Today I was musing about company culture. Most tech job postings these days mention “our culture” and tend to interview for you to be a culture fit. Sometimes I really wonder if they’re confusing culture vs. culture:

culture |ˈkəlCHər|

  1. The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively: 20th century popular culture.
  2. The cultivation of bacteria, tissue cells, etc., in an artificial medium containing nutrients.

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

Forcing a culture on new employees tends to lend itself to definition #2. Finding new employees that fit into what is perceived as the #1 definition actually means your culture is artificial. Exposing your human intellectual manifestations to your candidates and letting them determine if they want to contribute to that culture seems to be the right move.

Forcing a culture to form in your company feels more of an experiment than how human nature behaves. Find people you want to work with based upon how they work and not how you want them to work. You might just find their distinctiveness is what your company needs to move up to the next level of success.