsistent, and confusing.

The Consequence 

Culture drift shows up subtly at first, misaligned expectations, inconsistent communication, duplicate processes, or emerging silos. Over time, these small cracks widen. Teams become reactive instead of strategic. Conflict increases. Psychological safety decreases. And the organization finds itself recreating the very dynamics it hoped to avoid. McKinsey’s analysis identifies three stages of culture development, pioneers, settlers, and town builders and warns that as ventures scale, culture often shifts unintentionally, creating tension and confusion if not guided deliberately.

A New Way to See It 

Culture must evolve with the organization’s growth. Pioneers bring energy and risk-taking. Settlers translate early behaviours into scalable practices. Town builders institutionalize what works and stabilize the systems around it. Healthy organizations honour all three phases. Culture becomes a living system, shaped continuously through shared beliefs, leadership behaviours, and reinforcing mechanisms. When culture keeps pace with growth, organizations maintain alignment, clarity, and momentum.

A Practical First Step 

Invite your team into a simple reflection: “Which phase are we in: pioneer, settler, or town builder and what does our culture need from us right now to keep evolving in a healthy way?” This creates clarity, strengthens shared identity, and anchors behavioural expectations in the realities of the team’s growth stage.