Tag: power structures

  • Does power support change?

    This post has moved.
    It now lives on the Constructivist blog: read the updated version →

    Eiffel Over is now my stage for engineering-related clowning, singing, dancing and writing — you’ll find my professional writing on design and regenerative thinking over at Constructivist.

    Earlier this week I wrote about designers needing to understand the conditions for change. What enables change and what blocks it.

    If we understand organisational culture as how things get done in an organisation, then culture gives us some strong clues about what – or who might be enabling or blocking change.

    Power is one of the six lenses of culture in the Johnson and Scholes culture web. How people with power wield it in the organisation sets a strong signal for what is valued and what can be ignored. The policy may say one thing, but it is what management or leadership actually do that sets the culture.

    And so back to change. Do the people with power visibly support change? If so, a culture of change will enable you to do your work more easily. If not, you will have more work to do.

  • Culture of climate emergency

    Culture of climate emergency

    If you are interested in understanding how your organisation should perform in the climate emergency then you should be interested in organisational culture. An emergency is a state in which we require people to behave differently to normal and take urgent action.

    We can understand organisational culture as the way a group of people get things done. If we want people to behave differently in the climate emergency then we need to change our organisational culture to one that is more appropriate to the urgency of the situation.

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