Standardization robs life of its spice. To deprive every ethnic group of its special traditions is to convert the world into a huge Ford plant. I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.
The type of people who you promote are the type of people your company will attract.
Great leaders cultivate an environment where people are not afraid to make a mistake.
Economists talk about capitalism's "creative destruction" as old firms and industries topple to make room for new ones. But creative destruction isn't confined to the economic sphere; it's occurring in the cultural realm as well. And the rise of the global middle class promises to unleash this disruptive but liberating force as never before.
Workplace culture helps guide our behavior. It’s what makes our work lives consistent and predictable. But sometimes, it can hold us back.
Thus, it’s imperative that we make the effort to understand our culture and ask ourselves what existing beliefs, assumptions, behaviors, and processes may no longer be serving us well.
Remember that structure drives behavior
Nevertheless, when secularization separates personal and civic virtue from a sense of accountability to God, it cuts the plant from its roots. Reliance on culture and tradition alone will not be sufficient to sustain virtue in society. When one has no higher god than himself and seeks no greater good than satisfying his own appetites and preferences, the effects will be manifest in due course.
A society, for example, in which individual consent is the only constraint on sexual activity is a society in decay. Adultery, promiscuity, out-of-wedlock births,15 and elective abortions are but some of the bitter fruits that grow out of the ongoing sexual revolution. Follow-on consequences that work against sustainability of a healthy society include growing numbers of children raised in poverty and without the positive influence of fathers, sometimes through multiple generations; women bearing alone what should be shared responsibilities; and seriously deficient education as schools, like other institutions, are tasked to compensate for failure in the home.16 Added to these social pathologies are the incalculable instances of individual heartbreak and despair—mental and emotional destruction visited upon both the guilty and the innocent.
But the best companies become more, not less, idiosyncratic over time. They know that to do weird, they have to be weird. This idiosyncrasy has created a culture of beauty at Apple, of hacking at Facebook, of efficiency at Amazon.
Countering institutional forces is not management as usual. Nor do such forces yield gracefully to planned organizational change programs of the flip chart and to-do list variety.
The conditions that foster team effectiveness are simple and seemingly straightforward to put in place. A real team with work that lends itself to teamwork. A clear and engaging direction. A group structure—task, composition, and norms—that promotes competent teamwork. Team-friendly reward, educational, and information systems. And some coaching to help team members take advantage of their favorable performance circumstances. Yet to install these simple conditions is also to determine the answers to four fundamental questions about how an enterprise operates: 1. Who decides? Who has the right to make decisions about how the work will be carried out, and to determine how problems that develop will be resolved? 2. Who is responsible? Where do responsibility and accountability for performance outcomes ultimately reside? 3. Who gains? How are monetary rewards allocated among the individuals and groups that helped generate them? 4. Who learns? How are opportunities for learning, growth, and career advancement distributed among organization members? The answers to these four questions express some of the core values of any enterprise, and it can be maddeningly hard to change them. For one thing, to change the answers to the four questions is almost certain to threaten the turf and personal interests of currently powerful organizational actors. These individuals are therefore likely to find lots of good reasons why it would be ill-advised or excessively risky to alter standard ways of operating. Moreover, the answers to the four questions are, in established organizations, supported by deeply rooted institutional structures...
Indeed, it may be that fundamental change can be accomplished in an established organization only when it has become destabilized for some other reason—for example, the departure of a senior manager, the rapid growth or dissolution of an organizational unit, financial disaster, or the introduction of a new technology that requires abandonment of standard ways of operating.
People get hurt in revolutions. Especially those who lead them. Even when they are successful.
Because creating and supporting work teams in organizations often requires the redirection of strong institutional forces, the activity is more appropriately viewed as revolutionary than as management-as-usual.
At general conference, there is not going to be a flashing light saying, ‘This is doctrine,’ or ‘This is policy,’ or ‘This is culture.’ The expectation is for us to be knowledgeable of Jesus Christ so we can make that interpretation for ourselves,
Top likened the difference between church doctrine and culture to an old handcart wagon wheel. The hub of the wheel is the most important part of the wheel — tying it to the wagon, holding everything together and giving it strength. He explained that the hub is the gospel of the church. Echoing Griffiths, Top explained that the core doctrines of the church within that hub are very few, and center specifically on Jesus Christ and his atonement and resurrection. “It is He that gives strength to all other things,” Top said. The spokes of the wagon wheel are important as well, but Top cautioned that without the hub “they are basically just kindling, just sticks.” He likened the spokes to the principles and ordinances of the church, including faith and baptism. “The only way they have power is to be anchored in Jesus Christ,” Top said, adding that the spokes — the principles and ordinances — are meant to lead people back to Jesus Christ. Surrounding all of this is the rim of the wagon wheel. Top explained that just as the rim holds the whole wheel together so it can fulfill its intended purpose, without the hub and spokes it would collapse. In the church, he likens its programs to that rim. The policies and programs of the church “are intended to lead us to the hub,” he said, and enable to the church to move along on its intended path. “But they have no saving power,” Top said, adding that, just like the recent change from visiting and home teaching to focused ministering, this “packaging” has changed through the years and adapted to the church’s needs at given times.
What many interviewers—whether they’re recruiters or hiring managers—don’t consider is that once a culture is established, they have to hire the right people to maintain and improve it.
Most of us – people and businesses – rush towards the future without creating the culture that supports that future. We buy the watch but not the watchfulness.
To be really medieval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
Our thoughts, too, depend on others. Consider how our minds are shaped fundamentally by the cultures into which we are born and the languages that we acquire through interactions with others.
Who we are is who we are with others.
We are always in relation, inescapably and reciprocally together, both affecting and being affected by others.
It may seem that culture is so heavily embedded in our thinking and behavior that it is impossible to change. It is, after all, much of what we feel defines us and from which we feel a sense of identity. It can be such a strong influence that we can fail to see the man-made weaknesses or flaws in our own cultures, resulting in a reluctance to throw off some of the traditions of our fathers. An overfixation on one’s cultural identity may lead to the rejection of worthwhile—even godly—ideas, attributes, and behavior.
Many of our world’s problems are a direct result of clashes between those of differing ideas and customs arising from their culture. But virtually all conflict and chaos would quickly fade if the world would only accept its original culture, the one we all possessed not so very long ago.
The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that there is purpose in life. Our being here is not just some big cosmic accident or mistake! We are here for a reason.
This culture is grounded in the testimony that our Heavenly Father exists, that He is real and loves each one of us individually. We are His “work and [His] glory.”
It is a culture governed by the priesthood, the authority to act in God’s name, the power of God to bless His children. It edifies and enables individuals to be better people, leaders, mothers, fathers, and companions—and it sanctifies the home.
True miracles abound in this, the oldest of all cultures, wrought by faith in Jesus Christ, the power of the priesthood, prayer, self-improvement, true conversion, and forgiveness.
The perfection of the family is worth any sacrifice because, as has been taught, “no other success can compensate for failure in the home.”2 The home is where our best work is done and where our greatest happiness is attained.
To be part of this, the greatest of all cultures, will require change. The prophets have taught that it is necessary to leave behind anything in our old cultures that is inconsistent with the culture of Christ.
The culture of Christ helps us to see ourselves as we really are, and when seen through the lens of eternity, tempered with righteousness, it serves to increase our ability to fulfill the great plan of happiness.
bringing that which is consistent with truth and righteousness from his old life into his new one serves only to enhance his fellowship with the Saints and to assist in uniting all as one in the society of heaven.
The prophets have taught that it is necessary to leave behind anything in our old cultures that is inconsistent with the culture of Christ. But that doesn’t mean we have to leave behind everything. The prophets have also emphasized that we are invited, one and all, to bring our faith and talents and knowledge—all that is good in our lives and our individual cultures—with us and let the Church “add to it” through the message of the gospel.
We can, indeed, all cherish the best of our individual earthly cultures and still be full participants in the oldest culture of them all—the original, the ultimate, the eternal culture that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Many cultural critics live in an unrepresentative internet bubble. Much of the current divergence between elite discourse and popular preference can be reduced to a simple heuristic: Most critics are on Twitter; most consumers are not. If you examine the coverage proclaiming the end of Harry Potter or Lin-Manuel Miranda, or castigating any other wildly successful cultural product or personality, you’ll quickly spot a pattern: The only evidence they tend to cite is an assortment of tweets.
Twitter is real life for the people who are on it, but most people are not on Twitter.
Being a critic can lead you to lose sight of the experience of the audience.
The problem with being a professional critic is that you end up consuming so much culture that you stop processing it like a normal person.
But when critics lose sight of why most people consume culture, they start missing what makes most things popular. In their search for significance, they forget about the fun.
Standardization robs life of its spice. To deprive every ethnic group of its special traditions is to convert the world into a huge Ford plant. I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.