What is culture and how does it propagate?

Bonsai is not merely an art form – it is a way of life; a way of thinking; a way of practicing patience. When I think of culture especially "Company culture", I see a Bonsai tree, a tree cultured for many years taking shape as visualized by the artist. When it goes through many hardship and care like pruning, trimming, clamping, and wiring for years, you see beauty in it like Wabi-Sabi.

What is culture? It is a set of behaviors. If the behavior is not in-line then there will be consequences which then establish the expected behavior. This defines the culture. Culture is driven by the top management and not the values/ statements written over the pillars or walls. However once culture is set, the entire organization and its components i.e. employees behave in a way to keep the culture intact like a living entity. Organization is autopoietic i.e. has capability to self-produce itself irrespective of employees coming or leaving. The company culture is maintained like body temperature irrespective how many cells are created or discarded. Any component which is not adhering to this conformity will be, then, pruned.

In today's digital era, empathy towards people is of utmost importance within company for last long growth. Walmart founder Samuels once said "The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers...". CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella said "Ideas excite me, empathy grounds me". He wanted to create a culture that advocates empathy towards employees, customers. This belief of empathy then propagates from top management to middle and then finally to executives. And this works wonderfully because of our compulsion to conform and our obedience to authority.

Well, there are ample of negative examples.