I believe companies have a soul. It is a summary of the inspirations of it's employees and appreciation of these inspirations by employer.
Companies typically try to formulate this soul into "values". Unfortunately these will tend to inevitably turn against the good cause - "values" tend to amputate the soul because in people's minds and in everyday's management realities "values" turn into outgiven, externalised consultancy styled jargon. Companies make it even worse by enforcing these "values" in policies and in best practices ... which do not really go along with the term "soul".
For me what happened eg in Nokia is an example of this.... Nokia's soul was really drive for better solutions. I felt (in the 1990's) that this was practically every individual's primary agenda in the company - to solve things in the best possible way. Also, Nokia's real culture valued this greatly. "Solving" was encouraged and appreciated. Then it all changed - management was officially (eg by Mr. JT Berqvist) stated to be the "only scarce resource", "everything else (=everybody) is plentiful". 2000 was the start of the era where Nokia amputed it's soul, it's employees' spirit.... and it's competitiveness.
For me Apple's soul in the quest of mechanical and aesthetical perfection - they drive for it and excel in the markets.
Companies typically try to formulate this soul into "values". Unfortunately these will tend to inevitably turn against the good cause - "values" tend to amputate the soul because in people's minds and in everyday's management realities "values" turn into outgiven, externalised consultancy styled jargon. Companies make it even worse by enforcing these "values" in policies and in best practices ... which do not really go along with the term "soul".
For me what happened eg in Nokia is an example of this.... Nokia's soul was really drive for better solutions. I felt (in the 1990's) that this was practically every individual's primary agenda in the company - to solve things in the best possible way. Also, Nokia's real culture valued this greatly. "Solving" was encouraged and appreciated. Then it all changed - management was officially (eg by Mr. JT Berqvist) stated to be the "only scarce resource", "everything else (=everybody) is plentiful". 2000 was the start of the era where Nokia amputed it's soul, it's employees' spirit.... and it's competitiveness.
For me Apple's soul in the quest of mechanical and aesthetical perfection - they drive for it and excel in the markets.
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