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“What art thou about, great king?”
[The Song of Roland, CCLXI]
The common sense of the word “culture” – as in, the collective customs and achievements of a people and a particular form of collective intellectual development – has been around only since roughly the mid 1800’s.
Before this, it was a term borrowed (especially by Cicero) from agriculture mostly referring to a systematic refinement of the mind (e.g., is he “cultured?”). In other words, in the background of any use of the word “culture” in reference to an institution, we must remember that we are borrowing a farming term to ask the question: “what is grown here?”
So when we look for a “culture fit” for a particular company, that is the seed of what we’re asking. What kind of people and communities does this company aim to grow, both in-house and with their product?
Simultaneously, then, we’re looking at what they do and how they do it: do they help people build cars or rent offices? Manage money or go on weekend adventures? What is their mission statement, Does the mission statement matter to people, and if so, how does it permeate the atmosphere?
From what we’ve said so far it follows that we can work best for companies that know who they are. A strong mission statement and a strong sense of who thrives there show us what makes this company interesting, because interesting people are interesting because of what they choose to love.
It seems to be the case that not every company will have a strong sense of just exactly what they are about. Thus, the kind of questions we ask employers are meant to get to the heart of their entrepreneurial spirit – the same entrepreneurial spirit that embraced the challenges of founding to bring a company and therefore a mission from "Zero to One".
Simply put, job hunters can be a culture fit at your workplace if they can see their work as a pathway to personal growth. If you can look at the mission statement of your organization and understand just how your challenges at work are the challenges you need as a human being, then you're well disposed to be a culture fit. Our natural aptitudes give us clues as to which workplaces might help us to do this with the most alacrity.
“Let us therefore bestow our diligence on those concerns for which we are the best fitted.”
[Cicero (106-43 BC): De Officiis I, xxxi]
