Understanding the Burke-Litwin Model: Distinguishing Organizational Culture from Climate for Talent Development

Culture vs. climate. It sounds like two sides of the same coin, but in the real day-to-day of organizations, they’re distinct enough to matter a lot. If you’re studying topics from the CPTD body of knowledge, you’ve likely noticed how leaders, teams, and policies can feel aligned on one front and out of tune on another. The Burke-Litwin model is a helpful way to sort out what’s what and to plan smarter talent-development moves.

What’s the difference, really?

• Organizational culture is the deeper layer. It’s the set of shared beliefs, values, and assumptions that guide how people behave when no one is watching. Culture is the company’s personality—its long-term DNA. If you listen closely, culture whispers about why decisions are made, what gets rewarded, and how people treat one another in tough moments.

• Organizational climate is the more visible, perceptible layer. It’s how employees experience the environment right now—policies they notice, processes they use every day, the atmosphere in the office or on remote teams. Climate is the weather you feel on a Tuesday morning: the mood, the tone, the sense that work is supported or not.

In short: culture is inward-facing and enduring; climate is outward-facing and experience-centered. They influence each other, and both shape performance and engagement. This distinction isn’t just academic. It matters when you design learning, leadership development, and change initiatives. You can shift climate quickly with changes in policies or communication; changing culture often requires longer-term, multi-layered work with leaders and beliefs at the core.

Meet the Burke-Litwin model in a nutshell

If you’re mapping out how to link leadership, structure, and outcomes, the Burke-Litwin model is a reliable compass. Developed by W. Warner Burke and George H. Litwin, it emphasizes that the deepest layer—shared beliefs and assumptions—drives the more visible climate. Here’s the intuitive gist:

• The model centers on 12 (or so) interacting factors, arranged to show cause and effect. Some factors sit at the core; others sit closer to the surface.

• Leadership and strategy sit near the top in a way that makes sense to anyone who’s run a team. Your leadership style, the messages from leaders, and the strategic choices you declare all ripple through the organization.

• Structure, systems, and management practices shape how work actually gets done. These are the levers teams touch every day.

• Culture lives in the deeper layers—shared beliefs, values, and norms—while climate captures the visible, day-to-day perceptions of the environment.

• The model sets up a logical flow: leadership and strategy influence the structure and systems; those, in turn, shape both climate and culture; and together they affect motivation, task performance, and overall organizational performance.

If you’ve ever drawn a quick map of “what’s actually happening here,” Burke-Litwin gives you a framework that feels practical, not abstract. It’s not about labeling people’s attitudes with fancy terms; it’s about understanding where change needs to start and how different pieces of the organization interact.

Why it beats other models for climate-and-culture questions

• William Bridges's Transition Model is excellent for guiding people through change and clarifying emotional shifts. It’s not built to parse the deep culture versus surface climate distinction.

• Peter Senge’s Learning Organization framework champions systems thinking and a culture of learning. It highlights the value of shared vision and mental models, but it doesn’t zero in on how leadership, structure, and climate interplay to drive performance outcomes.

• The Prosci ADKAR Model focuses on change management processes—Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement. It’s pragmatic for projects, but it doesn’t offer the diagnostic depth about climate versus culture as Burke-Litwin does.

In other words, Burke-Litwin gives you a lens that explicitly separates the deep, enduring culture from the visible, felt climate, while showing how leadership and organizational design shape both.

Turning the model into practice (without the fluff)

If you’re applying this lens in real teams, here’s a practical, no-nonsense path you can follow:

• Start with a clear diagnostic. Use surveys, focus groups, and quick interviews to gauge both culture and climate. Ask about values and beliefs at a deep level (culture) and about policies, procedures, and day-to-day experiences (climate). Tools like Culture Amp or Qualtrics can help you capture both dimensions in a structured way.

• Map the current state. Create a simple diagram that places leadership style and strategy at the top, then lines out to structure, systems, and processes, and finally to climate and culture. Don’t get hung up on every box—focus on the big bets that most clearly drive engagement and performance.

• Look for misalignments. Where culture says one thing (e.g., “we value collaboration”), but the climate shows another (e.g., “teams are siloed and meetings are scarce”), you’ve found a friction point. Those are prime targets for intervention.

• Design targeted interventions. If the root issue lies in leadership behavior, invest in leadership development and coaching. If the problem is processes and systems that create friction, streamline workflows and rewrite policies with employee input. If values are out of step with desired performance, craft messaging and rituals that reinforce the intended culture.

• Close the loop with measurement. Track progress by re-surveying after a set period, and watch for changes in both climate perceptions and cultural indicators. The goal is to see climate improvements that reflect a healthier culture, not just quick wins in mood metrics.

• Tie to talent outcomes. Link your findings to engagement scores, retention trends, and performance data. When leaders understand that a culture shift can lift motivation and retention, the change feels more tangible and worth the effort.

A couple of tangible examples

• A product team values customer-centricity in its mission but rewards speed over quality. Using the Burke-Litwin lens, you’d explore whether leadership messages are quietly trading off quality for speed, and whether performance systems disproportionately punish careful work. You might then adjust incentives and recognition to align with the stated mission, while coaching leaders to model patient, customer-first behavior.

• A manufacturing group prides itself on safety and teamwork, yet workers perceive inconsistent safety practices and unclear policies. Here, the climate is fragile, potentially hiding cultural beliefs that “rules are for others.” Interventions could include consistent safety rituals, transparent policy updates, and leadership visibility in safety walks, all designed to reinforce the culture while stabilizing the climate.

Why this matters for CPTD topics

• It gives you a precise language for describing what’s happening inside a real organization. You can talk about leadership behaviors, systems, and structure, and how they shape climate and culture, without getting lost in vague terms.

• It helps tailor learning and development. If culture is the root, you’ll invest more in leadership development, coaching, and socialization rituals. If climate is the issue, you’ll target policies, processes, and day-to-day experiences to smooth the path for employees.

• It strengthens change-readiness. When you know where climate sits in relation to culture, you can design interventions that reduce resistance and accelerate adoption, without pretending that a single e-newsletter or town hall will rewire beliefs.

A friendly reality check

No model is a silver bullet. Burke-Litwin isn’t a magic wand; it’s a practical map you can use alongside other lenses to understand a workplace better. Some days, you’ll discover that a quick tweak in a policy or a leadership message makes a noticeable difference in how people feel about their work. Other days, you’ll unearth deeper cultural beliefs that require ongoing effort and time to shift.

If you’re new to this way of thinking, start small. Pick one domain—perhaps leadership behavior or performance management—and investigate how it influences both climate and culture. Then, widen your view to the other dimensions. The goal isn’t to fix everything at once. It’s to create a line of sight from everyday experiences to long-term, meaningful outcomes.

A closing thought to carry with you

Think of organizational climate as the weather you sense at work and culture as the personality that shapes how that weather feels over time. The Burke-Litwin model helps you see how the weather and the personality connect, and how leaders can point things toward sunnier days without ignoring the clouds that still gather from time to time. When talent developers understand that nuance, they’re better equipped to design learning interventions, guide leaders, and nurture teams that perform with both heart and clarity.

If you’re exploring CPTD topics, keep this distinction in your toolbox. It’s a straightforward, human-centered way to interpret organization dynamics and to plan people-centered improvements that actually move the needle. And yes, a little curiosity goes a long way—after all, culture and climate aren’t just boxes to check; they’re lived experiences that shape every day at work.