There's an old saying in the world of business: culture eats strategy for breakfast. It sounds cool, and I've appreciated what it means, but I don't think I ever grokked it. After all, without a solid strategy, a good culture can be like shooting an arrow in a random direction, right?

Ultimately the power of culture is hidden in the word "company". Company doesn't just mean a business. It also means a group of people who accompany each other. In fact that's what it means first and foremost. I think we've forgotten that a company is ultimately about the people who form each other's company. Revenue, profits, market share, brand equity; they're all products of this group of people.

So what brings these people together? I'm focusing on companies that want to form a good culture, so let's put aside employees' need to generate an income. Sure it's the "culture" that brings the people of good companies together, but what does that actually mean? Many smart groups of leaders and employees spend days and weeks defining their cultures. I obviously can't claim to do a better job than them, most importantly because the way each company's culture manifests itself is different. What I can do is to define what motivates good culture. Having observed myself and dozens of colleagues in good and bad cultures, I think it boils down to two simple things:

1. A mission the company lives and breathes: Not just a mission statement. But one that your company focuses on every single day. All of your product and business decisions should be in service of this mission. Your office space, happy hours, marketing materials, corporate abbreviations, should all exhibit this mission. Every single employee should know this is your mission. That famous NASA janitor anecdote should be your north star.
2. Employees that are there just for the mission: 80% of the reason any team member is there should be because they want to work on that mission. Ideally it matters to them for personal reasons; worst case they think the mission will 100x their equity package. Whatever the reason is, they deeply care about it.

Once these two things are in place, the rest follows. The office politics that we all love to complain about? Falls to the wayside because we're making progress towards the mission. Those boring corporate happy hours? People bring their a-game because they are excited about that new initiative or discussion that gets us closer to the mission. Decline in revenue last quarter? They believe it's only a blip on the radar because they can see the long term progress towards the mission.

It's almost like there's something in the water that makes everyone constantly engaged and energized. That's how if a prior strategy fails, your team can still pick up the pieces and formulate a new one. That's how culture eats strategy for breakfast. In fact I kind of want to rename it to "mission eats strategy for breakfast". Culture is ultimately how your company's unique combination of people organically form a dance together. But it's not the music. The music is the mission. So make sure you fill the room with people that want to dance to that music.