The Dive
The last thing Manchester City players see before they walk onto the pitch isn't the crowd.
It's a wall of faces.
Parents. Grandparents. Coaches. The people who got them there.
I saw it this week on a tour of the Etihad Stadium, and it stopped me in my tracks.
I went in expecting trophies and history. I came out with a lesson in leadership by design.
Our tour guide kept crediting Pep Guardiola's influence on how the team's spaces and routines work. The details added up fast.
The players' entrance brings them close to fans. For people that famous, pre-game is one of the few natural moments to connect, so the route was built to make it happen.
The home and away dressing rooms serve the same purpose, but they don't feel the same. Different color, different shape, different energy. The home room was built for connection and identity.
After the final whistle, players are fed, changed, and reviewing match footage before anyone talks to the press. Fitness, mental health, and readiness are treated as one system.
Even the carpet where fans gather was a deliberate choice.
None of this is accidental. And it isn't new for Guardiola. Early in his City tenure, he reportedly cut Wi-Fi in the first-team dressing room at the training ground and made post-match team meals mandatory, so players would talk to each other and reflect on the game together instead of scattering home.
That's what intentional culture looks like. Not a values poster. A set of conditions.
Now compare that with most workplaces.
We spend enormous energy talking about belonging, collaboration, engagement, and high performance. Then we put people in spaces and routines that quietly work against all of it.
Open-plan floors that make focus impossible. Meetings stacked so tightly no one recovers between them. Onboarding that hands someone a laptop and a password and calls it welcome. Wins that pass without anyone stopping to notice.
Every one of those sends a signal. People read it long before they read the handbook.
Here's the part that struck me most: Guardiola reportedly left City this past summer. But the wall is still there. The routines are still there. The environment he shaped keeps teaching the next group what this team values.
That's the real power of designing culture into the environment. It outlasts the leader who built it.
You don't need a Premier League budget to do this.
You need intention.
The Save
Run an environment audit this week. Walk through your workplace, physical or virtual, as if you were a new hire on day one, and ask:
What does our space tell people about what matters most here?
Where do people naturally connect, and where do we accidentally prevent it?
What happens after a big push, a launch, or a loss? Do we recover together, or does everyone scatter?
Where is our "wall"? Do people ever see who and what they're working for
Which of these would still work if I left tomorrow?
If the answers surprise you, that's the gap between the culture you describe and the culture you've built.
Great leaders don't just build teams. They design the conditions where teams win.
Your Turn
Who would be on your team's wall, and do they ever get to see it?
Reply and tell me. I read every one.
Talk soon,
Anita
This is Issue 14 of Live Wire, a weekly jolt of candid thinking for CEOs, founders, and people leaders who know culture isn't a side project, it's how a business performs. I'm building this alongside my upcoming book: Everyone Sells.