Culture is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Companies with the "no asshole rule" have it backwards and are likely full of assholes, starting at the top.

> Culture is descriptive, not descriptive.

This seems to either be a typo, or clever in a way that I don't understand.

Thanks, fixed.

Culture can be, but should not be thought of as shared values. The more accurate way to think of it is shared delusions. Their is nothing in "values" that is actually truth, just emotional feelings about it. Shared emotions can be replaced arbitrarily and you have a different culture but reality does not change. That's a delusion, and to use culture correctly in an organization you must recognize that what you are trying to manipulate is just a delusion. Deal with it as delusions and then effective techniques can be learned and implemented.

We live in an age were our understanding of 'culture' is as mature as medieval understanding of biology.

Until social science matures, we will be stuck arguing about the balance of the humours.

I like the flora and fauna picture at the top. To summarize the article: culture is like an ecosystem, not a hammer.