Imprints Of Time

Going off our previous blog in this 5-part series, we would like to point out something regarding transformations and culture: change seems to be the key when culture comes into play.  Depending on the cultural imprint that has been left on the organization and how long the imprint(s) have been in play, change will be affected differently.

Cultural Imprints at the Civilian government are seemingly affected by three major areas:

• Society Value Framework – Values embraced and ousted by the society. Also, large concepts including historical reactions to change help establish these values and changes in resources and innovations
• Resources – Historical Availability, Past Management, and existing legislation. Also, resources being economic, workforce, capital, neighboring support/aggression, environmental, ecological, medical, etc.
• Technology – Different organizations embrace advances in technology differently, based on historical success, societal values, and societal threats/needs

Of course, people reacting to the imprints of history are not directly experiencing them now. Instead, they are reacting to either the historical or living information of that,  through societal reaction, existing legislation, or proof or use of historical advancements

Reacting To The Past For The Present And Future

Break the reaction into 3 integrated parts:

• Society drives performance needs
• Resources drive business management [as set by performance]
• Technology drives products / services [as set by business ]

In other words, Society + Resources = Technology. Or better yet, our culture and our business practices result in changes and transformations such as new technology.

Below is a way to view in a framework:

Using civilian government as an example, the paths vary, depending on their perspective towards:

• Imprint – How old is the organization? How do they view it? How long has current leadership been there?
• Historical Reaction – What are their perceptions on recent and enterprise mission successes/failures? Also, what are failed concepts that some promote? What do we see in different stages of lifecycle than how industry perceives it?
• Time – How has leadership perceived time? What characteristics of different leaders have impacted their view on time?
• Organization – Size? Number of subcultures and subculture size? Their characteristic differences?
• Hard/Soft Science – Finally, Balance of Liberal Arts and Technology in culture. Also, how much has management kept to pure soft science models and how much adopted, tried, success/failure on engineering models?

The next section discusses capturing the profiles of an organization.