Company culture is like a magical unicorn, you can’t see it but everyone says they have a great one.
That’s because it’s not built in a day, its built on top of a lot variants. It’s the day to day interactions, the 1–1’s, the processes you build, the people you hire, the people you fire, the way you deal with bad behaviour, the way you praise the good deeds, the way you interact with clients, suppliers, investors, random people in the street. All this culminates in company culture.
Good or bad, all companies have a culture, even if you don’t proactively find ways to improve it.
For a long time I struggled with understanding how to shape the culture towards something you believe in. Now I know it’s a living, breathing creature that co-exists at the office and changes form little by little, it can grow into a monster or a fluffy little thing.
You can’t really see it but you can feel it and whether you like it or not, it will always be there.
PS. This article by Andy Dunn is one of the best articles I’ve read on company culture: https://medium.com/@dunn/creating-culture-21a117803f80