Connecting the Dots on Culture: 4 Dimensions of Organizational Culture

I originally posted a blog post about the framework of Organizational Culture on February 8, 2020. Weeks before the Covid Pandemic and the shuttering of schools.

The original  was after having had already presented on and talked about giving structure to the often nebulous topic of “culture” for school leaders. We aren’t taught in “Principal School” about culture; aft comments, remarks and thoughts are possibly given to it, but in my work with Principals across the country - no one is really a student of it. 

But we want to be. 

Everyone can repeat the famous quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” by Peter Drucker, but it doesn’t actually tell us anything about culture. Perhaps this shines a brighter light on issues in public education - we hear things, we repeat the things, and the things never change anything. I have referred to this as the Curse of Buzzwords. Say it because you better: Design Thinking and/or Liberatory Design, equity, deeper learning, creativity, innovation, future ready, culture, (fill in the blank). Say it because you better - but really there isn’t a huge requirement to know what you mean by it, how you can point to it showing up in the work you do with students, and, by the way, don’t worry - there will be a new one next week. And almost no one else saying the things know what they really are either. 

Culture fits squarely into this category. And it is dangerous.

It is dangerous to use buzzwords in education because the people and systems that are actually tending to a genuine meaning and are operationalizing those words are doing good work. Good work inspires others to do the same. And when everyone wants to be doing it, it catches on and everyone is saying it, so you should too. The problem, in education is that oftentimes our structures are so resource strapped - time & funding - that in a broad way, we fail to appropriately study the work, understand the work by trying and reflecting and reiterating, and to practice. I love Design Thinking & Liberatory Design. I have met people who are “trained” in these processes, who then talk to me about design challenges they are developing without including basic things: like empathy gathering. Or people who say, “we are going to design think it by running a pilot.” What in the world are you talking about!?!?!?! It turns out that some of the people/organizations who have given out these trainings have never actually been a practitioner of the mindsets or modes of the process. Ugh.

We lean so heavily in public education on “Trainer of Trainers” where we give someone a few hours of training and expect them to be able to effectively deliver expert content sometimes without actually having done the practice themselves. And then when the ‘expansive efforts’ around _____ (insert the buzzword) fail, it reduces/diminishes/hurts the real and actual work. People get used to this and think, “oh here is another thing that will fail,” “what is the flavor of this month or school year,” and people begin to dismiss what could otherwise have been an effective movement. 

Culture is one of those things that no leader - in the public or private sector - has ever said out loud that it doesn’t matter. Culture is on the same level of “trust.” Everyone acknowledges with their words that it matters. The actions of leaders and organizations, however, do not always reflect this. 

We have had thousands of visitors from across the world visit our school since we opened in August 2014. On these tours, we try to know what it is people from different schools, districts, and industries are seeking so that we can best highlight elements that will be most helpful. What never changes though, is the value and emphasis put on culture in the process of our school transformation and the work we continue to do.

Don’t get things wrong - we are not perfect, and we do not espouse an idealistic utopia where everything works perfectly. We have our issues, and we have our bad days. But we have also done what few organizations have been able to do in such a short amount of time. Our journey of school transformation has opened our eyes to a lot and we have learned a lot. Much of our success has come from the organizational culture that we all have helped to establish and tend to. 

On our tours, we will sit with visitors before taking the opportunity to go out on campus and see kids in action. We go through our story, and we talk about culture. At this point in our journey, we share about how many leaders opt to pass on the “culture discussions.” Having had the experiences we have with this, we now draw attention to this story before any leader has the chance to say otherwise. It makes things less awkward, and here is why. Over the series of countless tours, what we discovered is that as the discussion about culture gets going, leaders - who were often dressed in nicer clothes & taking themselves much more seriously than those accompanying him/her - would try to cut off a discussion around culture. 

    “Oh yeah, we agree, culture is super important, that is why I…” 

Fill in the blank:

• Have monthly nacho parties
• ​Have regular Happy Hours
• Have everyone over to my house for a holiday party
• ​Etc, etc etc.

​All of the bullets listed above are fantastic. In fact, I agree that they help to build culture. Or at least one dimension of it.

Culture is wickedly complicated. Culture is all about human understanding. Our pastor once made the brilliant observation regarding the complexities of humans in that the section at Barnes & Noble that keeps getting bigger is the Self-Help section. Culture is wickedly tricky because all humans bring to the organization their own triumphs, trauma, joy, hopes, fears, biases, and pain. It is partly what makes us such beautiful creatures. 

I once heard, and often share the analogy that school culture is like the hit Food Network TV game show, Chopped. The game consists of 4 professional chefs who are given a basket of secret ingredients that they must not only use but make the star of the dish they prepare and serve to the judges. The baskets contain odd-ball selections: Gummy Worms, sardines, and almond paste -- Make the best appetizer possible! After judging, someone goes home, and then they repeat this for the entree: Bratwurst, Chicken Feet, Bullion -- Make the best entree you can! And so on until there is a winner. In the final decision making between the top two contestants left standing, the judges consider the entirety of all three courses and how the chefs made lemonade from lemons. 

This is relevant to schools, because every year, we do not pick the kids who come to us. We do not pick the parents/guardians who come along with them. We don’t pick our grade level teams, and we don’t pick our bosses. But we create the best dishes possible with whatever comes out of the basket. We weave and work and find complimentary flavors to elevate the experience. 

​Because culture is so complex, we soon realized that it is not just, “culture.” When leaders wanted to brush past the “culture talk” part of the tour so we could spend more time on programming, functional issues, and technical practicalities that leaders and teams have to sort through transformation -- it actually made sense. They know culture matters. Much like everyone knows trust matters. But trust and culture are not things that sit on a shelf that we can reach for when we have time for it. Culture and trust are what we do. Countless times, as leaders brushed off the “culture talk” they would lead it with, “Yep, Culture eats strategy for breakfast” or some other saying that it felt like they had heard, but not really studied. And after a while with these reactions, we started to notice trends with the rest of the team accompanying these leaders. Eyes darting back and forth to one another. Heads down, or heads up looking to the ceiling. Heads cocked to make eye contact with me. All quiet pleads, to please talk more about culture. And because it is our tour - that is often what we would do. 

Culture is complex. Culture is not just a word, but a series of beliefs, actions, and relationships. Our experience with transformation and organizational culture led to the development of what we coined the “4 Dimensions of Organizational Culture.” Each element feeds the other and the basic three, when safely in place, allow for an adaptive dimension of culture to exist. That adaptive aspect is where innovation and transformation take place.​
The image below is the original version of how we formerly showed in a visual way what we meant.

​But climbing out of the Covid shutdowns and preparing to welcome students, Staffulty, and families back to campus actually actually caused a restructuring of the visual and narrative about Organizational culture in a more organic and friendly way. Not as linear, more complex, but also that felt more right. This was done through the narrative of a fruit tree:

Click here to read more about the 4 Dimensions of Organizational Culture:

• Organizational
  
• Technical
  
• Relational
  
• Adaptive

 and how and why they should matter to school leaders.