Despite intense, often haughty agreement among HR and business executives about the importance of workplace culture, advocates enjoy surprisingly little commonality and precision in defining what it actually is. From the discussion, heavy on form but light on substance, one might conclude that culture functions a bit like the weather: impacting everyone, influencing everything, and permeating the workplace ubiquitously and from a great height. The weather, of course, isn’t something you change. You can accept it, enjoy it, brace for it, or shelter from it – but you can’t do much else. Sadly, that’s how many employees, managers, and even leaders think about company culture – as something to be recognized, handled, and possibly complained about – and that’s about it. But it doesn't have to be that way.
