3 ms·

Lots of large companies have strong corporate cultures, good and bad. Southwest Airlines, Uber, UPS, Apple...

• rl3 9y ago
  I'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 ago
    BBC, USMC?
    • gaius 9y ago
      Maybe not such good examples given Jimmy Saville and the recent Facebook scandal with the naked female marines photos being shared.
      • jk563 9y ago
        Bad incidents, but I found the culture at the BBC to be fantastic 3-4 years ago.
  • rgbrenner 9y ago
    But 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.