4 ms·
I've often heard that it's extremely difficult to maintain any real culture or ethos beyond the amount of employees the CEO can personally manage, and that numb
by rl3 9y ago
I've often heard that it's extremely difficult to maintain any real culture or ethos beyond the amount of employees the CEO can personally manage, and that number is around 40-50. AirBnB is far beyond that, so it's no wonder.
The larger the company, the more it's going to decay and suck. The degree to which it does is a function of management style and org structure.
Of course, Kool-Aid doesn't help matters—especially at scale where it rings hollow.
- qq66 9y agoLots of large companies have strong corporate cultures, good and bad. Southwest Airlines, Uber, UPS, Apple...
- rl3 9y agoI'd argue each of those qualify as overall bad, however I can't really think of a single example of good corporate culture at that scale regardless. Perhaps good culture at that scale is simply the absence of culture—beyond simple items like accountability that largely boil down to "have a spine". If Kool-Aid doesn't work at scale, then better to not push it at all.
- george_morgan 9y agoBBC, USMC?
- rgbrenner 9y agoBut how strict is your accountability? I'll go back to my walmart vs google example.. in google, there is more leeway and understanding about risks.. in walmart, you deviate from procedures and you have a problem. How strict the rules are is part of the culture. You're just redefining everything as vague as possible (by changing strictness of accountability to a "simple item" with no details) to say the culture doesnt exist.
- rl3 9y ago>You're just redefining everything as vague as possible (by changing strictness of accountability to a "simple item" with no details) to say the culture doesnt exist. The operative word was no culture beyond items like accountability. That is to say, accountability certainly does constitutes an aspect of culture. I did not go into detail because the minitutae of accountability as it relates to culture didn't seem relevant. The gist of the comment was that you can't really pervade a large organization's culture with a high amount of genuine motivation, and if you can it's extremely hard. Even space agencies suffer from shitty culture at times, and exploring the universe is arguably one of the purest forms of Kool-Aid in existence.
- rgbrenner 9y agoI dont know where you heard that from.. certainly not anyone with a background in management. There are companies that have wildly different cultures.. Google vs Walmart for example. Culture creation/management is taught in business school... the culture the management creates is there to serve the purpose of the organization. In other words, Google tries to create a culture that encourages innovation.. versus Walmart's culture of ringing every last penny of costs out (which is done through strict adherence to rules and procedures). It is not possible to operate Walmart with Google's culture. The company would be bankrupt tomorrow. There's a post a bit higher up with "you can't operate a business designed to evade regulation without that attitude eventually permeating its entire corporate culture"... and that is absolutely true. It's impossible for management to hire and encourage people to break rules, and then say their own rules are sacrosanct.
- argonaut 9y agoYou really can't compare companies in different industries. Most Google employees are "knowledge" workers with some barrier to replacement. Most Walmart employees are performing mundane service work that is largely replaceable with any other person.
- madeofpalk 9y agoWell no, you're forgetting there's a very big Walmart 'Head Office' that would have its own culture.
- rl3 9y agoWalmart Labs is likely a subculture within what you describe. If I had to guess, unlike their masters they probably find adorning their office walls in the stuffed trophies of union-organizing retail employees to simply be poor taste.
- rgbrenner 9y agoOk sure.. Costco v sams club; uber v lyft
- 9y ago
- specialist 9y agoAs a minion, I've experienced this. The founder of our hyper growth company was sincerely love, unicorns, team, culture, kittens. Whereas the VPs thru Directors were toxic corporate climbers. I had to enter mgmt myself, to see just how hard it is to deflect the needle, to accept, reconcile the disconnect.