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One Clear Idea: Why Culture Needs Clarity Before Change

  • Writer: Peter McLean
    Peter McLean
  • Jul 21
  • 3 min read

Updated: Jul 22

By Peter McLean Keynote Speaker | Strategic Advisor | Creator of Lead With CLARITY™

Peter McLean smiling with a raised hand, text: "One Clear Idea: Why Culture Needs Clarity Before Change," website link above.

In leadership conversations, culture is often invoked as both the problem and the solution. It’s what’s blamed when things feel misaligned, and what’s celebrated when organisations thrive. But amid the urgency to change culture, one fundamental truth is often missed:

You cannot change what you haven’t first seen clearly.

Before culture can be reshaped, it must be understood. Not in abstraction, not via slogans or laminated values statements, but in its lived form: the daily decisions, the unspoken norms, and the subtle permissions that guide behaviour.


Clarity must come before change.


❖ What Culture Without Clarity Looks Like

I’ve worked with organisations across sectors—government, healthcare, logistics, and professional services—and the symptoms are often the same:

  • Repeated strategic resets that fail to take hold

  • Behavioural frameworks launched without visible leadership modelling

  • Teams asked to “live the values” while working around the reality

  • Meetings full of diagnosis but light on courageous decision-making

  • Senior leaders overwhelmed, asking: “Why isn’t this working?”

In one firm, the CEO said: “We’ve done 360s, roundtables, even brought in accountability frameworks—but nothing’s changing.” The issue wasn’t insight. It was the absence of clarity about what behaviour really needed to shift and who needed to go first.


❖ Where Clarity Begins

When I’m called in, I don’t start with culture audits or aspirational slogans. I start with questions like:

  • What is actually happening in the system right now?

  • What behaviours are being rewarded (intentionally or otherwise)?

  • Where are leaders waiting for permission they don’t need?

  • Who is quietly upholding the real culture without recognition or support?

  • And what truths need to be spoken aloud before any change can begin?

These questions do more than surface issues, they give people the language to move.


Whether it’s a board alignment issue, a public sector reform, or a cultural reset in professional services or healthcare, clarity is the precondition for progress.


❖ Clarity = Action With Alignment

In one of the more dramatic turnarounds of my career, I was brought in to rescue a logistics and mining services company on the verge of collapse. I began with a simple admission:

“I have no idea about trucking.”

They laughed — fairly. But I followed with:

“You’re the experts in logistics. I’m here to help the organisation work better.”

What followed was three months of conversations, questions, and empowerment. Staff told me, “That’s the first time in 20 years anyone in leadership asked me how we do this.” What they needed wasn’t better pay — they already had that. They needed leadership that paid attention, listened, and let them lead.


We stopped micromanaging. We cleared the clutter. They cleaned up the business. Performance surged. Clarity won.

People don’t resist change. They resist confusion.

💡 One Clear Idea

Culture change without clarity is theatre. But with clarity, it becomes transformation.

If your organisation is experiencing fog, fatigue, or friction, don’t launch another initiative. Start with clarity.


If you’re seeking a keynote speaker, a leadership advisor, or a strategic partner to help clarify your culture before change, contact me during the months of July and August for a no-obligation Sounding Board Discussion.


📩 Contact me at peter@lamplighter.com.au or via Linkedin at Peter McLean 





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