Culture Decides What Gets Noticed

A $3.5 million violin. A world-class musician. And no one stops to listen.

Joshua Bell, one of the greatest violinists alive, stands in a Washington, D.C. subway station, playing for an hour. Thousands walk past. Few stop. Even fewer notice.

Not because the music isn’t brilliant—but because the setting makes it invisible.

It turns out, if your best work gets lost in the noise, it changes nothing.

Culture works the same way.

People don’t respond to what you claim is important. They respond to what the environment signals.

A team might talk about accountability, but if small things slide, no one takes it seriously. A company might celebrate innovation, but if new ideas get buried in bureaucracy, people stop offering them. A coach might preach discipline, but if the best players get special treatment, the culture absorbs the contradiction.

Excellence doesn’t speak for itself. It needs a frame. It needs a stage. It needs a culture that makes it undeniable.

The best work, the most important values, the real moments of leadership—these things don’t beg for attention. They’re easy to overlook. Unless you build a culture where they stand out. Where they become impossible to ignore.

Because if the best of what you do gets lost in the noise, it might as well not exist at all.