So many pitfalls here, but it’s great when it actually works.
In my experience, you can describe a culture that exists, which is useful for onboarding, but you can’t impose a culture just by writing down the one you wish you had. When the Netflix deck first came out I saw a lot of people posting “we should adopt this culture!” because they didn’t understand this.
What creates a culture is mostly just an accumulation of what behavior and speech gets rewarded and punished over time by peers and the power hierarchy. It’s good to consciously “garden” the culture when the group is small and there can be consensus on this, because it rapidly becomes uncontrollable as the group grows.
And then, especially in larger groups, the ones writing the culture down may not really be in touch with the culture, or if they are, may not want to write down the truth because it doesn’t sound good in public or just runs into the observer paradox when you say it out loud.
In my experience, you can describe a culture that exists, which is useful for onboarding, but you can’t impose a culture just by writing down the one you wish you had. When the Netflix deck first came out I saw a lot of people posting “we should adopt this culture!” because they didn’t understand this.
What creates a culture is mostly just an accumulation of what behavior and speech gets rewarded and punished over time by peers and the power hierarchy. It’s good to consciously “garden” the culture when the group is small and there can be consensus on this, because it rapidly becomes uncontrollable as the group grows.
And then, especially in larger groups, the ones writing the culture down may not really be in touch with the culture, or if they are, may not want to write down the truth because it doesn’t sound good in public or just runs into the observer paradox when you say it out loud.