What is Culture Anyway?

What is culture anyway? By Brian Mark

?I've been thinking about this word quite a bit lately, both in the personal and professional spaces. Our family dynamic has a culture too, right?

?If you Google the word "culture", you will most likely find something about norms, rituals, behaviors, consistency, etc. Every time I've read a definition they all make sense to me, especially having led small and large teams in the past, a father, and a husband.?

?I'm fascinated with culture, and think about it often, because of the depth, complexity, and the intangible aspects of culture. Sometimes it's a feeling and immeasurable and almost similar to the idea of morale. In fact, I believe the two are connected. I love the connection and I love the squishiness.

?It can be very difficult to shift culture as a leader, individual, and organization. Difficult because of time, because of history, because of identity.??I think all of this difficulty is rooted in one word, "values". I'm not just talking about the values that organizations put on a sheet of paper or up on a wall.

?I'm talking about the complex web of values at the executive/manager/supervisor levels, values at the individual level, values at the staff level, values that new employees bring in from their past organizations, values that history has carried forward, and values of the organization.?

?Sometimes these are in conflict and when a culture supports brushing all values aside for the sake of the organization then people end up not listening to one another and blind spots occur.??Then your culture is stuck and so are the behaviors, norms, rituals, and standards that you want to move on from.

?So what do we do about it?

?Factor 1:??Evaluate your culture

?Measure every aspect of your culture and empower all levels of your organization to participate in the process.??Create spaces for people to share and be heard.??One of my favorite cultural assessment tools is the Cultural Web Model.??When I became fascinated with measuring culture I found this tool. It is thorough and provides you with a great set of questions to measure around.

?Factor 2:??Decide if that's what you want

?Once you have the current view of your culture ask yourselves (again, all levels of the org), "Is this where and what we want to be?".??A super powerful question with any type of change.??An essential question when you are trying to create a movement.

?Factor 3:??Resource it

?I've seen sooooooo many ideas in my career that become calls to action that are followed by no resources to get it done.??This is an example of the values conflict I mentioned above.??If you truly want to achieve culture change put the money, yes the MONEY, behind it to get it done.??I'm talking about years of funding as an worthwhile culture and organizational change takes years to realize.??It's systemic.

?Wishing you all well.

?-Brian

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