你是否在为一家伟大的公司工作？对照本文就知道

    《财富》杂志一年一度的“最适宜工作的100家公司”榜单，为我们如何从整体上看待公司文化提供了有用的观察角度。大多数人会草草翻阅杂志或在电脑上不停翻页，只看那些美食大厨、午休室、瑜伽老师以及其他代表“伟大”工作场所的图片和夸张的描述。

    尽管如此，真正“最适宜工作的公司”都有正确的公司文化，而且它们不止是“极好的工作场所。”

    《财富》也意识到了这一点，并委派了一名高级作者为这些公司能够入选“最适宜工作的公司”提供佐证，这些佐证与它们提供的令人瞠目结舌或垂涎三尺（比如谷歌的淡紫色山核桃玉米面包）的员工福利无关。

    《财富》记者杰奥夫•科尔文写道：“令人印象深刻的福利，并非任何一家公司入选榜单的理由。伟大工作场所的本质在于：一种内在的精髓，一种决定公司特质的不可或缺的品质。”

    从个人角度而言，“最适宜工作的公司”榜单总是让我非常兴奋。《财富》数十年来一直根据“多少”（收入、市值等）来跟踪公司，同时也在努力衡量工作场所品质中更人性化的优点，这种方式始终令我印象深刻。

    入选《财富》杂志“最适宜工作的公司”榜单意味着，一家公司走在正确的轨道上。这表明，这家公司关心员工，欣赏他们的热情，希望让他们在工作场所感到舒适。瑜伽课和美食都是为了更人性化经营进行的投资，是向正确的公司文化迈出的一大步。

    《韦氏词典》2014年的“年度热词”——即在词典网站上搜索最多的词汇——便是“文化”。研究文化是目前的一个主流趋势。原因何在？因为在当今相互联系日益密切的时代，我们可以更深入地研究一家公司，了解它的过去与现在，讨论其行为，甚至敦促其做出改变。

    想想当一家机构出现某种错误时我们的反应。人们不再习惯于接受肤浅的解释。当一名学生在大学校园遭遇性侵，或一名手无寸铁的平民被警察杀害时，人们会谈论“强奸文化”和“警察文化”。我们希望了解启迪个人思考的更大背景，以及推动个人行为的力量。我们开始明白，态度、行动、心态与信念均源自我们作为集体角色的内心深处。

    我们不再对坏苹果感兴趣，而是对长出苹果的树更感兴趣。“文化”之所以成为年度热词，是因为我们希望得到更深层次的解释。尽管当事情发展顺利的时候，我们不会下意识地问同样的问题，但事实上，我们应该如此。在某些领域，例如体育运动中，这种改变已经开始。

    圣安东尼奥马刺队创造了职业篮球历史上令人难以置信的、罕见的连胜纪录。虽然其他球队希望复制这样的成功，但聪明的球队并没有选择挖走马刺队的明星球员，而是尽最大努力改造整个团队系统（包括如何招聘，如何物色优秀球员，如何指导球队，球队预算，训练，比赛，招募自由球员等），竭力模仿以无私分享球权著称的马刺文化。虽然不可能完全模仿马刺队的文化，但通过效仿马刺队，亚特兰大老鹰队已经成为今年NBA常规赛的领跑者。

    组织文化如同一个人的性格。赫拉克利特曾经说过，性格决定命运。就像一个家庭无法模仿另一个家庭一样，没有公司能够完全模仿其他公司的文化。经商的核心就是通过做别人无法模仿的事情来获得专属优势，不是吗？而文化可能是一家公司最差异化的资产，因此，公司领导者是否应该更用心、更认真地考虑如何塑造、培养和扩大公司文化？不过，一旦涉及公司文化，我们往往就被困在如何塑造和管理诸如福利、津贴和工作场所等公司文化的表层区域。

    Fortune’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” listprovides useful insights into how we collectively view corporate culture. Most of us flip through the pages or click through the screens hovering over pictures and blurbs highlighting gourmet chefs, nap rooms, yoga instructors and other signifiers of “great” workplaces.

    That said, the true “Best Companies to Work For” have the right culture and aren’t just great workplaces.

    Fortune itself is aware of this, even assigning one of its top writers to argue that being a “Best Company to Work For” has little to do with the jaw-dropping (and mouth-watering – trying biting into Google’s lavender pecan cornbread) employee perks these organizations offer.

    “Knockout perks aren’t the reason any company makes this list,” writes Fortune’s Geoff Colvin. “The essence of a great workplace is just that: an essence, an indispensable quality that determines its character.”

    Personally, I’m always thrilled to see the “Best Companies” list. I never stop being impressed that a publication like Fortune, which for decades has tracked companies based on “how much” (revenue, market capitalization, etc.), also makes such a sustained effort to measure the more human virtues of workplace quality.

    Being the “best” on Fortune’s list (or just aspiring to one day make it) means you’re on the right track. It shows you care about your people, appreciate their passions and want to make them comfortable in the workplace. Every yoga class and gourmet meal is an investment in doing business in a more human way, a big step toward having the right corporate culture.

    Merriam Webster’s 2014 “Word of the Year” – the most searched term on the dictionary’s website – was “culture.” Examining culture is deeply tied to the current moment. Why? In our era of ever-growing interconnection, we can peer deeply into an organization better than ever, learn about its past and present, discuss its behaviors and even advocate for change.

    Think about the way we react when something goes wrong within an organization today. People no longer tend to accept surface-level explanations. When a student is sexually assaulted on a college campus or an unarmed man is killed by police, people now talk about “rape culture” and “police culture.” We want to know about the larger context that’s informing individual thinking and the forces that animate individual behavior. We’ve come to understand that attitudes, actions, mindsets and beliefs come from a deep place in our collective character.

    We’ve grown less interested in bad apples and much more interested in the trees that create them. “Culture” is our word of the year because we want the deepest explanation possible. Although we don’t automatically ask the same questions when something goes spectacularly well, we ought to. In some realms, like sports, this shift has already started.

    The San Antonio Spurs have demonstrated an incredible and rare record of long-term success in professional basketball. Though other franchises want to imitate this, instead of rushing to poach the Spurs’ star players, smart teams are doing their best to reinvent their entire team system (e.g. how they hire, scout, coach, budget, train, play, recruit free agents, etc.) to emulate the Spurs culture, which values unselfish play above all else. While it’s impossible to duplicate the Spurs’ exact culture, learning from the Spurs is already paying off for this year’s regular season leader, the Atlanta Hawks.

    Organizational culture runs just as deep as individual human character. And character, in the words of Heraclitus, determines fate. Just as one family can never duplicate another family, no business can exactly replicate another company’s culture. Business is about gaining proprietary advantage by doing that which you can’t copy, right? Since culture is potentially the most differentiated asset a company owns, shouldn’t leaders get a lot more intentional and deliberate about shaping, nurturing and scaling it? Too often, we get stuck on shaping and managing the things – benefits, perks and workplaces – that exist only on the very surface of culture.