America'Culture War: Where Do We Go from Here?

"A Vision Without Execution is Just a Dream."

Today is January 6, 2021. As I watch Neo-Nazi insurrectionists, who deeply believe our presidential election was stolen, storm the United States Capitol Building under righteous conviction, in a perverted attempt to protect democracy and secure the freedoms our forefathers bestowed upon us, I revisit the question we’ve been asking for quite some time – where do we go from here? How does a group of racist, anti-Semites believe that these are the values and principles our country was founded on? Well, we should take a deep dive into our actual history, for one – and not the whitewashed one that’s been taught since the birth of our nation. But, surely, these are not beliefs the fine citizens of our country hold today, right? And why do my friends and family, who once saw things eye-to-eye with me, now have such extremely different world views and political opinions? Why do I feel like I am no longer safe in my country? Why do I feel like I don’t belong? How did we get so divided? We’ve all been asking ourselves these questions lately.

Putting aside all the violent hate groups for a moment, we still witnessed thousands of average U.S. citizens marching in protest, believing the election was stolen from them. And on the left, people see Trump as attempting a coup and interfering with a legitimate outcome to overturn the election. So, both sides clearly see things very differently. This juxtaposition is not about debating facts. It’s about understanding our belief systems and cognitive biases, which then impacts how we identify and act upon facts. We need to examine how we obtain, interpret, and react to information as it is transmitted to us and how we share and influence each other to form a consensus of knowledge. Neither side expected the election to be as close as it was. Both sides are also disappointed with where we are today as a country. I use “both sides” very loosely. I would encourage us to open the aperture of our purview a bit and recognize we are not a binary group of right and left. 

We the people are a multi-dimensional, multi-cultural spectrum of needs, values, beliefs, expectations, aspirations, and priorities. But that just gets too complex for news media and politics to manage, so best to keep it simple. If you can corral people into two groups, now we have a sport! If we get everyone to pick a team and instigate competition and disdain for each other, they will keep tuning in, out of fear of uncertainty, and voting for those false Icons to come to save them. All the while preserving a power structure that has been instituted long ago. And, as a small fraction of those in power reap the financial rewards from a market they control, ninety-nine percent of the population is left with a false hope that the American dream is still attainable, and more importantly, sustainable. A vision without execution is just a dream. So, perhaps this is appropriate. 

At the same time, we must not dismiss the strengths and advantages we are afforded as Americans. This is not about love or hate for our country. This is about preserving what we love and what we need to thrive – to be resilient amidst rapidly increasing change while continuously improving and progressing towards a sustainable future. After all, for all our short-comings, we do have a lot of great qualities we will need to leverage to secure our uncertain future. It starts by recognizing we are on the same team. We may not like everyone we play with, but we better figure out how to cooperate if we want any chance of winning.

So, I ask again – where do we go from here? Humans have been asking themselves this question since we migrated from Africa and populated all ends of the Earth, in search of a better life for ourselves and our families. Yet, the answer is quite simple – what we do is where we go. The future will be determined by what we do in the present. And of course, what we did is where we are. Our present is the culmination of what we did or did not do in the past. I know, I know, no new revelations here. However, it is important we ground ourselves from this vantage point. Being conscious of what is within our control, as individuals, as leaders, as organizations, and as communities, is critical for us to work together to co-create our desired future.

We need to look beyond our elected – and very much antiquated – public officials, our political differences, and focus on the systems that have become self-perpetuating in disenfranchising so many people from participating in the “American dream”. We are in need of a redesign of America’s governance and economic models. A redesign of our institutions and policy-making processes. A redesign of education and healthcare systems. A redesign of organizational and managerial practices. Essentially, a redesign of the American experience – a cultural transformation. It’s a big task, but it’s not impossible. We are transforming every day. We are actually in a constant state of transformation, moving from one paradigm to the next at various scales, all the time. This is cultural evolution and it’s been happening since humans began forming tribes. We just need to harness and disseminate the knowledge needed to facilitate collective action to transform and evolve in a direction that best serves human needs and interests.

While culture has historically evolved organically – with the exception of some social engineering and organizational development – we are in dire need to evolve with purpose and intention to create a sustainable future, to enable our country, and humanity, to thrive. The methodologies and practices to do so exist. Up until now, we have just lacked the will to facilitate and institute the necessary competencies to create and sustain a thriving and resilient world. We can no longer be complacent and just “wait and see” what will happen. We can no longer hold false optimism for the mismanaged future that is unfolding before us. We also can no longer allow pessimism to falter our motivation to take action. Contrary to popular belief, the survival of the fittest is not determined through competition – it is determined through cooperation. Those who possess the competencies to cooperate and establish a symbiotic relationship with other species and their environment are the ones who thrive.

While visionaries, futurists, and philosophers will pontificate what the future will hold – myself included – no one can truly predict the future. The future is ours to create. Any predictions are based on assumptions for how people will behave, using past patterns of behavior and the current trajectory to envision an evolutionary course. Using an evolutionary framework can help identify short-term probabilities with great accuracy. Still, long-term predictions become increasingly unstable due to the complexities of the human experience and the conditions of the environment in which people reside at any given moment in time.

Declaration of a culture war has been dominating the headlines of mainstream media in recent years. I would argue we are in the midst of a meme war, rather than a culture war, but I digress. More on memes and their impact on cultural evolution will be explored in future publications. While we talk a lot about culture, most people still struggle to define its qualities and attributes. More often than not, it is misinterpreted or misclassified in the taxonomy of social constructionism. Understanding what culture is and how it evolves is the first step towards finding a path forward that serves the needs and aspirations of everyone. We must rise above our existing ideological, political, and organizational constructs and start with the desired human experience as our design target.

Culture is the behavioral manifestation of the collective consciousness of any social group – a neighborhood, an organization, a country, any community of any population size or scale. Culture emerges from the ideas we share, stories we tell, and behaviors we observe that influence how we think, feel, and act within a group dynamic. Cultural identity is defined by the way people communicate, collaborate, and organize around a set of values, beliefs, and activities guided through shared assumptions and group norms. Our relationships, and the interactions we have with each other, create shared experiences that shape our perspectives and drive our behavior, which in turn, directs how culture evolves.

Whenever I embark on an experience design or cultural transformation initiative with clients, many business leaders tend to think culture is “squishy” and intangible. This is what many leaders believe, regardless of the offices they hold. This leads to less focus, prioritization, and resources allocated to cultural development and sustainability efforts. However, culture is very tangible. It can be designed, measured, and evaluated to determine its degree of resiliency, vulnerability, and ability to realize the purpose or vision of an organization or community. Culture will be the primary variable determining the success or failure of achieving strategic goals and desired outcomes or realizing a long-term vision. 

Culture consists of our mental models and action logics – it is how we process information and make decisions. It is the motivations and assumptions that influence our priorities and decisions, determining our choices and the judgments we project based on the biases we hold. It includes our mindsets and behaviors, which are driven by the perceptions and the attitudes, and the actions or inactions we take as a result. These perceptions and attitudes are influenced and perpetuated by our emotional and physical environments, which impact how we think and feel. And, the stories and legends we share among our tribe – it is the ideas that shape our thoughts, our values, and our beliefs – consciously and subconsciously. Which in turn, influences our tribal rituals and the symbols we honor, including our traditions and our heritage. 

Over time, we condition social practices and institute cultural artifacts that connect us to our sense of identity. It is our sense of identity that aligns us to a purpose and defines who we are, why we exist, and what we care about. Which impacts how we think, feel, and act. These are the attributes and drivers of cultural psychology. Our cultural psychology will determine how we cultivate relationships, form social bonds, and create experiences among our tribes that define the culture of a community and our ability to live up to the aspirations of our ideals. These qualities and attributes of culture direct how we socially evolve and progress, or regress.

Culture also shapes who we are as individuals. After all, we are a social species, seeking tribal acceptance and validation of our ideas and perspectives. This shows up ‘bigly’ in people’s social media posts. While many people claim they post to collaborate, share knowledge, and learn, we mostly post to seek validation of our beliefs, increase social status and viability and reaffirm our sense of identity and self-worth among our peer groups, virtual tribes, and constituencies. This is not to say collaborative learning and knowledge sharing are not occurring. Of course, it is. Although, in many cases, this tends to be the result of a more individualistic motivation, driven by one’s social or economic needs.

When most people think of social development, they envision traditional child-to-adulthood development models. Within this framework, people can typically see how the cultures they were raised in influenced the formation of their values, world view, and personality. People struggle to see how culture continues to influence and shape their social development and belief systems throughout the course of their entire lives. Individual and cultural evolution is a symbiotic relationship consisting of feedback loops, emergent responses, and adaptation. In layman’s terms, culture evolves who you are. Then who you are and how you behave contributes to how culture evolves. As culture evolves from the collective contributions of an organization or community, you react and adapt in accordance with your social, safety, and physiological needs. Whether or not your needs are being met by a culture will determine whether you thrive, comply, resist, or revolt from the social norms established within that culture. Considering so many Americans’ needs are not being met, it is no surprise we are where we are today. In fact, it was predictable…or, should I say, probable. 

When you understand how we socially evolve, you can design, influence, and direct its evolutionary course. Social engineers have been exploiting cultural dynamics for many years. It’s not new. It just wasn’t mainstream; at least not until recently, due to the increased awareness of disinformation and misinformation campaigns, propagated and perpetuated by nefarious actors, social networks, and the media industrial complex. While propaganda campaigns and social engineering techniques have been deployed for centuries, the rise of social media and the interconnectivity of disparate ideologies and world views, combined with algorithmic segregation and psychological manipulation techniques has exacerbated their effects and enhanced their capabilities. The result is a world operating in a fragmented reality.

As we continue to fight amongst ourselves, we fail to recognize we are each making decisions based on a different set of “facts” and information. We lack a common truth. Truth is the interpretation of facts. But, if we are not being presented with the same facts, by those we deem to be the authority of factual dissemination of information, then who is the real antagonist? It’s not your drunk uncle. It’s not your neighbor or co-worker. Or any of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Everyone has fallen victim to a weaponized, data-driven digital marketplace engineered to maximize profitability and market share at the expense of your health and well-being. Everyone. Let me say it again, everyone! Not just the left, not just the right. Not just the stupid. Not just the uneducated. Everyone. Including myself. We know this because the last time we checked we are all human. And every human has cognitive biases that have been exploited. As someone who has been studying, practicing, and developing social engineering practices for nearly thirty years, I can assure you, everyone is susceptible to these techniques. 

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t identify with any political party. I don’t claim to be liberal or conservative. I don’t even know if one would consider me a true patriot or an unabating law-abiding citizen. I am a human – full of flaws, strengths, and plenty of weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I am a global citizen – living on one planet with my fellow humans. Stuck on this big ole rock somewhere in the universe. We better figure out how to get along and co-exist if we want humans to continue to walk the Earth. We need to start at home. We need to start with America. We each should start with our local communities, neighborhoods, organizations, and families. This was one of the reasons I moved back to my hometown this past year. We need to get back to our roots. Let’s take a step back to really listen, learn, and understand each other. Rather than talking at each other or shutting each other out when someone says something we disagree with. Humans are messy. We are going to make mistakes. We’re going to say and do the wrong things. We are going to say things that may upset each other. Of course, we must hold each other accountable. But we also need to leave room for redemption.

We should also stop pretending like we have all of the answers and dismissing complete models and ideologies because of historically poor strategies and execution. We have a habit of dealing in absolutes. Capitalism good. Socialism bad. Democrats good. Republicans bad. Christianity good. Islam bad. This is a very dangerous mindset when you start to reduce social complexities to a myopic, absolute value. Frankly, there are advantages and flaws in every ideology, religion, governance model, and economic model. Why? Because we humans created them. We should learn from what worked and what didn’t and iterate. Improve upon our mistakes and scale our successes. Even some of the most atrocious models provide an opportunity to learn from and innovate new models that continue to enrich the human experience. 

In recent years, culture designers and change management practitioners have adopted social engineering practices as a means to create a more sustainable future for humanity. Where social engineering relies on manipulation and self-serving intentionality, the practice of culture design leverages evolutionary science, cultural psychology, and systems design to co-create with stakeholders to cultivate environments that empower people to thrive, both individually and collectively – to achieve a common goal; a common purpose. And this is where we begin the design process – our common purpose. Maybe we should all read the Declaration of Independence again. I think it’s a good place to start. The Declaration of Independence did a great job laying the foundation for America’s brand identity and aspirational brand promise.

Did he just call America a brand? Why yes. Yes, I did. A brand is simply a collection of shared beliefs for what an entity represents, influences, and provides to society. Any person, place, or organization is a brand. The shared beliefs for what that brand stands for and the role it serves in our lives will be determined by how that brand engages and creates value within the relationships it has cultivated and the experiences it delivers within its social system. Like corporate brands, there are stakeholder expectations and aspirations for what value the American brand will provide them. When customer needs and demands change, successful companies adapt and undergo organizational transformations as a means to retain customers, build brand loyalty, and drive advocacy. This helps to stabilize business performance and the long-term sustainability of the company’s value and brand health. 

If we want America to continue being a global leader of democracy and creating value, both domestically and globally, we must undergo a brand experience redesign and cultural transformation. We need to get back to the foundation for why, we as a country, exist and how we will realize the vision our forefathers set forth. If we are all created equal and have the unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, then how do we realize that vision and ensure the systems we construct are designed to enable and empower life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for everyone? It doesn’t get any more “American” than that. Surely, we can all get behind an initiative like this, no?

There are four overarching areas we need to focus on. One, how we innovate and execute new strategies and policies. Second, how we communicate and educate stakeholders. Third, how we operationalize new systems and institutions. Lastly, how we reward and celebrate success. These four disciplines make up our entire world order, impacting our abilities to collaborate, align, and facilitate collective action – at every level of society. Over the years I have created some brand experience design principles, which can be applied to any brand:

Belonging: How can you create personal Connection & Community?

Respect: How can you cultivate Authentic & Trusting relationships?

Aspiration: How can you provide Value & Hope for a better future?

Needs: How can you show Care & Empathy for one another’s needs?

Dedication: How can you lead with Passion & Purpose each day?

By leveraging these design principles and concentrating on what is within one’s individual control, everyone has the opportunity to become an empowered change agent, cultivating thriving communities, and creating a sustainable future. Apply these principles to your organizational brand. Apply them to your community brand. And, of course, apply them to your personal brand. Change starts from within. Be the change you want to see. 

We are each on our own journey. We are all tired of the fighting and we are all emotionally exhausted. Now is the time for empathy, compassion, and compromise. It’s time to start having the tough conversations. We need to focus on better understanding each other. And we need to begin devising real solutions. Most people have good intentions. When it comes to our innate needs, values, and aspirations, we are more united than ever. We all want to feel safe and secure in our neighborhoods and communities. We all want a great education and healthcare for our families. We all want to contribute to society and find purpose and meaning in our work. We all want to thrive and pursue our passions. We all want opportunity and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Just because we have different opinions on how we achieve these goals does not make us divided. Our past experiences enrich each of us with unique perspectives and points of view. Diversity of thought and inclusion of all stakeholders in the problem-solving and value creation process strengthens our resiliency. United we stand, divided we fall. Together, the future is ours to design.

We now know where we need to go from here. Now, ask yourself, where do you go from here? 

Be better. Create tomorrow. And, evolve