"Culture Fit" Means They're Not Ready To Tell The Truth
Lesson 5 of 25 from podcast conversations with leaders who leave the world better than they found it
Doris Chela Muigei has been a recruiter long enough to recognize the patterns. When a client rejects a candidate for "culture fit," she knows what it really means:
They don't actually know why this person won't work.
"If someone says 'culture fit,' it means they're not ready to tell the truth yet," Doris told me. "Maybe they haven't figured out what the truth is. Maybe they know but don't want to say it out loud. Either way, it's a placeholder for unclear thinking."
Sometimes "culture fit" is code for bias—this person doesn't look or sound like everyone else here. Sometimes it's code for threat—this person will challenge how we do things. Sometimes it's just code for "I don't know, something feels off."
But here's what it's never code for: clear, defensible criteria about what this role actually requires and whether this person can deliver it.
And this pattern doesn't just show up in hiring. It shows up everywhere in organizational life, particularly in how we write about strategy.
The Problem With Vague Language
Pick up any strategic plan and you'll find sentences like this:
"We will enhance stakeholder engagement through capacity building initiatives that drive systems-level change and foster collaborative partnerships across sectors."
That sentence says nothing. It sounds important, but it's completely empty.
What does "enhance" mean? Increase frequency of touchpoints? Deepen quality of relationships? Both? Something else?
Which stakeholders? Funders? Beneficiaries? Partners? All of them?
What kind of capacity building? Technical training? Leadership development? Organizational infrastructure?
What does "systems-level change" look like in practice? How will you know if you've achieved it?
We use this vague language for the same reason hiring managers use "culture fit": it lets us avoid making hard decisions about what we actually mean.
Vague language masks unclear thinking. And unclear thinking produces weak strategy.
Why We Default To Generic Terms
There are a few reasons organizations default to vague, impressive-sounding language:
First: We think it sounds more professional. "Stakeholder engagement" sounds more sophisticated than "we'll meet with funders quarterly and survey program participants twice a year."
But professional language that obscures meaning isn't professional—it's just obscure.
Second: We're trying to please everyone. If we say "stakeholder engagement," funders think we mean them. Partners think we mean them. Everyone can project their own priorities onto our vague language.
But strategy that tries to please everyone ends up serving no one particularly well.
Third: We haven't actually decided yet. Sometimes vague language reveals we haven't done the hard thinking. We know we need to engage stakeholders somehow, but we haven't figured out what that engagement actually looks like in practice.
And this is where "culture fit" and "capacity building" reveal the same problem: we're using language to paper over gaps in our own clarity.
What Happens When You Demand Precision
Doris pushes her clients when they cite culture fit. "What specifically about this candidate doesn't work for your team? What skills or experiences are missing? What behaviors are you concerned about?"
Sometimes this reveals legitimate concerns: "They've only worked in established organizations, and we need someone comfortable building from scratch." That's useful. That's specific. That informs better recruiting.
Sometimes it reveals bias: "They're just...different from everyone else here." That's a problem, but at least now it's visible and addressable.
And sometimes it reveals lack of role clarity: "I just don't think they'd succeed." This means the client hasn't actually defined what success looks like.
The same precision matters in strategy.
When you replace "enhance stakeholder engagement" with "conduct quarterly feedback sessions with program participants and use their input to adjust curriculum design," you've done something important.
You've created accountability. You can actually measure whether you did this thing.
You've revealed resource needs. Quarterly feedback sessions require staff time and potentially budget.
You've made trade-offs visible. If you're committing to this, what are you not doing?
Precision transforms aspirations into strategy.
The Three-Term Audit
Here's an exercise that will reveal whether your strategy document actually contains strategy or just impressive-sounding goals:
Find three places in your strategic plan where you use generic terms like:
Stakeholder engagement
Capacity building
Systems change
Partnership development
Innovation
Collaboration
Empowerment
Sustainability
For each one, force yourself to replace the generic term with specific, measurable language.
Not "enhance capacity building" but "train 50 staff members in financial management and provide ongoing mentorship for 12 months."
Not "foster collaborative partnerships" but "establish monthly working group meetings with three peer organizations to share learnings and identify joint advocacy opportunities."
Not "drive systems change" but "secure three policy changes at the municipal level that remove barriers to employment for returning citizens."
If you can't make this translation—if you genuinely don't know what the generic term means in practice—that's information. It means you're operating with aspirations, not strategy.
Why Honesty Matters More Than Polish
I've written plenty of strategic plans with impressive language. I know the pressure to sound sophisticated, ambitious, visionary.
But I've also learned that the most effective organizations are the ones that can talk about their work in plain language.
They don't say "capacity building." They say "we're training principals in instructional leadership because our research shows that's the highest-leverage point for improving student outcomes."
They don't say "stakeholder engagement." They say "we meet with families quarterly because their lived experience reveals implementation challenges we can't see from the outside."
They don't say "systems change." They say "we're working to change three specific regulations that currently prevent our participants from accessing benefits."
That honesty serves multiple purposes:
It creates clarity for your team about what you're actually trying to do.
It creates accountability because people can tell whether you've delivered what you said you would.
It reveals gaps in thinking while there's still time to address them.
It builds trust with stakeholders because they know exactly what you mean.
From Vague To Precise
Doris's insight about "culture fit" applies to all organizational language: when we use vague terms, we're usually avoiding something.
Sometimes we're avoiding hard decisions. Sometimes we're avoiding uncomfortable truths. Sometimes we're just avoiding the work of getting clear.
But vagueness doesn't serve anyone. It doesn't make you sound more sophisticated. It doesn't make your strategy more flexible. It just makes it harder to actually execute.
Next time you're writing about your work—whether it's a strategic plan, a grant proposal, or a board report—read it out loud.
When you hit vague language, ask: what does this actually mean? What would this look like in practice? How would we know if we achieved it?
And if you can't answer those questions clearly, rewrite it.
Because organizational honesty starts with honest language.
And honest language starts with being brave enough to say specifically what you mean.
This is lesson 5 in a 25-part series exploring insights from podcast conversations with leaders who leave the world better than they found it.
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