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Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

danshapiro.com

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Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#21

Post by jheitzeb »

Great post! This part is golden: "When the company picks up your nighttime MBA, that’s a great benefit – but when Teachstreet (a company that helps people find local and online classes) gets its employees together to learn how to build kites, now that’s a quirk.  It’s not to say that corporate mandates can’t make great quirks, although the best ones often arise spontaneously from the teams themselves"

I'm looking forward to more on what in a culture can be assigned and determined proactively versus what should be left emergent...after all, the culture is a reflection of what you want to be and what you already are, right?

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#22

Post by mkramlich »

In my work experience I've noticed a positive correlation between employers that told me what their company culture was (especially via folders of documents, and wall signs) and employers that had an unpleasant, stiff, and hypocritical company culture.

The employers that didn't have an HR department, and/or didn't tell me what their culture was beforehand tended to end up having nicer cultures. Go figure.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#23

Post by jleader »

gxs wrote: post #12

A company's culture matters quite a bit. Where the author makes a giant mistake, however, is in assuming that a company's culture is what it says it is. I've worked at several organizations, and I can tell you that they definitely do have different cultures and sometimes that culture is a big contributor to success. On a smaller scale, it's similar to the way a startup takes on the personality of its founder/s.

I didn't see that as the author's mistake, but rather as the point of the article, that a company's culture isn't what they say it is, but what they do differently.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#24

Post by jerf »

webwright wrote: post #2

I've always believed company culture comes down to 1 thing: peoples' belief about how awesome their life is going to be next month... In other words, optimism and stuff to look forward to. Whether that's fabulous wealth, fun social time with coworkers, etc-- you have to have faith that things will be awesome in the future or you start looking. Doesn't matter how many scavenger hunts or catered lunches you have. Of co…

"Of course, you can get 'awesome inflation'. Day 1 at Google, maybe you're blown away by the catered lunches and at-desk free pedicures. A year later, maybe not."

The phrase you are looking for is "stuck on the hedonic treadmill": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#25

Post by JoeAltmaier »

You really find out what the culture is, when times are tough. When the freebies disappear, there's no chance of a raise this year, and deadlines loom - what happens? Probably too late to find out your "culture" was hedonism etc. as everyone flies out the door, resume in hand.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#26

Post by webwright »

lief79 wrote: post #16
daveschappell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that binary. There are definitely times where I've been on teams where I knew things were looking grim, but where I felt a bond with my everyone, and it was a fellowship that made us dig in to give our best effort. That can be very sustaining (moreso if you feel good about your future team-finding skills, I suppose).

I think it's a mistake to be focusing on the 1 month time frame. You dug in because you valued the people you were working with, and thought that digging and giving your best effort were likely to be enough to pull you through. I've been on teams like that with (10%) pay cuts and was happy I was there. Things did improve. However, I was there 2 years later and it was happening again. None of the core issues had been…

That's a good point-- the horizon that people care about probably widely varies... But people want to climb mountains. If you can say with a straight face, "I really don't think it's going to get better than this," I don't think you can last long!

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#27

Post by webwright »

daveschappell wrote: post #3
webwright wrote: post #2

I've always believed company culture comes down to 1 thing: peoples' belief about how awesome their life is going to be next month... In other words, optimism and stuff to look forward to. Whether that's fabulous wealth, fun social time with coworkers, etc-- you have to have faith that things will be awesome in the future or you start looking. Doesn't matter how many scavenger hunts or catered lunches you have. Of co…

I don't think it's that binary. There are definitely times where I've been on teams where I knew things were looking grim, but where I felt a bond with my everyone, and it was a fellowship that made us dig in to give our best effort. That can be very sustaining (moreso if you feel good about your future team-finding skills, I suppose).

Your example isn't grim. There's a grim facet, but there's a huge social bond that is emotionally rewarding you. If work sucks but you LOVE your co-workers and can't imagine life without them, you can be optimistic about next month: "Work might still suck, but my peeps are my life and my joy!".

If (for the stuff you care about) there is clearly greener grass on the other side, I think you're on borrowed time.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#28

Post by dannyr »

This thread can't be any more appropriate to my current situation at work.

We are defining our culture but not all of the employees are on the same page.

We're still trying to figure out the best way to do it. I actually do not want to try too hard to convince people to accept a particular type of culture. It's either you like it or you don't.

A company should only keep those people that fits its culture.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#29

Post by eru »

dannyr wrote: post #28

This thread can't be any more appropriate to my current situation at work. We are defining our culture but not all of the employees are on the same page. We're still trying to figure out the best way to do it. I actually do not want to try too hard to convince people to accept a particular type of culture. It's either you like it or you don't. A company should only keep those people that fits its culture.

Perhaps. Though fitting can have different definitions.

Especially if your company is getting slightly bigger and not everyone interacts with everyone else on a daily basis.

Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

#30

Post by tomjen3 »

daveschappell wrote: post #3
webwright wrote: post #2

I've always believed company culture comes down to 1 thing: peoples' belief about how awesome their life is going to be next month... In other words, optimism and stuff to look forward to. Whether that's fabulous wealth, fun social time with coworkers, etc-- you have to have faith that things will be awesome in the future or you start looking. Doesn't matter how many scavenger hunts or catered lunches you have. Of co…

I don't think it's that binary. There are definitely times where I've been on teams where I knew things were looking grim, but where I felt a bond with my everyone, and it was a fellowship that made us dig in to give our best effort. That can be very sustaining (moreso if you feel good about your future team-finding skills, I suppose).

Yeah, but you are not looking at the entire situation: you digged in _because_ you valued your coworkers and you grew or had a good emotional bond with them.
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