Translate
The Unwritten Rules: Diagnosing a Toxic Culture Before It Breaks the Business
A startup brags about radical transparency and psychological safety. The exit interviews tell a different story. Which culture is real?
Duration
60 min
Difficulty
Beginner
Stakeholders
3
Company Size
Small (20-100)
Organizational Background
Vantage Labs is a 95-person B2B SaaS company that has raised $22M in Series B funding and markets itself aggressively as a 'people-first culture.' Their Glassdoor rating is 4.2. Their 12-month voluntary turnover rate is 34%. Their exit interview data includes recurring themes: 'leadership says one thing and does another,' 'ideas are welcomed in meetings and ignored in practice,' and 'the loudest voices win regardless of merit.' The founder-CEO is charismatic and genuinely confused by the data. He believes he has built exactly the culture he intended.
Key Stakeholders
Learning Objectives
- Apply Schein's three-level model of organizational culture
- Distinguish espoused values from values-in-use
- Use qualitative and quantitative data triangulation in culture diagnosis
- Navigate founder-culture entanglement in early-stage organizations
- Design a culture change roadmap that addresses artifacts, values, and assumptions
Sign Up to Access This Scenario
Create a free account and get one free simulation to try PsychSim.
Host a Team Session
Click Host Team Simulation to create a session and receive a 6-character join code. Share the code with your teammates so they can join via Join Existing Session. At the end, a structured group debrief guide is generated for the team.
Instructor Monitoring
Instructors and admins have access to the Instructor Monitor in the sidebar. From there, you can view all live sessions, see the full conversation feed, send real-time notes to students, advance phases, and end sessions. To enable instructor access, an admin must set your account role to "instructor" in the User management section of the platform dashboard.
