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Cultural Change

It’s not Black and White

How can anyone look at an image like this, knowing the story behind it, and not feel compelled to drive for cultural change?

Throughout July 2021, in England, there’s been a growing feeling of excitement. We’ve heard the iconic Three Lions music played more and more frequently, with words that tell us about 30 years of hurt which nowadays is in excess of 50. We’ve seen images of elated young players scoring, winning, progressing and so our sense of anticipation has grown to fever pitch. On 11th July, it all came crashing down as the inevitable happened. Penalties. Oh no. Vitriolic attacks on the individuals “to blame” for our disappointment – well, that’s what happens, isn’t it? Is that really our narrative, or have we reached breaking point where we are long overdue a significant cultural change?

A flawed hope from Covid lockdowns?

When lockdowns first started, there was a sense that people were kinder to one another as we faced a common enemy in Covid, coupled with anxiety and worry that we, or people we knew and loved, may get sick. Video meetings saw cameo appearances from children and pets, and an acceptance that this is real life and people aren’t their work but that work is something we do.  It felt nice that we were coming together as societies, embracing our differences and recognising our commonalities.

Was this just a myth? A perception brought about by the biochemical response when we reach goals and solve problems, like working out how to build rrelationships with people at work who we’ve never actually met? Did we lose sight of the fact that our society still has significant division, which perhaps was out of sight and out of mind?

What can we learn from history?

During the 1990s, Don Beck was working behind the scenes in South Africa and helping to design a multi-cultural democracy. He used an approach called Spiral Dynamics, which used colour to unite rather than divide because Spiral Dynamics is a model about the values with colours depicting a variety of values systems which could be held regardless of skin pigmentation.

In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous speech in which he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character”

In what’s since been recognised as a misattributed quote to Edmund Burke, we were told that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

What do all of these references have in common? They reference what’s important to us as a society. Our values, as a driver of cultural change. It’s out values that determine our behaviour, and when we should feel good about something we’ve done, or regret.

3 Lions – some interesting references in the lyric?

There probably aren’t many of us that can’t hum the tune or recite at least some of the words of the 3 Lions anthem, but have we noticed their relevance to what’s been going on that has nothing to do with football?

“Everyone seems to know the score. They’ve seen it all before”

“So many jokes, so many sneers, and all those oh-so-nears, wear you down through the years”

“…. years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming”

Have we been worn down through the years to the point where we briefly express outrage and condemnation for the sneers? Can we still dream of a world in which we judge people by the content of their character, such as three young men accepting the responsibility and hopes of a nation as they take on a no-win scenario? Score, and that’s what they’re paid lots of money to do, isn’t it? Miss, and factions of society will look for a way to make them hurt as they take on the role of judge and jury to compensate for their pain (which probably extends further than football).

Is our current response going to bring about lasting change?

In the days that have passed since the 11th July, we’ve seen pressure on social media companies to remove the words of hate. We’ve seen the beginnings of legislative change, where online abuse will have real world contextual punishments (the people who sent online hate messages being unable to attend football matches). This legislative agenda also threatens huge financial implications for social media businesses not acting in accordance to the values we want as a society. We’ve seen school children write to Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, and communities demonstrate that they don’t believe or accept the hateful words of others.

However, are these the actions which will bring about the kind of cultural change that relegates these incidents to a past we’d rather remember only because it teaches us that we can improve?

When we run Change Programmes for clients, how we work is to start by facilitating a confrontation with the brutal facts, and how they differ from what they’d like instead. It’s sometimes challenging, and yet always rewarding because it’s only when we understand our reality that we can take action based on root causes rather than providing symptomatic relief.

Silencing the voices we don’t like, and threatening to punish businesses which provide a platform for people to express their views may be part of the answer but they don’t build understanding as a platform for education and change. We work with a model called the Logical Levels of Change. Commonly, Projects will set out ith a purpose to implement a new system, or process, or to relocate to a new office, etc.

These are all what we call Environmental Change, because they are enablers but not in and of themselves the change. They do not nor can they deliver sustainable outcomes, unless the outcome you targeted was an increased cost for the project and the overheads of having a new system, as an example. What we also need is to focus on behaviours, and to drive behavioural change we need capabilities and culture (made up of beliefs, values, identity, vision and purpose).

In the aftermath of 9/11, Tony Robbins was running a seminar in which, amongst his audience, there were people directly impacted because they’d lost loved ones, and sympathy for the acts of the terrorists. He managed to facilitate a process which brought together those two seemingly mutually exclusive perspectives and find the common ground which replaced hate with unity.

This is where, ordinarily, there may be some form of plug or call to action. It doesn’t seem appropriate given the content of this cultural change piece, so we’ll finish with a simple invitation to follow us on LinkedIn

Posted on 15/07/2021 in General