How Culture Changes

Culture operates at the individual level (the ways we believe that our system surrounds us), at the collective level (the mood and perspective of the crowd), and the Organisational level (the published and projected structural perspective). All three of these things are concurrently ‘true’, although there is a tension between each of them. Today i am considering six ways that Culture ‘changes’. It’s not intended as a definitive list, but rather six different mechanisms: agility, fracture, failure, federation, genesis, and incorporation.

Agility – culture may change because it is ‘agile’ (either with, or without, the capital ‘A’). If it seems able to bend in the wind, to adapt, to evolves, to figure things out and do things differently, it is agile to change.

Fracture – if we lack agility, or if the pressure lies beyond the expected tolerances of agility (which is not necessarily a universal phenomenon), then Culture may fracture. One becomes two, becomes many. There may still be overarching structures, narratives, or beliefs about Culture that hold true, but the defining feature is separation. So in this sense, fracture is a mechanism of change.

Failure – whilst typically the least desirable, ‘failure’ is a mechanism of change. Just not the one we usually choose. Failure is unique in that we can get there through apathy alone. Failure may be a necessary feature of Cultural change, in that it provides the undeniable imperative.

Federation – where Culture changes by adding an additional state within a federated model. In this sense Culture does not change at all, but rather grows. Is there a maximum number of states that can be incorporated before schism? Federation may be a valuable way to hold divergence, or a fudge that comes back to haunt us.

Genesis – to give birth, to change by being reborn. We talk about cultural change as though it were hard, but at time, in the right circumstances, we can leave what we had behind, and be reborn. Perhaps this is the dream, to be unencumbered by the past – but to get to it we simply need to recognise that most things that we wrote into our story may also be written out again. If we are willing to let them go.

Incorporation – a model of change where we take parts of the new, and keep parts of the old. Without synthesis (which is risky as it may alienate everyone through the belief that we have traded away the ‘good’) it may simply become a rattle bag of pieces. There may be a specific capability of incorporation – or the notion of incorporation, which is often a solid Organisational approach, may be a total fallacy. Perhaps we cannot have the best of the old and the best of the new. Perhaps we have to decide?

The point of considering these (i sketched them out for the Culture Explorer group today) is to look at how they would work in our own Culture – would we even know if we were federated, agile, or failed?

Because we belong to Culture in so many different ways, it’s entirely possible that things may change without affecting us – locally, tribally – at all. Or conversely that we may see upheaval locally, but the Organisation is entirely blind to it.

#WorkingOutLoud on Culture