It's the culture .. always the culture

Researchers have shown that culture is the outcome of a complex series of relationships between values or beliefs and behaviors that are the manifestation of those beliefs. These values and behaviors are also evident in the various rituals and symbols we follow and believe in.

For example, if you believe (value) that a fair and decent society should look after those in the society who are struggling to earn a living or are living in poverty, then you would support paying taxes for a social welfare net that provides training, financial support and other for those people. If you saw someone eating out of a rubbish bin, you would probably give that person some money for a proper meal. Supporting social welfare and giving some money are behaviors that reflect your value system.

However, if you believed that everyone is born equal and has an equal chance to be a President, for example, and that people are solely responsible for their own situation and the person eating out of the rubbish bin had simply made bad choices and was responsible for their own situation, you would not give money and probably not support higher taxes for social welfare. Different values, different behaviors.

What we also know is that for most of us culture is something we are not taught but something we slowly learn and absorb as children. Culture is everywhere. In our parents' and friends' behaviors, television, papers, the political system, the schools we go to. Like fish don't understand the sea they swim in, for many of us, culture is simply the sea we swim in. We rarely need to discuss or understand it and when culture becomes a public issue most people can't define it precisely.

In our next blog, we'll look at organization and project management cultures. This is the key to understanding Agile and how difficult it can be to successfully implement Agile.