Culture University

Positively impacting society on a global scale through culture awareness, education and action.

Leveraging Culture and Managing Change

By Kevin Smith

The following opinion is an extended look into “The Force Multiplier Theory.” It’s a concept I’ll introduce below, and it’s one we routinely use in helping organizations, teams, and leaders to understand the role of culture in organizational performance and effectiveness.

The overarching idea isn’t rocket science. Seemingly, whenever we share this perspective with people they always nod their heads in agreement and say, “absolutely,” or “we really need that.” Yet, as basic as the idea might seem, we still see organizations struggle with this concept and fail to invest in it, or not to its full potential.

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Developing a Jazz Culture

By Jonathan Gifford and Dr. Mark Powell

This post is the fourth in a series of five articles describing a major arts-based leadership development programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, designed and run over a four-year period by Dr. Mark Powell, one of the authors of this article. The aim was to create a new culture of ‘open mindedness’ among the senior project managers of a UK oil and gas exploration company, encouraging them to interact more effectively with the other stakeholders in their capital projects and enhancing their ability to improvise in the face of rapidly changing situations.

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Doing Culture Right Takes Intention and Attention

By S. Chris Edmonds

The articles and expertise found here on Culture University and Constructive Culture provide a fantastic foundation for a leader to learn how a purposeful, positive, productive culture operates. From making values as important as results to creating an organizational constitution to evaluating climate and relationships—that critical information is readily available.

The tough part isn’t gaining the knowledge about creating a healthy work culture. The tough part is implementing these practices and maintaining that healthy culture, every interaction, every day.

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Conversations That Count for Culture Change

By Graham Williams

Are we losing the art of conversation?

In an age where digital monologues, selfies, and superficial chats are the norm, the power of conversation is waning. Disconnected in our connected world, text, email, and social media exchanges are hardly interactive, let alone conversational.

TV, live-streamed and public-event ‘conversations,’ from political debates to discussion groups, tend to be immature, combative and divisive because there is something to ‘win,’ and because there is an ‘entertainment value’ to be optimised.

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The interest in culture continues to grow but this growth comes with a proliferation in over-simplified and incorrect information about culture and culture change. CultureUniversity.com launched in 2014 to cut through this misinformation and it has grown to be a great resource for leaders and change agents to learn about organizational culture. Over 30 organizational culture enthusiasts and experts shared their insights in 2016.

10 posts garnered the highest traffic and my personal top insight from each post is captured in the list below.

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Neuroscience has become a rising star in the sky of management theory. The notion or conviction that we can improve behavior and interaction in the workplace to enhance performance, innovation and health by understanding how our brain—the organ that is most involved in determining our behavior—works is on the rise.

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