Culture is about power dynamics, unspoken priorities and beliefs, mythologies, conflicts, enforcement of social norms, creation of in/out groups and distribution of wealth and control inside companies. Culture is usually ugly. It is as much about the inevitable brokenness and dysfunction of teams as it is about their accomplishments. Culture is exceedingly difficult to talk about honestly. The critique of startup culture that came in large part from the agile movement has been replaced by sanitized, pompous, dishonest slogans.

Let’s examine popular startup trends that are being called “culture” and look beneath the surface to find the real culture that may be playing out beneath it. This is not a critique of the practices themselves, which often contribute value to an organization. This is to show a contrast between the much deeper, systemic cultural problems that are rampant in our startups and the materialistic trappings that can disguise them.

(via: What Your Culture Really Says)

Yikes. Can’t remember the last time I read such a searing and articulate deconstruction of sloganeering, especially on the topic of culture that is so top of mind right now.

The point on “shipping” especially resonates.

We are all makers who are focused on shipping.

What your culture might actually be saying is… Features are the most important function of our business. We lack processes for surfacing and addressing technical debt. We have systemic infrastructure problems but they are not relevant because we are more focused on short-term adoption than long-term reliability. We prioritize fast visible progress, even if it is trivial, over longer and more meaningful projects. Productivity is measured more by lines of code than the value of that code. Pretty things are more important than useful things.

I will freely admit I drank the shipping kool-aid, and this is jarring. However, it does vindicate this nagging feeling that shipping something that’s minimally “viable” often fails a myriad list of other priorities, such as meaningfulness and ethicalness.

Another point that resonated was the euphemistic potential of the phrase “cultural fit”:

We make sure to hire people who are a cultural fit

What your culture might actually be saying is… We have implemented a loosely coordinated social policy to ensure homogeneity in our workforce. We are able to reject qualified, diverse candidates on the grounds that they “aren’t a culture fit” while not having to examine what that means - and it might mean that we’re all white, mostly male, mostly college-educated, mostly young/unmarried, mostly binge drinkers, mostly from a similar work background. We tend to hire within our employees’ friend and social groups. Because everyone we work with is a great culture fit, which is code for “able to fit in without friction,” we are all friends and have an unhealthy blur between social and work life. Because everyone is a “great culture fit,” we don’t have to acknowledge employee alienation and friction between individuals or groups. The desire to continue being a “culture fit” means it is harder for employees to raise meaningful critique and criticism of the culture itself.

The insidious aspect of this application of “cultural fit” is how easily it passes by unexamined - and it makes me wonder about my own blindspots. My friend Tash Wong is working on her thesis project which is broadly about thinking with alternate and diverse perspectives. We’ve been exploring the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Pulling together these two strands of thought, it makes me wonder if this application of the “cultural fit” filter creates efficient but ultimately ineffective teams. Their internal consistency makes for seamless coordination, but sacrifices diverse perspective, adaptability and resilience. Coming from a computer science background, I am especially suspicious of my own biases towards “efficient” team building.

Lots to think about.