5 The Cultural Web
Here is a way to explore your culture using the Cultural Web. It works well for High Reliabiliy Organisations (HROs) and similar organisations where the culture is crucial to the safety and well-being of members as much as it is to the delivery of the overall mission and purpose.
It has been used in various police forces to understand the culture and also as a way to shift the culture to make it more open to new recruits and also to create diversity. We believe that it is also essential for the public sector and other institutions such as universities to be clear and open about ‘how things work around here’. Many great projects die in the field of culture. Deep understanding of the way it is, will help you to navigate your way.
The Cultural Web helps us to understand the ‘why’ of these things about your place of work, whether you are in the office, in the field, or off location:
The Why of your Place of Work
- The way it ‘feels’ and ‘looks’ around here
- The way we do things around here
- The basic assumptions about how things work around here that most of the soldiers share
- What drives the perceptions, attitudes, feelings and behaviours of the workplace
- How we behave when nobody is looking.
(Johnson et al., 2017)(Horowitz)
The Cultural Web Components
The Cultural Web framework provides a tool that helps us understand the way we do things around here. When we use this tool to also think about the way we would ‘like’ to do things we can start to see the gaps and more clearly identify where to take action.
In relation to change, creativity and innovaton this is a very useful activity. Examining the cultural web of your team, barracks and the Army more generally may generate ideas for new initiatives. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the web may help you foresee and circumvent obstacles to implementation. Mapping your cultural web may even provide you with a way of measuring progress.
Here is a template for you to use. Make notes about each of the elements of your culture and write up your overall observations of the culture of your workplace:
How we work!
Reflection
Consider your current project or opportunity. What insights do you have from thinking about culture? What elements of the culture can you leverage when you are figuring out how to develop and implement your project? What elements of the culture might be barriers?