Outputs are downstream of culture

In this episode I will aim to convince you that every outcome from you team is downstream of culture. Let me explain.

Topics:

- According to the Oxford dictionary, culture is defined as the following: "the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society."
- Leaders within companies like to talk about their "corporate culture", and I have no doubt that is real, but the culture outside of the company is FAR more pervasive.
- At a macro level, we have national, ethnic, and religious cultures that help form the opinions of the people in your team.
- And here is the kicker: you don't get to influence that, as people arrive into your team as already fully formed adults with their own opinions and bias.
- You only get to influence that AFTER they are hired, and even then let's be honest: your influence will be minimal unless they really value you as a mentor.
- Therefore, we can say you are downstream of real-World cultures, in fact everything in your team is, right down to the final outputs.
- Let me explain it to you in terms of a hierarchy of influences, from upstream to downstream:
1. Real-World Culture: national, ethic, and religious cultures.
2. Corporate Culture: "our values", CEO vision statements, and your personal influence as a leader.
3. People: the people in your team that you hired or inherited.
4. Process: the various processes, compliance regulations, or habits executed by your team.
5. Tools: the various tools used by your team to get the job done.
6. Outputs: and finally we have the output, which is the products or services provided by your team.
- As the outputs are the final outcome, they are downstream of everything higher up in the list.
- Culture, people, processes, tools…all feed into the final outcome.
- The only thing in question is how much influence each element has on the final outcome.
- In these times dictated by DEI guidelines, we are often uncomfortable to talk about the impacts of different cultures on outcomes, for fear of reprisals.
- We are led to believe that everyone is the same, regardless of their background.
- But this is fundamentally untrue.
- To claim that culture has no impact on the thought patterns and habits of an individual who is, in fact, a PRODUCT of their culture makes no sense.
- From my own personal experience of working with people from all around the World, the biggest differentiator is often their cultural background.
- If you spend the first 22 years of your life in a real-World culture before you enter your first corporate culture, then in seems obvious to me that your formative years have already happened outside of the team.
- The best you can hope for is an open minded individual, but worse-case scenario they are not open to new ideas, as they have already been conditioned to think in a fixed way.
- Let me give you some real examples of how national culture can shape a person…
- As an Irish person, I know I come from an open culture that likes to challenge authority. My culture has a great tradition of storytelling, music, and acting: all of which lends itself to producing great salespeople.
- When I worked with Japanese team-mates for several years, they were more reserved and would never dream of challenging authority. They were excellent engineers however, with a very strong emphasis on producing quality products.
- You may dismiss this as cultural stereotyping, but I believe it is real as I have experienced it myself: culture matters.
- Ignore it at your peril.

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