April 8th, 2009
My first post on culture was focused on highlighting the importance of culture and making the case that when we want to accomplish something in an organization or a community, culture has to be part of the equation and has to be included in our considerations. Overlooking or ignoring culture is in my opinion a fairly common and a fairly costly oversight. Working with culture requires some different competencies and tools than working with the more tangible aspects of an organization and that is probably a big part of why it is often overlooked.
Today I want to step back for a second and consider some definitions of organizational culture. And there are many.
“Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization.”
-Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision
“…a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”
-Edgar Schein, MIT Sloan School of Management
“…beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develop organizational norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational memDefbers towards one another.”
-Wikipedia
“…the way things get done around here.”
-Deal and Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life
“Culture is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who belong to the same social group, which is where it was learned. Culture consists of the unwritten rules of the social game. It is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others. Culture is learned it is not innate.”
-Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind
Just a few examples. But I do think there is a theme or two woven through these examples and I think they are pointing us in the same general direction. Culture refers to the sense-making, the symbolic, the expressive aspect of our organization or community. It is a dynamic and shared template of meaning that guides the thinking, feeling and behavior of group members. It is different and may teach us very different things than our formal systems, structures, and processes.
For example, on a societal level we know what our laws are. We know what is legal and what is illegal. That is part of our tangible and formal system. But it is our culture that gives that stuff meaning. Laws are established in largely the same way by our processes and institutions, but there are different meanings attached to different laws.
Breaking the speed limit is interpreted differently than not paying taxes, which is interpreted differently than breaking and entering, which is interpreted differently than possession of a controlled substance, which is interpreted differently than public indecency. We may be ashamed upon being convicted of some of these illegalities, while we may be indifferent or even proud of others. That is because of our culture.
As employees or customers we know that a bank has a different culture than a coffee shop. The library has a different culture than the garage where we get our car worked on. We know that working at an organization like Google would look, feel and sound differently than it would to work at the Justice Department. That is because of culture.
We know, whether we have been there or not, that New Orleans has a different feel than Chicago. San Francisco has a different feel than Omaha. The differences are not about size, or a different way of governance or different sets of laws. The differences are largely those intangible things…these cities have different cultures.
So.
I think that regardless of the definition we want to use, we probably all have an understanding for and an appreciation of culture. It is maybe one of those things that while difficult to describe, we know it when we see it? And again, this is probably one of the reasons why we often avoid the issue of culture…it is one of those beautiful, sloppy, slippery, abstract and dynamic things that require tools far different from calculators and spread sheets.
I personally like Hofstede’s framework of culture as “social software, the unwritten rules of the game”, but also commonly use the definitions from Schein. And I think that going back to the organizational context, these unwritten rules are incredibly powerful. I think that these unwritten rules play a huge role in issues of employee retention, innovation, employee engagement, whether employees are open and honest with each other, etc.
How do you define culture?
Beyond defining culture, give some thought to how you would describe the culture of your organization and / or your community. As you start to consider the words you use to describe a culture that you are familiar with, you might gain some insight into what culture means to you.
More on culture to come.
-be good to each other
I too like Hofstede’s framework (and research) and often re-read Schein’s work on Climate vs. Culture for inspiration. Post-operationalization, what is your perspective on the best method to measure culture? Do you believe it can and should be measured? Likewise, measurement in some ways implies change. Do you believe organizational culture can shift?
Hi Joe – Your comments above and Kate’s questions jogged my memory a bit. I went to the back bookshelf and dusted off my copy of Cultural Complexity by Ulf Hannerz (1992). Fun to glance through this book again, after the influences of social media on many lives. I don’t want to digress, though – wanted to provide Hannerz’ "three dimensions of culture" (pg. 7):
1. Ideas and Modes of Thought – as entities and processes of the mind – the entire array of concepts, propositions, values and the like which people within some social unit carry together, as well as their various ways of handling their ideas in characteristic modes of mental operation.
2. Forms of Externalization – the different ways in which meaning is accessible to the senses, made public; and
3. Social Distribution – the ways in which the collective cultural inventory of meanings and meaningful external forms – that is, (1) and (2) together – is spread over a population and its social relationships.
What I find interesting is that (1) seems like a combo of Wilber’s UL and LL quadrants, while (2) seems like a combo of Wilber’s UR and LR quadrants. What Wilber did not do (as he expects others to do it, if possible) is combine all the quadrants – which Hannerz does do in (3).
Does that mean that social distribution re: Hannerz is the equal to cultural glue?