The great anthropologist Edward T Hall said in his classic book The Silent Language
, culture is largely invisible to its participants. Culture, of course can be defined as those assumptions and beliefs about the nature of reality that never get questioned. There has been much said and written about corporate cultures over the years and a quick search on amazon for "the culture of business" brings up many books on doing business in other countries. But what assumptions do we make in how we organize, compensate, provide feedback, educate and orient our employees? There are many assumptions and beliefs that never get scrutinized.
, culture is largely invisible to its participants. Culture, of course can be defined as those assumptions and beliefs about the nature of reality that never get questioned. There has been much said and written about corporate cultures over the years and a quick search on amazon for "the culture of business" brings up many books on doing business in other countries. But what assumptions do we make in how we organize, compensate, provide feedback, educate and orient our employees? There are many assumptions and beliefs that never get scrutinized. And they cause big trouble.
Let's be honest, American businesses (and probably all businesses) are filled with all kinds of dysfunctions that create stress, inefficiencies, loss of productivity, waste, and stunt the development of the talent for which we pay so dearly. The assumption that is the most deadly to business today can be summarized in the five most dangerous words in business:
That's just how it is.
It's almost if instead of the ten commandments, Moses came down the mountain with the blueprint for the modern organization. An act of God determines how we do things and the dysfunctions we deal with, well, that's just how it is.
Except it isn't.
Organization design, management practices and processes are human artifacts, not holy relics. They are the product of human design processes. And anything humans design, humans can redesign.
How is it that we have fallen into the trap of assuming that when things go wrong that someone must be responsible? Why is it that when there is a lack of trust among employees (or worse, leaders) that the people are the problem? The facts are:
1) The people are uncaring, negligent, incompetent, and indifferent or
2) The people are caring, attentive, competent and committed, but are responding to the pressures and rewards of the ecosystem in which they work and to which they pay very close attention, and the dysfunctional behavior is symptomatic of the system in which they work.
What other options are there?
If you believe your people are caring and committed, then the only place to look is the system.
As Sherlock Holmes once said, "When all other alternatives are eliminated, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
We do not have the luxury of putting up with the wasted efforts of people working at cross purposes in our companies. We have to reinvent business around a different model. We need to study the culture of business and realize the trap we've fallen into is that we have gotten so used to our organizational dysfunctions we assume that, "That's just how it is."
The good news is that nature is showing us the way. More on this over the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, the next time you let out a sign of exasperation about the dysfunctions in your organization and hear those five most dangerous words wander through your mind, I hope all your alarms go off. The right response is, "We created this mess, and by God we can fix it."
