{"id":1521,"date":"2013-07-03T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/?p=1521"},"modified":"2014-05-14T17:39:43","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:39:43","slug":"integrity-wholeness-and-cohesiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/2013\/07\/03\/integrity-wholeness-and-cohesiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Integrity – wholeness and cohesiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Culture<\/a>
Culture change: not something that you ‘do’ to people – unless you want to risk negative consequences<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dennis Bakke highlights in his book ‘Joy at Work’, the difference between saying to workers, ‘we really care about your welfare because we do<\/strong>,’ and the suggestion, ‘we care about your welfare because that will make you work harder<\/strong> for us’. The former offers a sense of value, the latter is more cynical.<\/p>\n

The sentiment of valuing people has natural\u00a0 appeal – caring about the people who work with us simply makes sense. But at work – what does caring about people really mean?<\/p>\n

Many organisations have ‘people programmes’ or ‘culture change’ initiatives. Do these help?<\/p>\n

As John Seddon has often said, respect for people is not a point of intervention – it is not something you ‘do’ to people. Deming repeatedly talked about two things concerning people – the need to maintain dignity and self-esteem. Anything that robs people of these two factors is counterproductive (and as Deming also emphasised,\u00a0 disrespectful).<\/p>\n

The culture that appears in any organisation – the behaviours, ways of being, talking and doing – is a symptom<\/strong><\/em> of the way things are set up in the organisation (the ‘system’ as Deming would call it). The fall-out from an organisation’s culture (too numerous to discuss here), can be positive or negative.<\/p>\n

As an example, a familiar type of negative fall-out might be the lack of career development for women; this could well be a symptom of the way things are set up in an organisation, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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  • access to flexible working<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • provision of parental leave<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • plans for recruitment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • \u00a0how people’s ideas for improvement are implemented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • Whether managers consider career development for staff<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • \u00a0how unacceptable behaviours is challenged<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • \u00a0how often peer groups have a voice in organisational decision<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • \u00a0how career breaks are understood and managed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • time invested in succession planning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • \u00a0How many women are in senior, influential roles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • how performance is measured now<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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