[SkyMarshal]

>culture is important

I see this asserted a lot, but what exactly is meant by 'culture', and is it really true?

For example, if by 'culture' you mean having an office full of well-educated, capable, motivated engineers and problem-solvers vs not well-educated, capable, or motivated, then sure, I buy that.

Strong leadership that intimately knows the business? Sure, Intel and Apple being exhibits A & B.

But beyond that, what parts of culture should every business strive to replicate, and what parts are more likely overvalued in the zeitgeist due to survivorship bias and other cognitive mistakes?

[hack_edu]

Have you ever worked somewhere that was perhaps a decent job, but you dreaded coming in to work because of bosses/coworkers/distractions? That's culture, just bad culture. Everyone seems to be able to relate to bad culture. Company culture is a two way street, good culture seems harder to come by than bad. I can't even say I've even been somewhere with 'good' culture but it definitely exists and is really just the inverse of bad culture.

I'd say one of the things that draws people to telecommute most is too much exposure to bad company culture. Arguments in regards to productivity and environment are more responses to 'bad' culture than anything else.

[Spooky23]

Think of culture as cooking.

You can use the finest meats, freshest vegetables and highest quality herbs, and still produce an awful meal by assembling them wrong. But on the flip side, you CAN make a very good meal from mediocre ingredients by preparing them properly.

Two examples form my career:

Workplace A: full of smart, motivated problem solvers and "A players" who failed in key ways because a toxic culture just poisoned anything. People were nasty and busy protecting fiefs. The individual work efforts were great, but they couldn't come together.

Workplace B: A place where there was a fairly broad range of people from marginally skilled folks to the super-smart where the teams just got along and had leadership that promoted cross-training and cooperation. People were friendly & professional.

As a leader, doing the care & feeding to maintain good culture (aka making work a place where you want to work) is hard. I think that after you reach a certain size, 100% remote workers make it harder, at least for a core team. Also, your business requirements around security and other factors may force you to do things that will damage that remote culture.