Course Correcting Through Culture
Below is a snippet from the Chapter 1 of my upcoming book. Every week another portion of the book will arrive in your inbox until I complete the self-publishing process!
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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” - Peter Drucker
To contextualize the impact of the value and impact of the participatory processes explored in subsequent chapters, we must begin with a brief discussion of culture. When looking to understand culture, we are instructed to observe a culture’s rituals. A ritual is a repeated and symbolic expression of a culture’s values. Rituals are intended to enhance social cohesion by reaffirming expectations. The more a belief system is enacted through ritual, the stronger it becomes.
Meetings are group rituals, and rituals inform group members what is valued, accepted, rewarded and expected of them through the symbolism, sequence and subtleties of the rituals. Thus, in professional settings, culture is often most visible in how the group convenes their meetings. By intentionally changing the rituals of our meetings, we begin to influence the trajectory of our cultural evolution.
As Peter Drucker alludes to in the introductory quote, an organization's culture is often the deciding factor between impact and impotence. No matter how brilliant your processes, tactics and strategies might be, how your team works together will determine whether you can sustain your efforts and bend the arc of history.
When conducting culture audits, organization assessments and evaluating group dynamics, often meetings provide a short-cut to what is really going on in an organization, and what is really holding them back. Just as observing a religious service or holiday celebration of another culture would orient you to what that culture values, its expectations, power dynamics, and acceptable behaviors, meetings are where these same cultural elements are most often visibly displayed. This is a powerful leverage point for organizational change because meeting rituals can change, and thus new patterns can be formed.
If we let the existing patterns persist, we’re opening our organizations to the toxic elements of the larger WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich & Democratic). I’ll avoid going into what these specific behavioral manifestations are, as the Woke Folk have done an amazing job at highlighting the negative manifestations of WEIRD Society. If an organization is not taking a proactive role in creating a healthy culture, then it is likely being deteriorated by larger cultural and social forces.
No matter how smart the c-suite is, how accomplished the board of directors are, how water-tight the marketing plans and financial projections are, organizations still falter because their culture lies somewhere between anemic to injurious. Organizations that are able to navigate today's shockingly fluid playing field are able to do so because the people that comprise the entity are open, accepting, engaged, courageous and creative. They are able to be this at work because the practices their organization has in place foster processes and systems that reward these behaviors.
An organization's rituals (a.k.a. group conveneings - retreats, meetings, brainstorming sessions) are powerful levers for demonstrating the values, patterns and processes that help shape and foster culture. Putting intention into how your people connect is the fertilizer that ensures the soil from which your efforts emanate are nutrient rich and self-sustaining. Changing how a team, department or organization convenes is a powerful, and relatively easy, first step to addressing the cultural barriers that stand in the way between you and excellence; between your current state and achieving your mission statement.