[lostcolony]

Yes, there are bad cultures. More commonly, there are companies without a culture. Oh, different departments may have a de facto culture, but the company as a whole doesn't have one. That's a problem. Because where a company grows and delivers value is in the alignment of very disparate concentrations and expertises. You can build the best damn software system in a given domain, but if your marketing team isn't on the same page, it will fail. And if your marketing team is awesome, but the product completely misaligns with what they're selling it as, you will see some initial success, but very quickly be disrupted or flat out fail (though if your business people are good they can possibly swarm to buy any competitors before they become a threat).

The decisions are important, yes. But the person at the top isn't making every decision. They may have the best intentions, but if somewhere down the chain of command someone is prioritizing the wrong thing, focusing on the wrong thing, but still doing their job okay, they won't be told to do differently or let go. Defining a focus allows their immediate superior to recognize they're not doing their job. It even allows their subordinate to tell the manager "Hey, our mission/values statement says X; are you sure we should be doing this?" and possibly fix it without escalating it (though if escalation is necessary, it also provides a reason to escalate it, and a reason for the superior to pay attention).