Culture: An Inside Look at Your Secret Sauce

Culture is one of those overloaded terms… So much so that, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn have compiled a comprehensive 160+ definitions of culture in Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions. Our current take on culture originates from Sir Edward Burnett Tylor’s all-inclusive definition of culture in 1874 .

“Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

— Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

Applying this to organizations,  I see culture as how we get things done in an organization that collectively makes us successful. With that, culture:

• is a learned behavior;
• is shaped by our values, goals and expected moral/ethical conducts;
• is spread thru social interaction — it adapts, evolves and changes;
• is complex — embodies tangible and intangible characteristics (beliefs, attitudes, habits, customs, tools, rules, rituals, …);
• can be broken down into simple traits (creative, innovative, agile, …). But, as with a recipe, knowing the list of ingredients does not translate to THE secret sauce.

Culture is built around what people think is important, and leaders establish and drive the culture of their organization. If you doubt that, check out Japan’s Cool Biz campaign, and how the Prime Minister Koizumi influenced the Japanese business dress code to help reduce electric consumption usage during summers.

Now, I have to reemphasize success in this definition, as without success there is no point to culture… Is there?!  I like this more extensive definition of culture:

A firm’s culture, “encompasses its history and accomplishments, its leaders’ ambitions and goals, its definition of and criteria for excellence, its attitude about clients and staff, its traditions and lore, its mood and energy, and its balance between art and business.”

Jean Valence, Symmes Maini & McKee Associates (original article)

Analyzing an organization’s cultural traits

Culture is unique — it is complex and operates as a system. This makes it a key differentiator and a competitive advantage. Its secret sauce is difficult to change and imitate. The fact that it is difficult to observe culture makes it harder to understand how it leads to success. But, it is possible to observe behaviors and identify traits in your culture, which are necessary for success. Here is a laundry-list of needed traits for today’s global, fast-paced environment: flexibility and agility; agile and adaptable; learning culture; startup mentality and entrepreneurship; empathy; collaboration every which way; …

Or, here is a look at cultural traits of design firms, based on my readings on IDEO and others. Note that the success of design firms depends on their ability to identify options, making choices, understanding constraints and addressing/executing them that leads to delivering great experiences. From that, key ingredients for a vibrant design firm culture include (but are not limited to):

• creatives — willingness and desire to step outside the box and experiment;
• learners — curiosity and a high degree of empathy driven by observation, experimentation and desire to share experiences;
• improvisers — eagernes and ability to deal with whatever;
• playfulness — whether it is bringing beginner’s mind to the task at hand, or just wanting to be different;
• agile structure — evolves and changes with the needs;
• way of thinking — set of tools, processes, etc. that enables creating new experiences and mindsets;

And, here is yet another way to look at culture from Business Insider with a look at 3 types of startup cultures by Nilofer Merchant: family, wealth and deep optimism.

In summary…

Your culture should enforce and feeds what makes you successful. It is a system that supports and nourishes itself. Here is a look at XPLANE’s culture map (and the annotated version at Flickr) that beautifully illustrates this concept. In the future posts, I’ll dive deeper into exploring this system….

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