Culture By Design
Culture By Design
How to Intentionally Create the Workplace You Envision
When we think about intentionally shaping culture, there’s a very valid question that comes up - how do we actually make changes to it? It can seem like such a big, impossible undertaking to “change culture” because culture is omnipresent and influenced by multiple people. So, like with most big tasks, it’s helpful to break it down into manageable pieces.
Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re always creating and perpetuating culture. And in turn, it’s always shaping us. It’s really an ecosystem of cause and effect. So to understand how to shape culture, we can turn to knowledge on human behavior and systems change for help. Two of my favorite writers and thinkers on these topics are adrienne marie brown and James Clear.
From these perspectives I’ve identified four important ingredients in the process of shaping culture.
1. Think about identity
In the book Atomic Habits James Clear writes about human behavior and habits in an easily digestible way. He explains there are three layers of behavior change - outcome, process, and identity.
Outcome = what you get
Process = what you do
Identity = what you believe
Clear says all three layers are important, but the direction of change can yield different results. We often start behavior change by focusing on what we want to achieve (outcome-based habits) and then we try to adjust our process and identity accordingly. But Clear offers another way - identity-based habits. This is when we start by focusing on who we want to become and then focus on process and outcome.
“There are a set of beliefs and assumptions that shape the system, an identity behind the habits… True behavior change is identity change.” - James Clear
So, what is the identity you want your company to have? Then when you’re making decisions you can ask yourself, what would a company who holds that identity do in this scenario?
2. Create supporting systems
Once you have an aspirational identity, the next step is to figure out how to shift the behaviors to align with the beliefs and assumptions of that identity. Taking the time to think about the systems needed to actualize a goal makes it more likely the goal will be achieved. As Clear writes, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”
This process doesn’t need to be done alone and will likely yield better results if you do it with others. As adrienne marie brown explains in Emergent Strategy, “The more people that collaborate on that ideation, the more that people will be served by the resulting world(s).”
The systems don’t need to be complex. They just need to support you in shifting the behavior and therefore shifting the culture. And ideally, they’re enjoyable.
3. Make it enjoyable
While Clear is talking about human behavior in relation to personal habits, a lot of what he shares can be applied to culture. Personal habits make up human behavior, which in turn make up culture. If we don’t make the personal habits of a culture enjoyable it’s unlikely they’ll continue. As Clear says, “Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last.”
In Atomic Habits there are Four Laws of Behavior Change:
Make it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying
Sure, not everything we do in life is obvious, attractive, easy, or satisfying. But if we’re trying to change a cultural norm into something else, making it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying is certainly going to make the change more likely to succeed.
4. Small changes add up
Sometimes it may feel like we’re not making any progress, especially when we’re up against large social systems. But the thing is, even those large social systems are made up of many small parts. For brown, “Emergent strategies are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions.”
Similarly, Clear talks about the compounding interest of getting 1% better every day. He emphasizes that small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. “The most powerful outcomes are delayed,” Clear writes. Be patient.
Even though adrienne marie brown and James Clear are coming from different worldviews and intentions, I found their books to be complimentary for the purposes of understanding how we improve ourselves, our communities, and thus our cultures. For more depth into the ideas mentioned above, I highly recommend Emergent Strategy by adrienne marie brown and Atomic Habits by James Clear.