Ive used this as a reference and passed it around my manager leaning engineering circles. Its really good as a basis for a conversation. The major takeaways for me are
1. Culture has to be an explicit decision
2. Changing culture is incredibly difficult. Emphasis on incredibly.
Chances are you wont be able to build a stars culture, but lots of companies use that as their implied cultural northstar and fail at it.
Its not about building a culture to grow stars but to grow a place stars want to be.
Its mostly money and clarity , no politics.
I look at valve and think thats a good place to be an engineer. But they dont let any one in. Stars arent born or created. They are willed by the individual.
You put george washington carver in a field of peanuts he becomes a chemist. You put 40% of college students in fundies 1 and they drop out by the third week.
This also relates to organizational fit. The so called "contigency theory" has long said that the optimal organization depends on context.
Sadly, this context was usually defined to be outside of the firm.
The area of "internal context" is a current area of research. The SPEC project has been very useful in this regard.
One thing unclear to me from this paper is on what sources of information did they classify the orgs by model -- was it only by founder and executive claims, or were there other sources? (Simple example: when an executive claims the Star model, was the top-salary component of that checked against available industry salary info?)
Why this question came to mind, while I was reading and then skimming: some of these models we see claimed as attractions for recruiting and PR purposes, yet industry chatter often suggests that, say, a company that's been claiming the glamorous Star is maybe more the less-glamorous Bureaucracy or Autocracy.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 20.5 ms ] thread1. Culture has to be an explicit decision
2. Changing culture is incredibly difficult. Emphasis on incredibly.
Chances are you wont be able to build a stars culture, but lots of companies use that as their implied cultural northstar and fail at it.
Its mostly money and clarity , no politics.
I look at valve and think thats a good place to be an engineer. But they dont let any one in. Stars arent born or created. They are willed by the individual.
You put george washington carver in a field of peanuts he becomes a chemist. You put 40% of college students in fundies 1 and they drop out by the third week.
Sadly, this context was usually defined to be outside of the firm. The area of "internal context" is a current area of research. The SPEC project has been very useful in this regard.
Why this question came to mind, while I was reading and then skimming: some of these models we see claimed as attractions for recruiting and PR purposes, yet industry chatter often suggests that, say, a company that's been claiming the glamorous Star is maybe more the less-glamorous Bureaucracy or Autocracy.