Cultural alignment- An ever-evolving pursuit

Cultural alignment- An ever-evolving pursuit

Culture is a very important aspect of our being and yet is a very loosely thrown around word. May it be our personal lives, family, organization, community, country, anywhere and everywhere. We tend to be extremely mindful of what culture we belong to, and how we live up to it. But is culture a never-changing and ever-binding way of being? Or is it an acceptable way of behaving as time changes? Or maybe even deeper-rooted subconscious that drives our entire lives?

I do not have an answer that can be written on a stone forever, but that is how human knowledge is. We learn and we unlearn. We explore and we settle. We are sure and then we aren’t. It is a journey, and ever-evolving pursuit. All I have to offer in these lines, is just another glimpse out of the window while we are on our journey to attain and sustain cultural alignment in our lives.

In their book “Culture Change on the Fast Track to Business Success” the authors define culture as “the patterns of behaviours that are encouraged or discouraged by people and systems over time”. If we were to infer culture as collection of behaviour, may it be by language, practices, beliefs, ideas, works of art or rituals, it may seem like a collection of displayed action driven by underlying decisions taken on core values we upheld.

I am personally very fascinated by the way Gareth Morgan describes idea of Images of Organisation. An apt descriptive way of understanding ‘how’ an organization exists as a living being. While we describe an image or how an organisation’s functioning is perceived metaphorically, we can share meticulous details about culture of the organization and how decision making is exercised.

Attempting to be objective towards understanding culture driven by values, I attempt to draw a parallel towards how laws of a country function. If we were to look at constitution as core values to be upheld, all laws crafted are similar to all norms of behaviour to seek alignment with desired values, and the implemention of law by actions, guidelines, practices, etc. can relate to final displayed act of how people do things (their way of being).

Elaborating a little, if we were to drive cultural change in an organization the most crucial aspect is defining the core desired values everyone intends to uphold. The consensus can be reached by facilitating a conversation among key stakeholders. What values they personally live by and intend to live by in the work they do. Having derived at the constitution driving organisation’s ‘way of doing things’, a logical cascading towards processes, practices, behaviour can all be arrived at.

Being a little more scientific towards the approach, a 360-degree opinionnaire crafted by behaviourial indicators around the desired core values can give a comprehensive and quantitative mapping of alignment of individuals and teams at large towards desired culture aka ‘Cultural Alignment’. These statistics can drive Training Need Analysis- TNA for imbibing desired values in day-to-day functioning.

However, the essence of core values is not an absolute or fixed-forever immovable idea. As times change, people perception about ‘acceptable values to live by’ changes. Some call it generation transition, some call it technological advancement, some call it dark times (mythologically). However, the representation or interpretation may be, the values we believe one should live by governed by (larger question of) purpose of life or purpose of humanity pr purpose of organization are in constant state of flux. As described by Paramahansa Yogananda in his book Autobiography of a Yogi- Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature. 

Zooming out a little, culture is indeed a complex intuitive topic and our pursuit to understand, attain alignment, sustain alignment and be mindful of constantly evolving dynamics is a journey we continue on in a never-ending and ever-evolving manner. Our conquest for ultimate truth and everything before that is what makes us human. The journey to paradise is the real paradise.