There are claims that Peter Drucker made the above assertion, however as per the Peter Drucker Institute, Drucker never said that– he said “Culture—no matter how defined—is singularly persistent”. The meta point probably remains the same (about the importance of culture) though the above headline attracts more clicks.
I do believe a company should have set of core values or principles expected from each employee. While some companies have a handful, others have a bigger list– Amazon, for example has 16 leadership principles. Amazon spends big bucks to come up with these, so I am sure they know what they are doing.
I am a fan of having a smaller set of core values or principles. A large number is unrealistic (am sure this will be criticized as thinking small) and opens up the door for abuse, particularly during annual review time if the values are tied to the ratings (which is in most companies).
The set of principles that I like (borrowed from Amazon) are Ownership, Deep Dive, Bias for Action and Insist on Highest Standards. I believe that if one can demonstrate these 4 principles consistently, it becomes easier to build a team that raises the bar.
Ownership: If one thinks and operates like an owner, they will always look for the right set of problems to solve and the right solution before making conscious compromises. If one can do that consistently, most of the core values can be subsumed by the ownership principle.
Deep Dive: Ability to deep dive into an area, understand the end to end process/tech and ability to ask the right questions to identify opportunities and solutions
Bias for Action: Having the mindset to move quickly, make decisions quickly, particularly the 2 way door decisions.
Insist on Highest Standards: This feels a little redundant, my argument for including this in the list is that this principle will make people think deeply and not make compromises that would jeopardize the customer experience or employee competence/expectations (i.e maintain the bar).