When "Fit" Becomes Visible

Cultural fit came up in four completely different conversations the other day - a volunteer board, someone job searching, a founder building her team, and a story about someone who left abruptly.

Different contexts. Same undercurrent.

We tend to talk about “fit” as shared values. But what people actually experience is behavior. How decisions get made. How conflict is handled. What’s tolerated. What isn’t.

When someone isn’t a fit, it rarely shows up as a philosophical disagreement. It shows up in the way work gets done, or doesn’t, and in how people treat each other along the way.

I’m reminded that values aren’t culture until they’re visible in behavior. And misalignment isn’t abstract. It’s relational.