Someone was telling me about about the tech company they work for and how promotions there were decided by how well your manager likes you. After a bit of commiserating and sharing some of my own experiences, I realized that I had never actually seen a company that had one of these great cultures you hear so much about. It is alleged they exist, but I have no real evidence that they do. I got to wondering whether the preponderance of toxic cultures was a bug or actually a feature.
Is it actually the case that it’s optimal for a company to have a “good culture” and happy employees? Or does a less healthy, more codependent employment relationship do a better job of extracting human resources for the employer? The codependent work culture is political, subjective, and disorienting to the individual contributors. But in the case of my friend this keeps her in the office and responsive to email far more often than she believes is healthy. It creates a lot of anxious activity that translates, albeit imperfectly, into the bottom line.
I spoke with someone else about this and it became apparent I don’t even have a great definition for good culture. I think what I mean by good culture has to do with alignment. Does the company find a way to make doing well by the employees—in many different senses—also mean doing well for the organization? If so, it has a good culture. If instead it finds a more exploitative relationship beneficial—working there will harm you but some combination of pay, prestige, the hope of future outcomes, or the cultivation of employee masochism makes the harm worth it—maybe its culture is not so great.
Given that the discussion in Silicon Valley around culture sounds a lot more like the performance of a religious ritual than the result of critical thinking, I imagine there is more nuance to the relationship between good culture and good business outcomes than is normally claimed. Whether or not good culture is good business probably depends on what the organization is doing, what their inputs and supply chain look like, what the competitive dynamics are, etc. There are very likely a good number of settings of these parameters for which pure exploitation is damned good business. And to be sure, talking about good culture is good business far more often than actually having a good culture is. A good culture isn’t just something you get for free, it is an investment with a cost, and depending on what kind of organization you’re in, I wouldn’t take it as an article of faith that it’s a profitable investment for your employer to undertake.