4 ms·

When people talk about company culture, I always have to think about a new CEO that started in a company I worked for. He was there for a few months and always

by k__ 6y ago

When people talk about company culture, I always have to think about a new CEO that started in a company I worked for. He was there for a few months and always talked about how things we do (and did for years, since the company existed) weren part of the company culture. Like he could simply walk in and say what the culture of the company is. I understand that he wanted to turn the company around, but he talked like some kind of history revisionist. No man, this is the culture here, it grew over decades, try to make new policies and hope it changes. But simply saying it's not like it is won't achieve anything.

gonzo41 6y ago
Well I've seen culture change in a day. If you have enough power and can unilaterally change an incentive structure you can get people to fall in line really quickly. When I worked at a bank we had pretty predatory selling practices and a fitting culture. This was starting to catch the eye of the media and government so the Bank exec stepped in and said the parties over and If anyone doesn't conform to these new rules then they're out on the street. That day, the culture changed, and everyone was happy to changed because they didn't want the existential consequences to happen to them. There's the softly softly approach over years and then there's the speeding u-turn. Both can work. The latter just takes more grit.
dan-robertson 6y ago
It is an important part of the job of the CEO to say what the values of the company should be, and make sure that the company tends towards following those values. The culture then follows by that. It is allowed but insufficient for the ceo to declare that the company is to be more open or collaborative—they must also make sure that management below them are deciding things (eg distribution of work to teams, how performance is assessed) in ways which promote those values. And sometimes values do need to change quickly to change the focus of a business. Maybe VC money runs out and profitability becomes more important than growth. Setting values can distribute the work of changing a business across all its staff.

by k__ 6y ago

gonzo41 6y ago

Well I've seen culture change in a day. If you have enough power and can unilaterally change an incentive structure you can get people to fall in line really quickly. When I worked at a bank we had pretty predatory selling practices and a fitting culture. This was starting to catch the eye of the media and government so the Bank exec stepped in and said the parties over and If anyone doesn't conform to these new rules then they're out on the street. That day, the culture changed, and everyone was happy to changed because they didn't want the existential consequences to happen to them. There's the softly softly approach over years and then there's the speeding u-turn. Both can work. The latter just takes more grit.

dan-robertson 6y ago

It is an important part of the job of the CEO to say what the values of the company should be, and make sure that the company tends towards following those values. The culture then follows by that. It is allowed but insufficient for the ceo to declare that the company is to be more open or collaborative—they must also make sure that management below them are deciding things (eg distribution of work to teams, how performance is assessed) in ways which promote those values. And sometimes values do need to change quickly to change the focus of a business. Maybe VC money runs out and profitability becomes more important than growth. Setting values can distribute the work of changing a business across all its staff.