Culture Health

“If we are to preserve culture we must continue to create it.”

Johan Huizinga

The key to any organizational culture development is a deep understanding of what currently motivates, shapes, and defines the existing culture.  We call this organizational wisdom.  Unless slogans, objectives, strategies, and resources fit the current embodiment of the organization’s life, they will not last.  They will not have roots. 

Western Civilization has generally undervalued culture and is poor at building it.  In the United States, our core values and societal structures are built around the individual.  Our team has worked with tribal, communal, and people groups in other nations who still practice storytelling, iconography, theatre and dance as cohesive and expressive aspects of their culture.  They offer an interesting contrast to our “relational poverty” which often leads to brittle expressions of culture.  How can this be overcome at DCL so that a unified and lasting culture can sustain and fuel its future? 

Every human group has wisdom.  This wisdom is often the best of what has come from its experiences and relationships.  One aspect of this is seeing – What does a librarian of 50 years see when she looks at rows of books?  Clearly more than just the books themselves.  Perhaps a cascade of memories – of authors, of children, of years of service doing meaningful work – these are the things that make her role in the group much more than just a job.

We are used to sustaining our ideas of culture with words.  In many traditional and enduring cultures – actions truly speak louder than the words.  Expressions of locally expressed culture through the arts hold so many layers of meaning that they are rich sources of learning for years.  Exemplars of excellence or uncommon importance hold stories that are vital to the wellbeing of a culture.  They are often brave enough to tell the failure stories so that the failures don’t happen again.  They notice the people who do the unseen tasks and elevate them.  They hold the stories of transition so that old ways are not seen as useless but a part of the foundation of the new.    We tend to undervalue our stories, art, wisdom, and perspectives – and so they are lost, hidden, or hyper-localized and not given a place within the organizations operation.

If unity is possible in a large organization it must be built on what is already unifying. External messages that it is good to have a common identity and direction are fine until they contradict the individual.  What is it within the individuals that is already a deep basis for collaboration – what is it that works for all involved?  This is a question that must be pursued in specific expressions and discovered through small experiments that take what is known and stretches a little into the unknown.  Psychologically this is called the developmental hot zone and it is where we all grow and grow together.  We drop our guard to connect or try something new when we encounter the slightly unfamiliar from a familiar basis.  If we are too stressed, our brain literally operates at a lower capacity.  If we are under stressed or too comfortable we also do not have a thriving mind or relationships.  Let’s find this balance for your culture so it thrives.

Here is a list of what we call domains of wisdom:

• Core organizational stories
• Influential people (past and present)
• Historic organizational events
• Defining successes
• Constructive failures
• Destructive failures
• Core values, pivotal systems/practices, meaningful symbols/expressions
• Culmination potential (wisdom in action for future)
• Remembrance, rejuvenation, and development practices
• Hidden understandings / uncomfortable truths

In our wisdom gathering process, we often find gems which lead to achieving organizational goals within these domains.

it is often a perspective which can be lost,

unless humility keeps in check the need,

to continually learn and be reborn with others.

Wisdom cannot be easily shared;

for each listener sits in a unique and waxy seat of reception

and every giver glows radiantly amid chains.

It is often poorly handled from the cosy above and

penetrates most enduringly in the gritty alongside.

It requires the patience and loneliness of paths

less worn and less rewarded.

It is in the bringing together of divisions thought permanent

and in the dividing of unions seemingly impenetrable.

It is ancient and new born,

crystalized and fluid,

aged and tested,

yet ready to break open,

running to places unseen and unexplored.

It is in great depths and heights that new sight is obtained;

It is in the richness of the simple, the natural, the normal;

in the vastness of the tiny,

in the hunger of our universal need,

which points to that

which includes and surpasses us.

If I depart I see one kind of wisdom;

If I stay I see another;

If I retreat I can gain a peaceful detachment;

If I engage I am lost in a new universe of finding.

The heart can fuel understanding,

and can blind,

can aid intuitive leaps,

and can seem a shadow world with no escape.

Limits can be a small mirror

to help us see light through the distractions

and the unlimited can shine where there seems an end.