Culture, culture, culture. It's universally cited as essential to an org's success, but... what exactly is the "culture" of a workplace? I think an org has goo

Culture, culture, culture. It's universally cited as essential to an org's success, but... what exactly is the "culture" of a workplace? I think an org has good culture if it has a good mission, the mission is communicated clearly and consistently throughout the org, people plan together thoughtfully for how best to execute the mission, and they execute their plans reliably and with respect for the time and effort of colleagues (e.g. reasonable questions and requests are answered in a courteous and timely fashion). If all of that happens, I would rate the org culture as great, and people will naturally enjoy the company of their colleagues out of mutually earned respect. None of this seems to have anything to do with getting together in person. You can set and communicate mission without being physically together, and you can plan thoughtfully without being physically together. And directed, thoughtful, and reliable people are great to work with whether it's in person or through a screen, and the opposite kind of person is also a pain regardless of the medium. There are specific situations when being in-person can work better. I'm sure with very creative work, like developing a Disney movie, you sometimes want to get together to feed off each other's energy. But I don't think it's really that important in general. The important thing is everyone doing their jobs, and the people doing their jobs getting proportional recognition.