
Ask HN: Is company 'culture' bullshit? - vegancap
Genuine question. We&#x27;re discussing team culture in our place of work at the moment, we&#x27;re a young company and we&#x27;re trying to define a &#x27;culture&#x27;, or at least the lead is. But I&#x27;m sceptical, from almost all my experience with people discussing company culture, it has been buzzword laden and pithy.<p>Is company culture, just company policies? The individuals in a team, a mixture of those, or something else entirely? I&#x27;m really struggling to contribute to the conversation because I just don&#x27;t &#x27;get it&#x27;.<p>I&#x27;ve often scoffed at companies claiming to have a &#x27;great culture&#x27;, because what that usually translates to is &#x27;we&#x27;ve got a table tennis table and sometimes associate with each other after working hours&#x27;. No one seems to have one set answer to what a company culture is, or how to create one, if you can create one at all? Or does it just arise coincidentally?<p>Any advice greatly welcomed! How, if at all, do you cultivate a &#x27;culture&#x27;, is it important? And... what does the term really mean for you and your companies?<p>Thanks in advance!
======
seren
I am not sure you can define a culture, it already exists and is developing
"naturally" in your team. What you can try is to find out what are the
motivating trait of your existing culture by talking with your peers, and
formalize / identify the top one and put in a poster ?

For example, is your team good at solving hard problems, deliver on time, have
great customer satisfaction, etc ? (I don't believe you could say yes to all
answers if you are totally honest..)

Identify the 3 keys aspects that actually exist in the company and
support/encourage those behavior.

------
dozzie
> Is company culture, just company policies?

No. Policies are just a way of trying to influence the culture. They're about
the only official way company as an entity has for this task.

I would say that the culture is what people in the company "reward" for doing.
If you admire others for their friendly attitude, you'll get more of that. If
you praise others for their smirky remarks, you'll get that more. It's very
hard to plan and design this deliberately.

------
penguinlinux
I work for a company here in New York and company culture is very important.
We define company culture with our brand, and also the people that work here.
Everyone is nice and everyone is engaged and you could say that we make an
effort to hire really nice people. Everyone here is respectful and you feel
like you are coming to see your friends are work. We celebrate work
anniversaries and the company is always streaming social media pictures,
tweets about what is going on at headquarters. Today for example one person
here does a snapchat takeover and we record ourselves and post what life is
like at HQ. I am a shy person so it is a little difficult for me to be this
open and social but the people here are nice and mean well so it is ok. I love
this place and it is one of the best places i've ever worked. :) so in other
words this place is only great because they built a culture here and it is
working for them.

------
sb8244
I work for a company that puts culture first. Our core values of positive,
supportive, self starting have always existed since the early days at the
company. These values have led the company in difficult situations and force
individuals to look at things differently than otherwise.

However, they are very realistic. For example, positive is about finding the
path out of trying situations with a level head. Not "everything is great"
when it's really on fire.

I think it's very important because I've seen the difference it makes. It is
also why we're at nearly 5 stars on Glassdoor with 100% CEO approval. We've
grown so much and putting them at the forefront is key.

Nothing to do with ping pong.

------
cauterized
Culture is about unspoken expectations and what people do that they're not
specifically told to do.

When people finish a project 10 minutes before they planned to grab lunch, do
they leave for lunch early? Do more of their own work? Sit down and help out a
colleague? Chat about Game of Thrones by the water cooler? Play ping pong?

Speaking of lunch, do people eat at their desks? Together in the kitchen or a
conference room? Alone outside the office? Together outside the office?

At the end of a hard day, what do people do? Stick in their chairs and surf
Facebook so the boss thinks they're putting in lots of hours? Go home to their
kids? Get into nerf gun wars? Play video games together? Have a beer together
in the office? Go out to a bar?

How competitive is your culture? Do people default to collaborative modes
instead? Where there is competition, is it friendly and constructive or
vicious and inclined to sabotage?

How much autonomy do people really have? How much hierarchy? How much process
and bureaucracy? What do you look for on a resume and in an interview? How do
your managers identify good work and how do they recognize and reward it? Do
certain roles get more appreciation than others? Do people speak out loud in
your open office, or whisper out of consideration for the people around them
or take their discussions to a conference room? Do people actually take
vacations or does that unlimited vacation policy just make them afraid because
they don't know how much they're expected to take?

These questions and a thousand more define the cultural differences between
companies. They're the reason I might consider working at a large company
(Google? IBM?) but certainly wouldn't work at Amazon or Goldman Sachs. They're
why I like the small startup-minded company I'm at now but not the culture at
most Kool-aid drinking startups. They'll affect what sorts of people you
retain and what sort of results you get out of them. They affect morale and
(via morale and burnout, among other things) productivity.

Now here's the crux, and this is very important:

Culture is introduced from above AND from below.

From above, you're responsible for what personalities you hire and what skills
and personal values they bring. You're responsible for what work behaviors you
reward. You set the example for how rigid hierarchy is, for how much vacation
people take, and for whether people are expected to spend 7 hours in the
office or 11.

But you can't force-feed culture either. Culture is set from below by the
personalities and personal values of the people you hire. How well they get
along. What they like to do when they have 10 minutes free or after work.

If your employees are more into knitting or WoW, buying a ping pong table
won't suddenly make them ping pong players. Taking everyone to a bar and
forcing them to socialize won't make them friends, but it might make some
people resentful.

All you can do is avoid hiring (and quickly fire) poisonous personalities, and
offer encouragement and support (in the form of money or time) to activities
that people already express interest in as a group and that you see as
constructive.

~~~
sportanova
There are 2 versions of culture:

1) The "culture" that management and recruiters talk about 2) The way that
@cauterized talks about, which includes all the subtle and not-so-subtle ways
that people work and interact in the company

1 is complete bullshit. It's the equivalent of (unironic) motivational
posters, and is just a series of buzzwords for PR.

2 is very real, but it's not something you can easily see from the outside,
and it's not something you'll ever get an honest answer on in an interview.
The best way is to have a friend in the company that will tell you exactly how
things work.

~~~
freestockoption
I feel the more #1 is defined, you end up with an old boys club that
alienates.

#2 seems to just mean: hire professionals who have integrity. Stuff that
sounds really obvious, but hard to quantify. Anything more seems to encroach
into #1. Which is bullshit or counter productive to the goal of creating a
culture.

My take on culture is: we don't have to be friends or even acquaintances, but
we must have respect for each other and be able to get things done. If we
become friends, that's great. But a great friend isn't always a great
coworker.

------
taprun
If it's dictated, it's not culture - it's fiat.

~~~
sportanova
It's funny (in an office space sort of way) when a company that's been around
for a while comes out with a "values" statement. "Grown adults, these are now
your reasons for living!"

