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Our deeper dive for 2013 continues ...
Let's clean up our culture-conversation!
This month we'll build on our previous conversations to explore culture in organizations. The questions to guide our time together will include, loosely, a sort of "housekeeping" theme:
"Why is a discussion of culture in organizations important?"
"How can we make use
of insights into the culture of an organization?"
Allison Gundersen (see bio below) will guide our discussions, and has asked that those attending do a bit of "pre-think" before arriving. For this she suggests a quick reflection on the following definition from columnist David Brooks:
"Culture is a collection of habits, practices, beliefs, arguments, and tensions that regulates and guides human life.
"Culture transmits certain practical solutions to everyday problems-- how to avoid poisonous plants, how to form successful family structures.
"Culture also... educates the
emotions. It consists of the narratives, holidays, symbols, and works of art that contain implicit and often unnoticed messages about how to feel, how to respond, how to divine meaning."
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Pre-Think
(aka pre-work!)
Review the David Brooks definition of culture (above).
Remember how we routinely see symbols, rituals, myths and stories in organizations.
Think of a story from an organization you've been involved with where culture has contributed significantly to its success:
What positive aspects of the culture stood out?
And...
What would you most like to learn from our organizational culture discussion?
Ongoing themes for 2013:
How might considerations of the more accessible concept of "individual soul," illuminate a newer idea like "organizational soul?"
How might the more familiar inquiry into "organizational culture,"
open a newer understanding
like "individual culture?"
How do soul and culture, whether individual or organizational, impact our work as OD professionals?
In what ways should we, as OD professionals, hope to impact either soul or culture... at individual, team or organizational levels?
Allison Gundersen
our presenter-facilitator
for May 3
Allison Gundersen received her M.S. in Organizational Behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, M.A. in Intercultural Relations from Lesley University, and A.B. from Cornell University. She has extensive experience managing and consulting in information technology and investment banking worldwide, having been based in both Tokyo and New York City. Her global management work has focused on leadership, diverse teams, global responsibilities, and expatriation. Allison is a certified administrator of both the Global Competencies Inventory and the Intercultural Effectiveness Survey, and the co-author of the fifth edition of International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior with the original author, Nancy J. Adler.
