About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of focusing on specific behaviors rather than vague concepts of culture in organizations.

Proper ding dong this week. I have a fabulously enjoyable back-and-forth with the brilliant Professor Rob Briner. At one stage Rob says: ‘If you tell someone - whose favourite thing is organisational culture - and you tell them it’s not a very useful idea - they don’t like it.’ Well, I felt seen. To be fair I’d already acknowledged that I agreed on what he was saying that behaviours are more important than culture. Also I’m more than a culture fan, I promise. But it’s a sign that it’s an outstanding discussion. Rob’s key point was that the idea of culture is vague and subjective. Rob says that culture is ‘a description. So if you want to change something, you don’t change the description of it, you change the cause of it.’ He says we should be specific about what we're trying to change, not just wave our arms and mouth 'culture'. We discuss if an obsession with scale is the curse of modern business. How to build effective organisations. Why you should focus on being specific about culture. It's worth checking out some of Rob's posts. For example: Does changing culture change behaviour? Rob asked me to share the following bio: Rob Briner is Professor of Organisational Psychology…

People in this episode

Host: Bruce Daisley

Guest: Professor Rob Briner

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Queen Mary University of London, Corporate Research Forum

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