There are many questions you can ask a company’s leaders to start understanding its corporate culture. Here’s one of the most revealing ones: what would you fire someone for? Outside of the obvious, such as stealing and lying, what behavior would you consider a deal breaker offense? The answers will tell you what’s at the very core of the company’s culture. Would ignoring a customer’s feedback be a deal breaker, but would publicly humiliating a staff member be tolerated? Looks like we have more of a customer-focused than a people-focused culture then. Would making excuses for unmet promises be a deal breaker, but would missing a high risk, high potential new opportunity be tolerated? A performance culture, rather than an innovation culture. No matter what the formal vision and values statements may say – the answers to this question will tell you what’s REALLY valued around here.