The cultural lie that refuses to die...
An expertly marketed meme that became an article of faith
“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect”. — Jonathan Swift 1
The virally marketed, highly plausible, but fictitious notion that an organisation’s culture is its shared values first became airborne in 1980.
Why are so many organisations still taken in by a falsehood that stifles, smothers, and strangles the emergence of future-fit cultures..?
This 10 minute Future-Fit Culture Frequently Asked Questions video explains…
The video above references two previous articles.
The first describes where the notion of shared values originated:
The second offers a simple approach to discovering your own personal values that I’ve used personally and with others since the early 1990’s:
Questions for reflection
Does your organisation have a list of allegedly shared values?
How do these relate to actual attitudes and behaviours in the organisation?
How much do you get to embody and enact your own personal values in your work?
Footnotes
Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer and satirist best known for Gulliver’s Travels. The quote here is from The Examiner No. XIV (9 November 1710).