Tag Archives: culture

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Whats your culture

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Whatever your day to day activities are, from corporate professional, charitable or non profit support to a life of leisure and everything in-between, it’s likely to involve other individuals or groups in some way.

How you interact with others, (whether formally prescribed, informally or somewhere in-between)  is the defining attribute of the culture you are most immersed in (assuming this about a regular day by day role you perform ongoing).

How do you feel about your culture?

I like the definition of culture fron anthropologist  E.B.Taylor.   “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

When you consider the culture you are immersed in as part of your daily routine, do you like it?  This is a subjective question typically influenced by your own values.

If the cultural complex whole you are a part of on a regular basis does not map to your basic beliefs, morals, custom and habits (i.e., the underpinning of values) then you are likely to be unhappy.

Influencing, Adopting, Maturing

In the case of a cultural mismatch, changing your circumstances is certainly an option.  Other choices are changing yourself and adapting to the culture or influencing changes in the culture itself.

Choosing to stick it out and live with your unhappiness is probably the worst option to choose.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Lets Figure it Out

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Organizational and group cultures are dependent on many factors.  Things like what is the organization trying to achieve , what things are most important – i.e., clients, profit, team members satisfaction and so on.

Typically the organizations leadership set the direction, influence and impact how the group works together.  Basically this lays the foundation for how the culture develops over time.

Meeting the Organizational Goals

When managing by objectives, the intent is to achieve defined and measurable goals.  In that case, the key method of determining if the culture is effective lies in monitoring of goal achievement.

This is most effective when done continuously enabling identification and remedying of the root cause of issues ongoing.  In this model there is no right or wrong culture , only effective ones.

We’ll figure it out

Consider a culture where the focus is on, respectful conversations, where everyone’s opinion matters, anyone can affect any decision and the overriding  approach is “we’ll figure it out”.

Sounds a bit too anarchistic for most organizations (whether Corporate, Non-profit or Government).  Surprisingly the results produced from such a culture can be of a high quality.

That being said though this type of culture is hard to work in and requires strong leadership to ensure results are achieved.  In fact, this type of culture demands strong leadership to work.

It is key though for leadership to be mindful of the manage by objective concept (i.e., results) and keep their eye on this ball.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Justifying yourself

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My collegues and I had a robust discussion today about how leaders ( good or bad) will use external concepts to support their ambitions.  Things like religion, race, culture, language and so on.

Real or Imagined Differences

The most common theme focuses on the percieved danger by tolerating and co-existing with those who practice different religions, cultural behaviours or speak a foreign language.

The funny thing is most of these practices have more in common than differences.  Religion is a prime example of these.

The names of the religions and their detailed behaviours may vary, however, on the whole all religions acknowledge a higher power (some deity) and profess to follow a basic set of values commonly recognized by humans as good.

That is respect of others, charity , humility, honesty and the list continues.  So why do followers cast these beliefs aside and wage wars, torture and humiliate others in the name of their religions.

Power Grab

Sadly , persuasive leaders can use things like religion, culture, race, etc. to encite actions in their followers.  Not surprising, on the whole the prime objective is to benefit the leader.

The use of misdirection and scapegoating are well known and effective techniques to build a power base.  This is a well known way to leverage the emotions of the masses to your bidding.

And throughout history repeated misuse of this technique leads to takeovers of countries, wars and violence/ death of many innocent millions.   We see it, we document it, but we have not stopped it.

Take a moment to think about the current US presidential race.  Donald Trump’s huge popularity and rise to power is just another clear example of this type of misuse.

In this case abuse of other cultures (Muslims, Mexicans and others)  are one of his key stepping stones to popularity and yet conceptually his prejudices go against the basic human value of respect for all.

And yet, he still may be elected.