This article drifted across my social-sphere in the last couple days:
http://blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com/blog/2013/02/20/what-your-culture-really-says/
It's a critique of startup-culture, especially agile culture. But what do we all mean by culture?
Culture: It's the unwritten rules and expectations governing interpersonal relationships.
Culture is the expectation that the Owner shall never be talked to except through a manager (jumping the line is really frowned on).
Culture tells you never to leave for home until your manager has left (don't get to the office at 7am, leave at 7pm).
Culture is what keeps the newest-hire from taking more than a single day vacation near Christmas/New Years (we were all in that barrel, now it's your turn).
Culture is the expectation that you're not really working unless you are seen to be in the office with your butt in a chair (don't be the first one in the office, never leave first).
Culture is what forces you to go to after-work outings with your co-workers when it is the owner organizing it, no matter how 'optional' they say it is. (when the boss says 'optional' what he really means is he'll be very disappointed in you but won't fire you).
Culture is what causes all of your coworkers ask you where your job-interview is when you show up to work in a button-up and tie (the only reason a dev wears a tie is to get a job).
Culture is not having a beer fridge in the office. Culture is being thought Not A Team Player if you don't drink.
Culture is not having ping-pong tournaments. Culture is being unable to get in the In Crowd if you have all the hand/eye coordination of a gerbil.
Having lived in startup-land for a while now, rubbed shoulders with the residents, chatted about work/life balance around the free meals at conferences, and all in all been more aware of people talking about startup culture, this article makes a lot of good points.
One friend of mine called out a specific line in this article, the We don't have managers, and the company is managed without a hierarchy one. That's one I hadn't heard of before, but apparently it's a thing. My job isn't like that. We have managers, they... manage. Like they should. Go, team!
A couple of the others are great ideas for smaller companies but completely fail to scale to larger sizes. I'm thinking of, meetings are evil, we have as few of them as possible. Culturally speaking, the failure-mode of no meetings is siloization. If you're small enough everyone is in the same silo, it works. If you're not... problems. This is line is pushed in job-adverts to attract creators, but their managers most definitely have meetings. And sometimes those meetings are sneaky, they're one-on-ones at your desk.
The we don't have a vacation policy thing is spot on. Without that little tickle of, "You have 12 days of vacation left, you're going to lose them if you don't use them by the end of the year," you don't actually take them. At both prior jobs, both with vacation carry-over limits, once most people got enough time on the job to actually hit those limits they actually did hit them. Especially at WWU where I had 4 or 5 weeks of vacation; one co-worker took Fridays off for two months as a way to burn his back. If left to our own devices we'd probably take 2-3 weeks a year.
My current employer is one of the "don't have a vacation policy" places, and people do not take as much vacation as they would if it was being accounted. Due to the gobs of it I got at WWU I'm already used to just taking time off when I need it, but I am missing the 'vacation at home for a week' I ended up taking once in a while to make the books balance.
The we have a team of people who are responsible for organizing frequent employee social events item is not one we have (1: not VC funded, 2: not big enough yet) but I know people who work at such places. And yes, the person in charge of this is a woman, or if it's a team it's mostly women on it. The critique on diversity is very much valid.