Things I noticed at the rink.

Tonight I watched my son's team wait at the gate while the zamboni finished up. Not wait for the ice — wait for the bay doors. They stood there until the doors clicked shut, and then they stepped on.

Nobody told them to. No coach was standing there counting them down. A teenage hockey team, at the end of a long day, waited for a door.

I've spent a lot of time in other facilities. I've watched baseball teams carry gear into a dugout while the previous game's team was still packing up. I've watched lacrosse teams start organizing on the floor while another team was still running drills.

I don't think those kids are worse. I think somebody in that hockey organization decided this mattered, taught it, and kept repeating it until it stopped being a rule and turned into a habit. And I think the other organizations never made the decision at all.

I have no idea which it was tonight — whether a coach drilled it last week, or whether it's been that way for ten years. That's sort of the point. You can't see the decision from the outside. You only ever see what's left of it.

Which is the honest definition of culture. Not the values statement on your website. What your people do when nobody is watching and there would be no consequence either way.

Worth asking about your own organization — and not about the moments that matter. Anyone can hold it together when it counts. What happens on the ordinary Tuesday, when nothing is at stake and nobody would ever know?