Culture is the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a
particular people or society (Oxford English Dictionary). Organisational
culture is the behaviour of humans within an organisation and the meaning that
people attach to those behaviours (Wikipedia). The operative part of the ‘definition’
of organisational culture is the ‘meaning that people attach to behaviours’. It
immediately becomes apparent that it is not about how we behave; it is all
about what others who work with us think what our behaviour means. That is why
getting organisational culture right is very tricky if not impossible. Understanding
the concept of microcultures could help us in this difficult area.
Culture in Society
The
society we live in has macro and micro-cultures. Macro-cultures are thought to
be the majority groups whose norms are very visible and these become dominant,
overarching and can be seen across historical timelines which means they are
often long lasting. Interestingly within the macro-cultures there may be dominant
small groups whose influence on the macro-culture is significant and
overwhelming. For instance, parliamentarians are a small group who have
disproportionate influence on society, they are representative which means we
choose them to influence us. An example of a dominant small group within the
macroculture who are non-representative are Oxbridge. There are many other
examples of dominant small groups.
Society
also has micro-cultures. The microcultures are generally thought of as being numerically
small, voluntary, short-lived, situation specific, weak, non-dominant and not
so visible. However there are very
numerically large groups within the population who form microcultures, for
instance ‘women’ and unions amongst others. We can also see micro-cultures that
have been around for a very long time such as the Amish and yoga. There are
also microcultures that are very powerful such as think-tanks, activists,
extremists, etc; some microcultures have been so powerful in their times as to
change the society in permanent terms for instance the antislavery movement in
the west. Microculture has always been viewed by the macroculture of any
specific period in time with suspicion, as a threat, as very different and
generally poorly understood.
There
is another cultural entity called subculture which is distinctly different from
yet often misunderstood as being a dominant small group within macrocultures or
being a microculture.
It
seems that macro-culture is similarity based who do not mind, often understand
and even tolerant of reduced values. Microcultures are value based meaning that
there are strong traits of equality, morality, ethicality and other traits held
precious with microcultures feeling that they are forced to tolerate
similarity. Subcultures are based on difference and variance ‘I am better than
you. You are worse than us’ etc and exploit those differences without exploring
the contexts adequately, often to personal benefit or detriment of the members of the subculture.
Organisations
and MicroCultures
Organisations
mirror society and within organisations there are micro-cultures. In
organizations, especially in healthcare organizations, ‘micro-cultures’ have
not been subject to proper study. There is a general assumption that it is best
for everyone in an organisation to have a similar culture i.e. an overarching
organisational culture. In reality, there are numerous cultures within an
organizational culture, which is only normal. However, there may be some good
micro-cultures which may want to observe and learn.
The
micro-cultures have similar structure, activities, qualifications, finance, job
descriptions, titles and staff specifications as the macro-culture but the
expressions and the results of these vary significantly from the organisational
macro-culture.
How To Do It
What
or how are the specifics of a good microculture that enable a different
expression and better results?
In
the micro-culture that I experienced, we did whatever was statutorily required of
our organization and mandatorily required by our organization. The
micro-culture related methods and behaviour are over-and-above what was
required of us; it was not a replacement behaviour neither did we think it was
an add-on. It was just the essence of the way we worked.
My
observation suggests that what we do more of some things and less of others.
Here is a brief list:
We did more of
|
We did just the amount required
of us
|
Feed-forward
|
Feedback
|
Support
|
Challenge
|
Direct specific communication
|
Emails/memos/ ‘cascade’
|
Generic incremental ‘planning’
|
Formal planning
|
Taking responsibility for others
|
Holding to account
|
Praise
|
Criticism/complaint
|
Learn small & frequent
|
‘Formal’ learning
|
Routines for us
|
Variations for the patients
|
Upstream
|
Downstream
|
Talk often and short
|
Long speeches and big meetings
|
Internal recognition
|
External recognition
|
Yes
|
No
|
Due
to these methods and techniques we were able to have a supportive and friendly
environment.
MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF
ORGANISATIONAL MICROCULTURE
We
may attempt to measure the successes of micro-culture in many ways. Since
culture is often defined as the ‘way we do things here’, I have chosen to
measure it by some of the things we did differently. Many of these methods were
exclusive to us, some have been done much ahead of time before other areas. I
have chosen our record of innovation as a ‘measure’ to demonstrate the success
of our micro-culture. I have already published about the innovations http://successinhealthcare.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/innovations-in-small-hospital.html
The
results in general principle, result in happier staff, lower costs, quicker
times for patients, often better results, better retained learning and such
other positive impacts.
Culture
and its effects are difficult to measure. Surveys have been used with staff
self-reported scores and users perceptions. These are useful up to a point. The
tangible link between micro-culture methods, processes and behaviours to
outcomes will always difficult to elucidate. However, we believe that while a
happy working environment is vitally important, we also believe that such an
environment should result in some relevant outcomes. We believe that while our
structure, activities, specifications, qualifications and knowledge are more or
less similar to any organization and its specific departments our expressions
of these and our results are different and take the form of the innovations
which have been described above.
What can we do with the concept of
Organisational MicroCulture?
Microcultures
are often appreciated but at the same time often criticized. Some microcultures
seek attention, some often shun the limelight.
The
point is to assess the micro-culture on the basis of contextual impact, what is
good for one may not be good for another, what works at one time may not work
another time, what is seen as bad may become acceptable at a later point of
time. (Mandela, IRA, PLO)
In
organizations firstly micro-cultures should be allowed. We know that often
there is no single recognizable so called organizational culture especially
within the healthcare context. Next, more importantly supported on the basis of
results that matter for the patients (and not on some vague notions of what a
pan-organisation culture ought to be).
If
you were a senior person in an organization, as you support a micro-culture you
will also have this burning desire to ‘spread out’ ‘roll out’ an identified
brilliant culture and reap the benefits of results and happiness for the whole
organization; unfortunately it does not work like that. We may love the way
that the Amish live today but we will be unable to roll it across the world or
even use it for us. Products can be rolled out, packaged popular cultures can
also be rolled out (eg MTV) but work place behaviours seem to be too personal,
too individual, too variable, hence too complex to roll out.
What
we can do is to grow our own, micro-propagate. We can become aware and make
others aware of effective micro-cultures, managers can encourage and enable
interaction with micro-cultures. Managers should be aiming for an environment
of varying positive microcultures (and not necessarily one large single
positive culture which generally exists in management books). Managers should
not be aiming for a coalescing of cultures, though that sometimes happens on
its own. Processes and activities can be copied, a culture cannot be copied.
Though
I have described our observed methods, there is no real ‘model’ and hence there
is no proper way to ‘replicate’ it. However, there are principles which can be
reflected upon which can then result in growing your own micro-culture. We are
not issuing a self-assembly kit – we are sowing some ideas some of which you
may want to use to create your own beneficial micro-culture. It is our view
that micro-culture cannot be replicated but can be propagated.
©M HEMADRI
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@HemadriTweets
PS:
A) There is a particular academic reference to the first few paragraphs of this blog which I have misfiled and will post it here when I find it
B) This topic was presented at the Clinical Microsystems Festival, Jonkoping, Sweden in 2015
