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How Culture Reproduces
Transmission by imitation rather than instruction: the first month, promotion decisions, and what new people learn before anybody explains anything.
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01
Stories and Who Gets to Tell Them
Organizations carry a small set of remembered episodes that function as case law. They are selected by whoever is repeating them, and leadership rarely knows which ones are in circulation.
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02
Promotions Are the Only Culture Statement Anybody Believes
Every other signal is discounted. A promotion is costly, irreversible, and made under real constraint, which is precisely why the organization treats it as the truth about what is valued.
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03
The First Month
A new person learns how the place actually works within about three weeks, almost entirely by observation, and the reading they form then is the one they operate on for years.