I use this space - the Captain’s Log - to dive behind the scenes of my writing from the last few weeks, and to explore a deeper context. There is no particular need, from my perspective, to view this work as ‘complete’ - part of #WorkingOutLoud is to share as you go, and to embrace the uncertainty and curiosity that goes alongside this.
When it comes to considering ‘Culture’, this is a useful feature, as the thing itself remains unfocussed, somewhat out of reach.
This year i’ve used a variety of terms to describe it:
A common consensual delusion
Something that is not ‘real’ and yet acts up on us all, each and every day
A feature held in systems, artefacts, and behaviour
Something that both enables and constrains in equal measure
Something that should never be talked about without carrying an extra ‘s’ in your back pocket - because culture is almost always culture[s]
The notion of ‘Culture Weaving’ has been at the centre of my writing this week. The heart of this idea is that Culture has a structure - a mesh - that many hands weave their threads into, creating an overall image. The metaphor allows us to consider both formal and social considerations of culture: the ‘mesh’ is the formal part, and it defines the overall breadth and width, but the ‘threads’ are woven by diverse individuals, and each may be a different colour, or woven with a different tension. The final tapestry begs questions such as ‘who owns the picture’, or who directs the weavers?
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2024/07/16/workingoutloud-on-culture-weaving/
On Monday i shared the work with a group for the first time, and from that conversation introduced the idea of ‘inclusions’, artefacts that we imbue with value and weave into the picture.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2024/07/17/culture-weaving-the-inclusion-of-self-in-culture/
This work allows us to ask if Leadership is the visible picture, or the hidden mesh. When the tapestry is complete, you can see no part of the substructure.
The work on Culture Weaving fits into a broad new stream of work, exploring the Social Age, which is increasingly tied up into ideas of motion, boundary, trespass, and interconnection. I think it’s influenced largely by the idea of leadership being dialogic - an ongoing dialogue with our practice. Not a fixed thing, but a fluid one.
Also - there is a notion of ‘convergence and divergence’, which originated in the Social Learning work, but which i’ve adopted now in the overarching question of ‘capability’, and how it’s held through diverse strengths. A Socially Dynamic Organisation will hold diverse capability - which requires us to reconsider our methodologies of measurement around learning, and of the quantification of value in e.g performance management structures. If we are measuring in the wrong dimension, we may miss the indicators of strength or risk.
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