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MonBonify comments on The fallacy of work-life compartmentalization - Less Wrong
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Teamwork only happens when everyone in the group respects each other. Without respect, people don't try to understand different ways of thinking and communication breaks down. You end up with an environment where everyone has their own agenda, no one speaks the same language or subscribes to the same logic, and junior-level employees are forced to operate within a uniform system to which only small incremental changes can be made. It's so difficult to be understood that a very limiting lexicon of cliches develops to compensate, i.e. "reinvent the wheel" and "think outside the box." Even with respect, people don't have time to listen to each other. I agree that rational thinking could improve the workplace, but time is money and rational processes take time. If it was my company, I would say it was worth it--I crave efficiency in every system I chose to participate.
That said, I think it's inefficient to try and change corporate culture from the bottom up--but that doesn't mean I will stop trying. My reasoning being that if I'm not successful, at least I will have significantly honed my communication skills (hopefully).
Yep, good points on teamwork.
The apparent alternative, top-down, doesn't fare much better - I speak from some experience.
Culture change in general is very hard to bring about, because what we think of as "culture" tends to be precisely that which people do without thinking about why. To even describe cultural aspects often requires talking to an outsider: "Sorry about that, I should have explained that we don't greet people with handshakes here."
Most of the anecdotes I can recall about changing work place culture are examples of unintentionally changing it for the worse. Has there ever been a high profile positive culture change in a large corporation?
Joel Spolsky wrote an article about companies following the get-big-fast strategy or the grow-slow strategy. One of the disadvantages to the get-big-fast strategy is so many people come on board that any existing corporate culture is overrun. The implication here is that the only way to establish a good culture is to have it established in the founders and grow slowly.
This is why we should focus on a workplace culture that is not only good, but provably good and provably maintains its good properties (self-correcting if necessary) as the company or organization grows and adds people. The theory of such an organization could be called Friendly Workplace Culture, or FWC.
So is there hope for corporate culture? I sort of think the ability to articulate your ideas clearly and quickly is the key. It would be interesting to see how corporate culture changes if a company tries to only hire the most articulate people. They could even create an articulation test I bet!