Widening Our Lens: Considering Culture

In an age of complexity, how do we turn down the volume on being “right” so we can lean into our abilities to empathize, understand, and collaborate? Karl Ostroski and Alice Leong share insights on how we can broaden our understanding of culture.

In business, “culture” tends to focus on what makes an organization or team tick — its unique process and its collective personality. But “culture” has so many definitions, all highly contextual. Hearing “culture,” you may think of a vacation abroad filled with wonderful sights, sounds, and food. Or you might think of traditions and practices from a specific cultural group — maybe your own or maybe something you experienced during a festival or special celebration.

While valid examples, our understanding of culture needs to be broader — widening the lens through which we see things. Let’s expand how we’re thinking about culture and how it might shape or influence team dynamics, factoring in dimensions such as corporate culture, department values, and same-country regional styles.

An earlier blog addressed the impact diverse geographically-based cultures and perspectives may have on agile projects. As we noted then, “culture is not just dictated by what country issues your passport.”

“Our understanding of culture needs to be broader.”

Different departments / teams / industries operate with different cultural values — each with its own cultural currency. IT Security focuses on risk prevention, whereas IT Operations focuses on enabling functionality. Sales cares about what gets sold in a contract and Operations cares about what can be actually done in that contract.

You have probably been impacted by this yourself. I’ll share a recent experience: I was new to a highly regulated industry and surprised when a testing effort, originally estimated in days, took several weeks.

In addition to being regulated, the industry has a culture of conservative progress and a value of process and documentation over outcome. There are, of course, excellent reasons for this! This culture makes perfect sense when, for example, a) your product impacts the health or safety of millions of people; and b) there are steep governmental regulations attached to even minor changes, so you could be fined millions if you don’t cross every “t” and dot every “i.”

But, from the perspective of managing the project’s timeline and budget, I found myself frustrated and felt that we might be wasting precious time. What it came down to was competing cultural values. Thankfully, I was able to take time to consider the distinct values at play, how they were different from my own, and how I could operate differently. Instead of expressing frustration at their organizational culture, I started inquiring about the value it brought to the organization. Doing so, I gained valuable insight into the industry’s approach and was able to bring more value to my client.

“Instead of expressing frustration at their organizational culture, I started inquiring about the value it brought to the organization.”

Adding to the challenge of managing competing industry or department values are the other interpersonal, biographic, and cultural dimensions that enter the fray — for example, ethnicity (African American vs. Asian American), generations (e.g., Millennial vs. Boomer), geographic regions (Northeast US vs. Southeast US), and community (urban vs. suburban vs. rural). Even if two people may have similar ethnic backgrounds, the unique intersection of all of these cultural inputs combined with their individual experiences influence how they interpret and engage in a situation.

Here’s an example. While preparing a group of trainers, the host asked how the trainers would handle an attendee who was very passionate about the subject and starting to take up a lot of time in the class. Two white, female trainers indicated that they would feel uncomfortable but that, as long as the attendee “respected them,” they would engage him / her.

But how to demonstrate “respect” can be hard to pin down. To the trainers, showing “respect” meant using a calm, moderate tone of voice without being physically demonstrative. However, as we know, how respect is communicated is culturally nuanced. Some cultures use volume and gestures to communicate anger or disagreement, while others use it to communicate engagement and even respect. One person’s “respect” might be loud, another person’s quiet. How do we make space for all these different ways of approaching what might seem obvious?

So, who’s right? As is often the case, it’s not a matter of right or wrong. It is about different values driving different outcomes, different communication styles, and more. Maybe the better question is: how do we all get along? And, how does this impact our bottom line?

First, we shouldn’t assume cultural knowledge. Cultural Intelligence expert David Livermore states that we should “stop teaching cultural differences.” He doesn’t mean to stop encouraging people to understand each other’s differences; instead, he asks us to stop creating specific lists of differences to memorize as if “cultural differences” were a simple checklist you could work through. Why? Because this checklist approach can lead to a relaxed attitude in understanding culture rather than increasing people’s curiosity and capability to comprehend the deep and varied cultural values at play in any situation. Awareness of cultural differences provides directional understanding (i.e., that someone from a particular culture may perceive a behavior in a certain way) but that is not guaranteed. It is better to develop the skills to recognize and adapt to differences in the moment — acknowledging that people are inherently complex and each person’s response is the result of many unique, often unknown factors.

Second, we should become self-aware: what are our values at play at work, at home, and elsewhere? What’s driving us? Why do we react the way we do in the situation? Understanding our Cultural Values Profile and Cultural Intelligence assessments can help identify not only our own values, but help us develop the skills necessary to navigate cultural nuances. Going further, evaluating your leaders as well as your organization as a whole will enable you to identify the values driving your organization. This may have implications on recruitment, retention, and your leadership pipeline. For instance, a study of real estate agents found that those with a higher drive to understand cultural differences had higher sales compared to their peers.

Last, but not least, we should lean into our curiosity and follow Sakichi Toyoda’s method of asking “Why” five times, or really as many as it takes to get to the root of a problem. Often our first assumptions and initial findings are insufficient; we need to lean into our curiosity to get the whole picture. There’s a story that perfectly highlights this: a young newlywed asks her husband, while he roasts a ham, why he cuts the ends off. He declares that that is what his father does. The bride later asks her father-in-law why he cuts off the ends of the ham before roasting and he declares that that is what his father does. Still puzzled, she asks her grandfather-in-law, “When you roast a ham, do you cut off the ends?” “Usually,” he responds. “But why?” she insists. “Because,” he answers, “my pan is too small!”

Authors

Karl Ostroski is a Consultant in Slalom’s Business Advisory Service practice and is based in Chicago. He’s been delivering successful IT changes around the world for over a decade. Certified in Scrum, SAFe, and CQ, Karl loves helping cross-cultural teams drive success. Follow him on Twitter: @karlostroski

Alice Leong is a Consultant in Slalom’s Business Advisory Service practice and is based in Chicago. She has extensive experience establishing and leading cultural transformation initiatives for global companies across different industries. She is a Prosci Change Management Practitioner and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Her focus is on coaching companies to leverage the power of diverse teams across their organizations.