Culture - values or mindsets?
Don't focus on the wrong one
“Culture is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment, which is where it was learned. It is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another”. — Geert Hofstede 1
I like Hofstede’s framing of “the collective programming of the mind”, because my 35 years in the field has led to me see culture as “the prevailing system of mindsets that forms and informs people’s awareness of the way we do things round here”.
Most culture change fails due to seeing culture as shared values — an approach that rarely succeeded even when organisations saw culture as normative behaviour control in pursuit of cultural fit. 2
Seeing culture as system of mindsets enables organisations to find high leverage, low risk pathways to create cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness — ensuring cultural fitness for an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world. 3
It’s of course possible to note and name specific identifiable values as part of an organisation's culture — just as we can identify the wings, feathers, and beak as parts of a bird, or the motor, transmission, and battery as parts of an automobile. 4
But in all these cases, the parts do not capture the nature of the whole — the whole evolving culture, the whole living bird, or the whole functioning automobile.
Considering a bird to be simply the sum of various salient parts misses the vital importance of its structural functional organisation, says Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Toronto, John Vervaeke: 5
“When you ask people what a bird is. They’ll say the following. “Oh yeah well I know what a bird is. It has wings, feathers, a beak and it flies! There you go! That’s a bird!”. 6
In other words, when describing a bird, people give you a feature list.
But as Vervaeke points out, this is not enough:
“Now there’s a problem with this. Although people believe that this feature list is how they know what a bird is, they’re mistaken in an important sense because I could satisfy this definition in the following way: I could put a couple of wings on the table, a bunch of feathers, a beak and then throw it all up in the air! I have wings, a beak, feathers and flight! Do I have a bird? No, I don’t! I have a bloody mess — because what’s missing is something more important. What’s missing is the structural, functional organization — the way all those things hang together, the way they’re structured together so that the bird functions as a whole. What’s missing from this is the structural functional organization that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The Germans have a great word for this: “Gestalt”. In English we don’t. The Greeks have a good word for this structural functional organization — the word “logos”. 7
In other words, although we know what a bird is, we cannot explicitly convey the nature of that knowing.
“You know what a bird is. You have some sense of the logos of a bird. But if I ask you what is that logos — what is the structural functional organization — most of what makes a bird a bird is found in that logos. But if I ask you what is the logos of a bird — how do these all structure together so they function as a whole in which the whole transcends simply an accumulation of its parts, you can't tell me! That's what the research shows in fact. You can’t tell me! Your grasp is intuitive.” 8
Those of you familiar with the work of systems thinking giant Dr Russell Ackoff may recognise striking similarities with Vervaeke’s analysis. 9
I thoroughly recommend Ackoff’s informative and highly entertaining 12 minute conference speech — dubbed “If Russ Ackoff had given a TED Talk”. 10
Some key points he covers:
A system is a whole that consists of parts — each of which can affect the system’s behaviour or properties.
The parts of a system are interdependent — therefore no part or collection of parts of a system has an independent effect on it.
A system is therefore a whole that cannot be divided into independent parts.
The essential or defining properties of any system are properties of the whole — which none of its parts have.
A system is not the sum of the behaviour of its parts — it’s a product of their interactions.
If you were to select the best parts from all the models of automobile in the world, you could not assemble them into the world’s best automobile — in fact you couldn’t create an automobile at all, because the parts don’t fit together.
It is foolish to seek to improve the quality of a part of the system unless the quality of the system as a whole is simultaneously improved.
So, as Vervaeke points out, throwing a bunch of feathers, wings, and a beak in the air doesn’t make a bird.
And as Ackoff points out, trying to assemble the best parts from all the automobiles in the world doesn’t make the world’s best, or even a functional automobile.
Similarly, putting together a set of values doesn’t create an organisational culture.
You can study and identify what you see as the essential values of great organisations, but doing this will not capture the gestalt or logos of their cultures — how the values you’ve identified are structurally functionally organised within the living, breathing, evolving culture as a whole.
That’s why attempting to create a future-fit organisation by focusing on culture as shared values doesn’t work.
Focus on culture as system of mindsets instead, and you’ll be able to see how to create an organisation that’s fit for the future. 11
Questions for reflection
What has been your experience of real world attempts to create culture change by focusing on values?
Where have you seen organisations successfully create worthwhile shifts in what Hofstede calls “collective programming of the mind”?
What are your reflections on Vervaeke and Ackoff’s short presentations? You’ll find the links in the footnotes below.
Footnotes
Geert Hofstede (1928 – 2020) was a Dutch social psychologist and Professor at Maastricht University. The quote is from his 1991 book “Culture and Organizations - Software for of the Mind” (p5) His definitions: “A group means a number of people in contact with each other. A category consists of people who, without necessarily having contact, have something in common: e.g. all women managers, or all people born before 1940.” (Ibid p18).
For more on why the shared values approach fails, see this previous article.
For more on seeing culture as system of mindsets see this previous article, and on how to find maximum leverage for culture change see this previous article.
Note to non-US English speakers: for “motor” please read “engine”, for “transmission” read “gearbox” and for “automobile” read “car”.
Ibid. Episode 5 of “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” from 52:03
Ibid. Episode 5 of “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” from 52:48
Ibid. Episode 5 of “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” from 54:16
Dr Russell Ackoff (1919 – 2009) was Professor of Management Science at Wharton and a pioneer in operations research and systems thinking in organisations.
The video of Ackoff’s 12 minute presentation is here.
For more, see this previous article on Seeing Culture.