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Companies cannot have an unchanging culture. Business and new opportunities always come up that aren't the same as when the company started. People get complace
by coldcode 12y ago
Companies cannot have an unchanging culture. Business and new opportunities always come up that aren't the same as when the company started. People get complacent, executives demand more and more pay/power, competitors find weaknesses, and the response is to either stay the course (get more conservative), or more flail around and try to adapt somehow. Either way you eventually have to do something different which changes your "culture." Companies which refuse to adapt to changing conditions wind up like the dodo.
- petervandijck 12y agoCulture doesn't mean not adapting to change. Amazon is adapting wonderfully, and I'd argue it's not because their culture keeps changing, on the contrary.
- crdb 12y agoYes! And a point that often gets missed out in this argument is that the value of the job to new and current staff changes as the organisation grows in headcount and complexity. It's easy to hire great programmers with plenty of experience, who manage themselves and make the right strategic decisions, when you've raised funding for a promising idea and you have enough equity to give them a substantial slice. It's a totally different equation when you have 1,000+ employees each doing small but necessary jobs, and you have practically no points left in your ESOP, especially since aforementioned talent expects a 20-30% raise every year. And good luck if you're a mid-size paper printing business in Ohio who needs someone to do integration projects.
- rhizome 12y ago"Openness," or open-mindedness, is an example of a cultural trait that does not need to change through adaptation.