Culture vultures (CVs?) are birds that feed on carcasses. Invite a venue (believe it or not, that's the collective noun for vultures; when they are circling, they are called a kettle) into your boardroom, and they'll go straight for the jugular. Don't make too much of it however; the bald birds are associated with hairier and scarier tales. By the way, that's not the last word on vulture collectives; according to Wikipedia, "A group of vultures is called a wake, committee, venue, kettle, or volt. The term kettle refers to vultures in flight, while committee, volt, and venue refer to vultures resting in trees. Wake is reserved for a group of vultures that are feeding."

Enough of vultures. Let's turn to cultures. Some companies have histories going back hundreds of years but not cultures. That is as it should be. Values may survive; cultures usually don't. Coca-Cola's original formula contained cocaine. The banana republics have fought off their US corporate exploiters. Newer countries are filling their ranks. In 1986, then prime minister of Australia Paul Keating warned of the dangers of the country becoming a banana republic. Among the new banana republics are the Philippines (for tobacco) and the Maldives.

While chopping and changing goes on, in the corporate world - thanks to startups and equally rapid closures - keeping track of cultural issues has become more important. Yahoo thrived in its days as "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". Today, in a less "officious" avatar, it is being sold as scrap.

Startups start up with a culture which is impossible to sustain. There is an excitement in the beginning which you cannot transfer to mere employees, even if they have stock options. After all, you don't know which way the cat will jump; your options may turn out to be valueless. The folks at Infosys make much of the fact that some of their long-serving chauffeurs are worth more than Rs 1 crore apiece. But how does that compare with the thousands of crores the promoters have made. Or, for that matter, the $7.45 million CEO Vishal Sikka grossed in 2015-16. Next year, Sikka is slated to get $11 million.

But culture is not about salaries and perks. Says Kirsti Grant, former VP of talent at Vend, a cloud-based retail management platform: "The number of people who have launched into pitches on how awesome their culture is because they have foosball (table football) and beer is amazing. That's not your culture; that's not why people turn up to work every day. Having cool stuff around is just cool stuff. It's more important that you provide people with what they need to do awesome work and a purpose that will get them excited about going above and beyond for you."

"The problem with the term "culture" is that it tends to essentialise groups: it simplistically represents a particular group of people as a unified whole that shares simple common values, ideas, practices, and beliefs," says John Traphagan in the Harvard Business Review. "But the fact is such groups really don't exist. Within any group characterised as having a culture, there are numerous contested opinions, beliefs and behaviours. People may align themselves to behave in a way that seems as though they buy into expressed corporate values and "culture," but this is just as likely to be a product of self-preservation as it is of actually believing in those values or identifying with some sloganised organisational culture."

So how does one establish a cultural continuum (see box)? It's simple. It all depends on the head honcho. If he believes in short-changing employees, they will do the same with customers. If the CEO is loopy, the employees will be loony; Chief Fun Officers' bosses are often Jokers-in-Chief. But things settle down. Fun Officers have vanished. Vultures are disappearing. Headline in a national daily: "Vanishing vultures make comeback in Tamil Nadu." Another headline from the same newspaper: "Forest department to open seventh vulture 'restaurant' in Gadchiroli". Why don't the protectors of Hindu culture object to cows on the menu at such places?

BUILD TO SCALE

• Scaling company culture
• Start with purpose.
• Define common language, values and standards.
• Lead by example.
• Embrace your frontline cultural ambassadors.
• Seek, speak and act with truth.
• Be greedy with your human capital -- then treat them right.

Source: Harvard Business Review