From Gouda to Gruyère: What Cheese Can Teach Us About Building Team Culture 🧀

It’s Cheese Lover’s Day — a globally recognised occasion for eating cheese at times of day that would normally raise eyebrows. Breakfast cheese. Desk cheese. “I’ll just have one more slice” cheese.

Naturally, this led me to think about team culture.

Because if there’s one thing cheese has taught us, it’s that there is no single “correct” option. And yet, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary, we still behave as if there is one perfect cheese, one perfect team dynamic, one correct way for people to show up at work.

A good cheese board doesn’t work because everything tastes the same. It works because it doesn’t. Sharp next to soft. Familiar next to slightly alarming. Something you know you love sitting right next to something you pretend not to like until you’ve had a third bite.

Teams are no different.

And yet, in many workplaces, we spend a surprising amount of time trying to remove those differences. We talk about “culture fit.” We praise people who feel easy to work with. We quietly hope everyone communicates in the same way, processes feedback the same way, and arrives at the same conclusions — preferably quickly and without much debate.

This usually results in a team that looks calm on the surface and slightly under-seasoned underneath.

There’s almost always someone on a team who brings a kind of sharpness. They ask the uncomfortable questions. They point out that the plan doesn’t quite make sense. They notice the risk everyone else is politely stepping around. These are often the people described as “a bit intense,” usually right after they’ve said something true.

They care deeply about clarity and progress, and they have very little patience for vagueness. When they’re supported, they raise the quality of thinking across the entire team. When they’re labelled as difficult or told to “soften their delivery,” they tend to either disengage — or start updating their CV.

Then there are the people who bring softness into the room. They notice when someone hasn’t spoken in a while. They check in after tough conversations. They remember that there is, in fact, a human attached to every Jira ticket. Their work often happens quietly, without a lot of visible credit, but without them teams fray much faster under pressure.

These are also the people most likely to be told they’re “too nice” — as if kindness and standards are somehow mutually exclusive. Without recognition and boundaries, they burn out while holding everyone else together.

And of course, there’s usually at least one person who feels like an acquired taste. The one who questions why things are done a certain way. The one with strong opinions and a tendency to say them out loud. Not everyone warms to them immediately, and some never will. But teams without these voices tend to stagnate. Innovation slows. Assumptions go unchallenged. Everything feels efficient, but nothing feels new.

Most people, of course, are not just one flavour. Someone might be direct in meetings and deeply empathetic in one-on-ones. Another might start their career flexible and agreeable, only to develop sharper edges as their confidence grows. People evolve. Teams evolve. Culture is not something you “set” once and forget — it’s something you keep tasting and adjusting.

This is why “culture fit” is often the wrong question. What it really asks is whether someone will feel familiar and comfortable to the people already in the room. Comfort can be pleasant, but it doesn’t build resilience. It builds sameness.

A better question is: what’s missing from this team right now? Do we need more challenge? More care? More clarity? More calm? What flavour would actually make this work better?

Leadership, in this sense, isn’t about picking your favourite cheese and insisting everyone else adapt to it. It’s about curation. About pairing people intentionally. About knowing when to let strong flavours stand on their own and when to bring them together so they balance each other out.

It’s also about protection. Strong flavours need psychological safety to exist. If every direct comment is punished, honesty disappears. If care is dismissed, trust erodes. If challenge is labelled as resistance, creativity quietly exits the building — often at 5pm, exactly on time.

Healthy teams aren’t perfectly smooth. They have texture. They have moments of friction. They need time to mature. They occasionally smell a bit weird while they’re figuring things out.

But when leaders allow people to show up fully — not as a sanitised version of what’s “acceptable,” but as themselves — teams become more than functional. They become resilient, adaptable, and human.

So yes, today is a great day to celebrate cheese. Eat the fancy kind. Eat the kind in plastic. Eat it at a time you wouldn’t normally admit to.

And maybe, while you’re at it, take a look at your team.

If the culture feels a little bland, the answer probably isn’t more rules or more process.

Sometimes, it’s just more flavour.