In my last post I talked about the railway culture of the Great Southern region. Culture is different in different places and different organisations and there are many influences to culture and cultural change.
Every group of people will create its own culture depending on a number of different factors. It’s possible to intentionally develop a culture, but even without intention a group of people living or working together will develop a culture that is unique to their circumstances. Organisations develop their own cultures, and this culture can be very positive and uplifting for the participants in that organisation, whether they are staff, clients, or volunteers; or the organisation can have a destructive or toxic culture.
Carolyn Taylor describes herself as a culture expert, and she says that culture is created by the messages people receive about how they need to behave. She says that because everyone wants to fit in and be successful, each person will adjust their behaviour according to the messages they receive.
Those messages, Carolyn Taylor says, come from three sources: Behaviours, systems and symbols. Look back to my last post and see what I said about these three things in relation to the railway culture.
The behaviours that are role-modelled by our leaders have a huge impact on us, and we will often copy those behaviours (whether they are good or bad), and our behaviours then become the model for someone else in the organisation.
Our systems, such as the structures of the organisation, the way we plan and budget and the processes and policies that drive the organisation contribute to our culture. Sometimes those systems have been influenced by historical factors and don’t reflect what we really think the organisation should look like.
There are also many symbols which send out messages about culture, and as a result influence our culture. It is not unusual for an organisation to say they are strongly committed to a particular value, but the way they go about doing things acts as a symbol that this is not exactly what they believe.
What are your thoughts about culture?
A culture can start with an individual person, "To have respect for ourselves guides our moral's; and to have a deference for others governs our manners." Lawrence Stern
ReplyDeleteIf we value and respect ourselves we will value and respect others, their time and our work enviroment with the desire to encourage one another.
Exceptional leadership ability shines through and people are inspired to follow.