Thurston: You think I began a dozen global cor­po­ra­tions by stoop­ing to thiev­ery?
Pro­fes­sor: Well, of course not.
Thurston: Shows how naive you are. How else do you get to the top of the cor­po­rate ladder!

I loved Gilligan’s Island  as a child. Young and inno­cent I wasn’t capa­ble of delv­ing deep into the hid­den mean­ing behind the para­ble. I didn’t even know it was a parable. I thought para­bles were lessons about how to pro­vide enough alco­hol at par­ties. You know, that stuff about tun­ing water into wine.

Just like on the island, work­places have cul­tures. If we don’t cre­ate them they cre­ate them­selves. As long as humans and their nature is involved it hap­pens. There’s the larger cor­po­rate cul­ture we may be aware of, even indoc­tri­nated into. It may be attrac­tive to us in the inter­view. Maybe it was a strong draw to work there in the first place. Com­pa­nies these days are keenly aware of brand­ing and mar­ket­ing their cor­po­rate cul­ture. Smaller com­pa­nies may just be a an uncharted isle wait­ing for some­one to to write SOL in the sand on the beach.

What com­pa­nies come to mind when you think of cor­po­rate culture?

Snap! When the Google­plex was unveiled in 2006 I would have sac­ri­ficed a kid­ney to be an insider there. I wanted every­thing to be goog­lesque. I wanted to sit in front of the idea board to have cof­fee. I wanted a mas­sage dur­ing work hours when my neck tensed up. I wanted to take my dog to work! Most of all, I wanted an envi­ron­ment where cre­ativ­ity and exper­i­men­ta­tion was encour­aged and where flops weren’t seen as fail­ures. Ah.… free­dom to do my best, be me, be moti­vated and unconstrained.To wear jeans and t-shirts, be anti-social if I wanted to and live in my mind as long as I produced.

Back to the show.

You have an oppor­tu­nity to play the role you aspire to. You might not have the title offi­cially but you can study hard to be the stand-in. The way you por­tray your role affects the cul­ture of your work area. Your work area has the abil­ity to be a role model for com­pany cul­ture. If it stands out it will be emu­lated and imi­ta­tion is the most sin­cere form of flat­tery. So, if your work­place isn’t quite the Google­plex, you can help lead it in that direction.

Cast of Characters

Trainer: The Pro­fes­sor
Man­ager: The Skip­per
Human Resources: Maryanne
CEO: Gin­ger
Entry Level Worker: Gilli­gan
Chair­man of the Board: Thurston How­ell lll