> Culture is not a good or bad thing. It’s a shared thing. I sometimes hear people say “they aren’t a culture fit” as if it’s a bad thing, or others feel bad pointing this out as if it’s an indictment on someone’s character. It’s not. I am not a culture fit at probably any other company, which is why I had to help start one!
This (which is one of Brian's notes in the article) is one of the best ways to think about culture that I've encountered. A company can't have "good" culture or "bad" culture. It just has a certain shared way of doing things that may or may not vibe with you.
On a related note, Tony Hsieh of Zappos believes what your culture is doesn't matter as much as having a strong identity. Just figure out who you, as a company, are and the rest will follow:
"...one of the really interesting things I found from the research is that it actually doesn’t matter what your values are, what matters is that you have them and that you align the organization around them. And the power actually comes from the alignment not from the actual values"[1]