Who hasn’t wanted a Culture of Innovation in their organization? After all, we are constantly inundated with articles, video interviews and books telling us we must have one; that we can’t be successful without it.
Countless organizations have tried wholesale “change management” or “organizational transformations” to get one, which take a long time, require commitment from both management and the work force and in the majority of cases, fail.
Scanning through The New Yorker over the New Year’s holiday, I came across an article by Joshua Rothman entitled The Meaning of “Culture” in his blog on books and ideas. It seems that Merriam-Webster announced last December that “culture” was their 2014 Word of the Year. The post immediately caused me to think about why we choose not to emphasize “culture” or “organization culture” when working with clients.
From his blog post:
“…The word “culture,” they explain, was simply the word that saw the biggest spike in look-ups on their Web site. Confusion about culture was just part of the culture this year. People were desperate to know what “culture” meant..."
The confusion of the very meaning of the word culture, how it evolves and what influences it, especially when it is applied to the organization is why we focus on the concept of establishing a Climate of Innovation within the organization when working with clients.