Quickie: Schein on Culture
“To discover the basic elements of a culture, one must either observe behavior for a very long time or get directly at the underlying values and assumptions that drive the perceptions and thoughts of the group members.”
~ Edgar Schein (1996)
Seen in: Emiliani, Bob. The Triumph of Classical Management Over Lean Management: How Tradition Prevails and What to Do About It (p. 30). Kindle Edition.
Note: Here, Schein supports the Organisational Psychotherapy view that culture is a (read-only) manifestation, or shadow, of an organisation’s collective assumptions, values and beliefs. See also: Hearts over Diamonds, Memeology.
Think Different
An interesting perspective. There are many schools of psychotherapy as well as many schools of organisational change. I, too, practice in that intersect.
One of the biggest assumptions I find is to define what needs changing / stopping and what should stay the same.
Using the model you describe, the challenge, as a leader of change, is to identify the things that need changing and align the resulting change programme to the organisation’s collective assumptions, values and beliefs. If you have to change the latter it becomes much more tricky and a game of patience (and is probably outside the remit or competency of a psychotherapist).
Hi, thanks for commenting. Would you be willing to investigate the differences between psychotherapy (for/with the individual mind) and organisational psychotherapy (for/with the collective mind)?