Culture Confusion -- Part 1

There are a number of words tossed around casually but regularly in the world of organizations, organizational change, leadership and management. I haven't made a study of this literature (if that's the right word) but even though I'm not a betting man, I would put a few bucks on the table to bet that "culture" was in the top two or three. It's not just its frequency of use is surprising; the surprising thing is that it's so routinely used as an explanation of behavior in and by organizations. Why do companies do -----? It's their culture. Why is it so hard to -----? Because of their culture. How can we get our organization to ----? Fix their culture.

This has become the word of choice for answering questions to which we do not actually know the answer. Just say it's the culture and everyone will nod in agreement without having any idea in the world about what that means much less what to do about it. (Basically, it is usually defined as "How we do things around here.") Disagreeing with this seems like folly, first because no one much except for me seems to be bothered by this lack, but even more because there really doesn't seem to be a good alternative explanation with which to replace it. After all, we do need answers to those questions. (There is plenty of academic work on all of the above but its value to practitioners and managers is debatable.)

But Maybe Not. I would like to offer one. The word "culture" came into increasingly widespread use because of its importance in anthropology. In that field, it means, by one definition;  "The learned patterns of behavior and thought that help a group adapt to its surroundings." It seemed to make sense to transfer exactly the same idea to business organizations, which Terry Deal and Allan Kennedy did in their 1982 book, "Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life." This was a very good book, which became hugely influential in the relatively new field.of organizational behavior.

It is now practically impossible to discuss organizations without referring to their culture, and indeed, using "their culture" to explain why people do what they do in an organization, thus substituting one vague concept for another. There is a much better and conceptually more sound alternative word, which was also current at that time but which has gone out of fashion. That word was "climate," and much effort was spent on research to lay out the components of organizational climate and their implications for organizational behavior.

The difference between these two terms may seem trivial or vague, but as they have become used, it is quite fundamental. Culture is an intrinsic property that emerges in and through the organization itself, whereas climate is an aspect or set of properties that exists apart from the organization. We can deliberately create the same climate in another organization, whereas its culture would develop organically and thus inevitably be distinctive. I also prefer the concept "climate" because its substantive measures are immediately sensible and can easily be put to use. To help people become more "engaged" with their work is much harder and less clear than reducing the number of levels of the hierarchy between them and the VP.