[Nomentatus]

The first personalities, maturity and goals/values of the first people in matter a great, great deal as others have said. Flourishing is hoping for too much; you just try to keep that shark moving and alive - you try to preserve a working culture; if it improves that's delicious icing on the cake.

Humans are made to herd cognitively, getting that culture firmly in place to start with is actually harder than keeping it going. (Consistency and honesty can be hard when you're in charge and get get away with shit.)

Still, as others say, it's bloody tough. I would add that you have to be ready to confront and even fire people fast (for clear, previously stated reasons) if they really wander. If you can't filter out personality disorders, such as narcissistic personality disorders any culture will crumble, though.

One critical purpose of your mission statement should be to explain to anyone who's ever been fired why they were fired, and why they should have known from the get-go that they'd be fired for doing what they did.

[epalmer]

I work in a cross functional web team at a university. It took 3 years to get rid of 5 toxic people. Once that happened we flourished. We also have some slack time. That helps. Many of us don't feel like there is slack time but after working in a bank compliance IT department for years it is obvious that university time runs at a slower pace.