Most organizations think culture is built through values, workshops, and leadership speeches.

But inside companies, culture usually operates very differently.

It shows up in who gets heard.
Who gets promoted.
Whose mistakes get ignored.
And whether systems matter more than proximity to power.

In this episode of The Culture Margin, Vikram Khanna reflects on what really shapes culture inside growing organizations — especially under pressure.

From founder dependency and informal decision-making to the hidden cost of inconsistency, this episode explores why employees emotionally disengage long before they resign.

Using real organizational patterns and IPO-stage observations, this is a conversation about fairness, governance, leadership behavior, and the invisible systems people experience every day at work.

In this episode:

• Why power quietly overrides process
• How proximity starts replacing performance
• The hidden danger of people-dependent organizations
• Why flexibility without consistency creates anxiety
• What investors and employees both look for in culture
• And why culture is ultimately built through repeated behavior

Hosted by Vikram Khanna.

Every company talks about purpose now.

But employees can usually tell the difference between purpose that is lived… and purpose that is marketed.

In this episode of The Culture Margin, Vikram Khanna explores why so many organizations lose trust even while talking about values, culture, and transformation.

From leadership meetings focused only on optics… to Patagonia’s decision to put purpose ahead of profit, this episode breaks down what authentic purpose actually looks like inside organizations.

Because purpose is not what companies say during town halls.

It’s what leaders choose when things become uncomfortable.

In this episode:

• Why employees stop trusting corporate values
• The hidden damage caused by performative culture
• What Patagonia got right about purpose
• Why people trust behavior more than speeches
• The real test of organizational culture

A short conversation about leadership, trust, culture, and the decisions that reveal what organizations truly stand for.

Hosted by Vikram Khanna.

Most change initiatives don’t fail because of bad strategy.

They fail because people don’t feel the change.

A new system is rolled out.
A new process is introduced.
A new direction is announced.

Everything looks right on paper.

But behavior doesn’t move.

In this episode of The Culture Margin, Vikram Khanna connects two powerful ideas—Self-Determination Theory and the change framework from Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard—to explain why most organizations struggle to make change stick.

Because change is not a communication problem.

It’s a motivation problem.

This episode breaks down:

• Why autonomy, competence, and relatedness drive real behavior change
• Why most change efforts fail at the emotional level, not the strategic level
• The gap between “explaining change” and “enabling change”
• How culture reacts when change feels imposed, risky, or misaligned
• What leaders must design differently to move from compliance to ownership

If you’re leading transformation, driving performance, or trying to shift behavior inside your organization—this episode will change how you approach change itself.

Because culture doesn’t shift when people understand change.

It shifts when people feel safe, capable, and involved in it.