Whether clearly communicated or not, each company has its own culture.  This culture
can either be properly facilitated, nurtured, and grown toward the goals and vision of the company - or unfortunately to suffer and drag the company down with it.

In a recent article posted by Bobbie Johnson of guardian.co.uk, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is interviewed about what life is like inside the office of the popular web company.  Johnson also posted the interview transcript:

“We focus a lot on culture specifically at Twitter because of this spotlight, and of the fact that we don't want to end up like the child actor who found success early and grew up all weird and freaky. We want to remain OK; just because we found success early and in many ways got lucky doesn't mean we're all a bunch of geniuses. It means what it means.” Stone said in regards to their emphasis on culture.  

He also mentions some methodology used in nurturing their culture:

“Every Friday at Twitter we have something called 'tea time'."  Tea Time for Twitter is an opportunity for “anyone in the company can talk about what they did that week”.  Doing this allows for the company to grow in awareness of how each person’s role is part of the bigger picture.

Here at MeritBuilder, we make sure to start each week with a conference call to not only talk about the upcoming week’s goals - but also talk about how life was on the weekend.  We do the same at the end of the week, reviewing our progress but also sharing with each other our lives outside the office.  This allows us to grow in our relationships and understanding of each other - not only as fellow employees, but as people.

As a whole, the exercise has helped all of us at MeritBuilder increase our abilities to communicate with each other and work together toward the same goal.

What does your company do to focus on its culture?
What is it doing to communicate that culture correctly?