Very, very good article. Another thing that bugs me about corp-talk is the phrases you always find on job adverts. Apparently every successful job candidate in Britain over the last two decades has had 'excellent interpersonal and communication skills.'
Your company culture is a meaningless platitude
31–35 of 35 posts
Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude
#32The meaningless platitude that management uses to describe what they aspire to have their company culture be, is a meaningless platitude. Ancient HR policies and hokey mission statements are no match for a good NERF gun at your side.
It writes the code or we take away the Nerf gun!
Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude
#33In 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.
They have to tell you because you couldn't possibly arrive at that conclusion on your own (especially since it isn't true).
Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude
#34You don't pick your own nickname. You don't declare your own reputation. You don't define your own company culture. All of these things are object code, "compiled" by others based upon your behavior, which is the source. What you do screams louder that what you say. Do good and you won't have to worry about what others say. That is "company culture".
While I agree with the observations, I think this is not a good definition of company culture.
A company culture is the set of prevailing ethics within an organization which determines things like work ethic; attitudes towards change; levels of internal cooperation vs internal competition; treatment of customers, competitors, and suppliers; valuation of individuals' attributes; etc.
Company culture can be perceived by outsiders, but it doesn't rely on what others say or whether you are doing Good or not. It exists even in the absence of those things.
Re: Your company culture is a meaningless platitude
#35This 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.
>A company should only keep those people that fits its culture.
This is where I get nervous when people start talking about "company culture". It will inevitably lead to this. Whatever happened to hiring people that can do the job, hopefully well? If the job requires that they have an "outgoing personality", like some sort of salesmen, then the requirement that they can do the job will be all you need.
When you start weeding people out based on your completely arbitrary idea of what the company "culture" should be, I think that becomes a problem. This is only one step above race and sex based discrimination. Personality based discrimination should not be allowed (with the obvious caveat that you should be allowed to fire people with toxic personalities).