Most companies now define their culture as a main driver of success. Much less companies however are able to actively tweak their culture towards desired outcomes.
Culture seems something opaque and messy. Not something you can easily work with. However every problem has a perspective where the view has become clear.
To work with culture the best way to approach this is to look at patterns. The perspective of patterns helps you to get out of the now.
You create a desirable culture by cultivating constructive patterns in communication, behaviour and thought.
How do you cultivate constructive patterns?
You cultivate constructive patterns in your company by:
- observing and identifying existing patterns
- identifying values and desired outcomes
- formulating constructive patterns
- executing newly identified constructive patterns
- evaluating and assessing new and existing patterns
Assessing whether a pattern is indeed constructive requires you to look at the meaning the pattern has within it’s context.
For instance. I sit on the sofa everyday for 20 minutes. That is not inherently a constructive or destructive pattern. It can be pure escapism, where I deny everything I actually want to do and just allow my thoughts to race or – possibly worse – click away on my smartphone feeding my brain with pulp.
Those same 20 minutes on the sofa can be a healthy break, where you actually calm down your thoughts and give yourself some time off of work. It can give space for creativity to blossom. (Actually I write this very paragraph after sitting on the sofa for 20 minutes).