The implications of this definition (see PART I), the way we think about ‘Culture’, are profound. The implications are profound because what drives, what motivates and what sustains daily behavior are the learned, shared deep tacit assumptions that determine each person’s and each group’s view of reality – reality as it is and reality as it should be. Members of a culture or sub-culture count on this view of reality – it helps make things predictable, stable, and meaningful.
This understanding also helps folks begin to realize that because the culture and sub-cultures are so stable and deeply rooted that a shift, change or transformation can be (think: almost always are) incredibly challenging. The challenge exists because the culture and the sub-cultures are rooted in ‘years of success.’ Their ways of thinking, feeling and perceiving the world significantly contributed to these ‘years of success.’ The challenge also exists because the important parts of the culture and sub-cultures are invisible (what folks ‘live’ each day, what they ‘espouse’ and what they ‘measure’ are indicators of the culture and sub-cultures – they are not the culture or sub-culture).
Members of the culture and members of a sub-culture cannot easily tell us what their culture or sub-culture is, any more than hawks, if they could talk, could tell us how ‘air’ helps support them. This point is crucial for it helps us understand why cultures and sub-cultures cannot be ‘measured’ or ‘quantified’ via the use of surveys or other measurement tools. These ask about behavior and espoused values (for example); they cannot uncover, much less assess, the deep tacit assumptions that are the major tap roots that nurture and sustain the culture and sub-cultures.
Cultures and sub-cultures are ‘helpful’ or not, are functional, or not, and are ‘healthy’ or not because of their ‘purpose for existing’ and because they ‘fit in to’ the operating environment that ‘holds them.’ In addition, the current ‘waves’ washing over a culture or sub-culture at any given moment (think: high performing teams, total quality management, learning organizations, empowering employees) are all doomed to failure unless they demonstrate how the deep tacit assumptions on which these initiatives themselves are based are adaptive to the culture AND sub-cultures.
Finally, for this topic anyway, it is important to understand that another implication of this definition is that there is a pattern of deep tacit assumptions that are interconnected and interdependent. Identifying and naming one or two deep tacit assumptions and then concluding that you have an understanding of the culture or sub-culture is, at minimum misleading and at maximum delusional and harmful. These one or two ‘namings’ make it easy to miss other deep tacit assumptions that are crucial to understanding the culture and sub-cultures during times of challenge and change.
Cultures and sub-cultures are, by their nature, multidimensional and these many dimensions become even more crucial when folks attempt to assess the strengths, weaknesses, and growing-edges of a culture and sub-culture. For example, when a dimension that at one time was functional and now has become dysfunctional needs to be changed or transformed folks need to discern how the functional dimensions can support, not hinder, the change or transformation. The goal is not to change the culture or sub-culture; the goal is to use the strengths of the culture and sub-culture to support a dimensional change or transformation.