Culture and Power

Considering ‘Culture’ through a systems lens, we may ask what ‘powers’ it. What types of power make it tick, stick, evolve or break??

If you are comfortable with a subjective perspective (and it’s best if you are, when it comes to culture, because that’s all you will get) then you can ask people. And if you do, then certain patterns of response recur.

• Leaders power culture – and specifically a nuance of leader described with assorted intangible qualities that collectively make them ‘authentic’.
• Shared Values power culture – and specifically the subset of possible values that constitute the ones that we like. There’s typically a social context overlaying these too, so there are certain values (like inclusivity) that need to be specifically called out to credential us, whilst others (like honesty) tend to be more implicit.
• Purpose powers culture – and specifically a purpose that is open and shared, and is somehow deemed to ‘give’ us something in return. Note that the purpose of ‘making a ton of money’ is generally only acceptable if you are confidently in a space where others share that view, or where you can wrap it up in a parallel or complimentary wrapper of e.g. saving lives, or social good.
• Sometimes ‘Time’ is seen to power it – that which we have always done, or founded upon a shared legacy, although use this with care as for others, youth and ‘newness’ is the power that counts.
• Visibility powers culture – either in terms of ‘culture is what we do in plain sight’, but also it’s what we do when nobody can see. Which i’m pretty sure makes it everything we do.

If you continue with this activity, you will generally find yourself revolving slowly as you look up, down, and all around, before finally looking within. Because there is no clear single location of culture, and no clear power structure surrounding or powering it.

Which is not to say that all things are equal.

One perspective is that culture consists of the ‘Structural’, the ‘Behavioural’ and the ‘Belief’ we hold in it.

Structural aspects are those held in rules, systems, processes, formalised consequence etc. Belief is what is hold inside. And Behaviour is what i do.

In this perspective ‘Behaviour’ may legitimately be considered as prime, in that it’s the closest thing we have to the tangible and quantifiable. I may not know what drives your actions, and i may not believe in your words, but i can at least observe your actions.

Action is culture made manifest, and hence arguably the only part of culture that is real.

In this view, it is behaviour above all else that powers culture.