
Ask HN: What causes an amazing company culture flourish? What kills it? - mikemajzoub
What was it in your current or past workplaces caused an amazing company culture to flourish? Additionally, what caused such a culture to die?<p>(I recognize the term &quot;amazing&quot; is pretty ambiguous, but I&#x27;ll leave you to interpret this term  however you wish.)<p>Thanks for your thoughts, HN! :)
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cauterized
Slack.

No, not the chat software.

The best company cultures I've been part of had 5% more people and time
available than work that had to be done. That's almost unheard of in this day
and age, but it makes all the difference in the world.

The stress and pressures and politics of trying to get 10% or 50% or 300% more
done than you really have the resources for make people stressed and turn
coworker relationships toxic. Everyone's just struggling to keep their heads
above water, and sometimes they have to kick someone else or climb on their
back simply in order not to drown.

A little extra time means people have the mental space and the space in their
schedules to help one another, to find out what one another are doing (so
people and departments can actually coordinate their work) and to get to know
one another. People who are under less pressure and less stressed are less
likely to snap at one another or resent others' requests and demands. It makes
all the difference in the world.

You know what else helps? Walls.

~~~
curtis
This seems like an opportune time to mention "Slack: Getting Past Burnout,
Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" by Tom DeMarco (DeMarco is better
known as one of the co-authors of Peopleware).

[https://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-
Effici...](https://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-
Efficiency/dp/0767907698)

If you've read and liked Peopleware, you should read Slack as well. If you
haven't read either one then you should.

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Nomentatus
The first personalities, maturity and goals/values of the first people in
matter a great, great deal as others have said. Flourishing is hoping for too
much; you just try to keep that shark moving and alive - you try to preserve a
working culture; if it improves that's delicious icing on the cake.

Humans are made to herd cognitively, getting that culture _firmly_ in place to
start with is actually harder than keeping it going. (Consistency and honesty
can be hard when you're in charge and get get away with shit.)

Still, as others say, it's bloody tough. I would add that you have to be ready
to confront and even fire people _fast_ (for clear, previously stated reasons)
if they really wander. If you can't filter out personality disorders, such as
narcissistic personality disorders any culture will crumble, though.

One critical purpose of your mission statement should be to explain to anyone
who's ever been fired why they were fired, and why they should have known from
the get-go that they'd be fired for doing what they did.

~~~
epalmer
I work in a cross functional web team at a university. It took 3 years to get
rid of 5 toxic people. Once that happened we flourished. We also have some
slack time. That helps. Many of us don't feel like there is slack time but
after working in a bank compliance IT department for years it is obvious that
university time runs at a slower pace.

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SiVal
Money has a lot to do with it. When a company is booming, people tend to be
optimistic, generous, enthusiastic, and feel secure. The company is more
generous and "enlightened", and their success feels like your success.

When a company is struggling, people get insecure, start worrying more about
who gets credit to avoid layoffs, a gloomy mood spreads to everyone, the
company starts taking away goodies and people get resentful, and so on.

You could repeat the question with, "assuming two companies are in the same X
financial state and changing at a rate of Y, what causes one to have a better
culture than the other?", because there is clearly more too it than money.

Even so, the rest of the factors float on top of the money tide, and it makes
a world of difference whether the tide is coming in or going out.

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user5994461
> From reading autobiographies, books, and blogs, I've gathered that creating
> an amazing company culture is much more of an art than a science.

Nope it's science. Just do everything right as suggested by "Peopleware" and
"The mythical man month".

Growth and new people cause the culture to shift. That's the biggest threat to
the current culture of growing companies.

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dvtv75
Being heard. Actually being heard, rather than having your say and then your
words being dismissed outright. "No, my IT guys tell me that your 10 year old
computer is good enough for photo manipulation/video editing and
compression/compiling a lot of code/large database work, it's just that you
aren't managing your time right if it's taking five hours to do the job you
need done in three."

Responsibility. I have worked for a CEO who is first to take credit, last to
take responsibility. He'll give instructions, and if you implement them but
his plan fails, it's your fault. Prove you did exactly what he said, and it's
still your responsibility.

Remuneration. Getting paid a fair amount, and not being expected to put unpaid
overtime in. Not being expected to use your own equipment and resources for
work that you must do or be fired, but aren't being paid for. No fiddling
staff timesheets to make your budget.

Proper equipment. 10 year old computers might eventually do the job, but the
desks they're sitting on collapse, the elevator doors won't close, one office
uses a portable fluorescent lamp because the main one failed three months ago
and nobody will authorize a replacement, the roof leaks near some high voltage
equipment but again, nobody will authorize the repair, and the office chairs
are all cast-offs from other departments that are outright dangerous to sit
on.

Have policies for conflict resolution. I worked at a place where one manager
was terrible at his job, so to distract he would fill out orders for street
addresses that didn't exist and then persecute sales staff for not completing
those orders. (I figured that one out because one of the addresses was about
five doors from his home.) Same guy kept dossiers on the entire staff, stuff
he could use to blame others for his failings. He would even take a dump and
not flush, on days that he knew one particular person was coming in, and start
rumors that this junior staff member was responsible. The CEO of that company
sat back and allowed himself to be manipulated, knowing exactly what was going
on, because it was easier than doing something about it. It all stopped when
that manager left, too.

Sufficient staffing. One place I worked fired a third of their productive
staff and replaced them with interns. Eventually, the interns left and we
couldn't fill the roles because had people wised up. Nobody wants to do a full
time job with the various liabilities involved for free, so we restaffed with
volunteers. The volunteers weren't reliable, because volunteers.

Adequate training. Don't give them a quick verbal primer on a job and leave
the new guy to it, then blame him when it goes wrong.

Actual emergency procedures. Had a fire started by a dusty lamp, it wasn't
reported to the appropriate authorities, and we all lived on a knife edge
wondering when it was going to happen again. (See responsibility.)

Honesty and integrity. One IT place I worked for would forge worksheets. The
owner would add a few hours labor here and there, because the business wasn't
making money (he had driven off all his customers) and Jesus wanted them to
have money. (I am not making this up.) He also would go out on jobs and
royally screw up the install, then send the staff out to fix it, and bill the
client for the lot - even when it was a church.

Respect for others. Don't chase people down the street, shouting at them that
their choice in OS or computer is wrong. Don't threaten staff that you'll get
some thugs after them if you've not met your legal or contractual obligations.

Now, you might read this and think "but these are all so obvious and basic,"
yet you would be surprised how many businesses have a tough time with the
obvious stuff. Many employers I've come across seem to think you owe them
because they hired you.

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Zelmor
I don't know what makes it flourish, but agile kills it for sure.

