What defines a great company culture?

So if I create a culture of fear and abuse, but everyone on the company follows it, it's suddenly a good culture?

That's very reductionist.

I do agree with the consistency thing. One bad culture failure mode is a case where one or two senior executives run amok enforcing their view of culture, while the CEO fails to enforce consistency and a bunch of other executives, directors, etc., just try to “stay out of it” and remain culturally neutral (which isn’t really possible).

I saw this in one company where it was the CTO running amok with an aggressive culture of yelling in meetings, slamming doors, and emphasizing arbitrary deadlines.

I saw it in another org where it was the CPO instead, trying to install Dilberty consultant snake oil with constant reorgs and zero accountability for product managers.

I think it does. Great culture is different for everyone. I like a culture built around fast innovation. My friend likes a culture built around slow and steady progress. Neither culture is right or wrong, they are just different.

But a great company culture is one (regardless of its core tenets) that’s followed strongly throughout the organization, top to bottom, starting with the CEO.

> Many in the agile or “new work” camp seem to believe that their way is the ONLY way, for example.

I think many in the Agile camp are fed up with being held back by people who are unwilling to change, and are willing to break the mold (and some eggs) in order to find a new, better way to work.

> Consistency is much more important than how the culture actually is.

This just leads to a consistently toxic culture that nobody wants to work for. I have worked for plenty of places where nobody gives a shit and nobody tries to change anything, and it was terrible. Our working life should mean more than a stock ticker.

This thread isn't really clarifying or defining what a "great" culture constitutes, and it strongly suffers from survivorship bias.

The author is pointing out that a necessary ingredient (among others omitted) is strong culture--which is something of a tautology. Of course a company with great culture has a strong culture; if it were a weak culture, it wouldn't be pervasive or definitive of the company. A company with weakly held cultures wouldn't be described as a "company with great culture". At best it would be described as a "company with great team cultures", at worst a "company without culture". But none of these three statements hold any inherent truth about how productive the company might be, how happy people might be working at said companies, the values of the people working for these companies, or how the collective values of the employees impact the company.

The author is also looking at two companies that have been around for 15+ years. Where is the evaluation of all the companies with similar leadership values to Amazon and Facebook that didn't survive? Was their strong culture an aid or a hindrance? Did they fail despite their strong culture or because of it? Where is the evaluation of companies with similar success and longevity that don't have top-down cultural values? Can we say definitively that they don't have great culture?

I appreciate that the author has a lot of respect for and values the culture of previous employers, but when asking the question "What defines a great company culture?", I would hope for a more substantive answer. Reinforcing that "whatever the cultural values might be they have to be strongly endorsed by the leadership" can be part of that, but that's describing something other than the "great culture" itself.