What is culture in 2019?

I read a LinkedIn article (link below) and posted a lengthy reply. However, the immediate response and small window did not allow me the time or space to explore the implications, which I will attempt to do here.

This is the article…

CIO's will steer cultural change to drive digital transformation, says Gartner
https://www.information-age.com/cios-cultural-change-123478997/

These are my thoughts…

So culture is about data and information is it? Nothing to do with process and behaviour, leadership or understanding? If this is culture: every asset is data (including people) I’m not sure it should be our aim.

Sure, Facebook, Google, Apple all regard customers as data points and cash dispensers but is that culture?

What would happen if a company treated employees like this: as automatons who clock in and out, whose email is scanned and whose moving is on CCTV or tracked by sensors which plot activity and heart rate. All this already exists and is the domain of the CIO

A technology company has created an electronic badge that can monitor workers’ conversations, posture and even time spent in the toilet. This type of office surveillance raises concerns about workers’ rights and privacy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/14/is-your-boss-secretly-or-not-so-secretly-watching-you

Is this the culture we want?

This is where machine learning and AI might take us and it is a million miles away from the Cultural Web Analysis was developed by Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992.

https://www.toolshero.com/management/cultural-web-analysis/

Culture isn’t a table tennis or pool table, nor is it a kitchen and lunch. I don’t think it is data either. I think is behaviour and relationships. I have long been a fan of Cultural Web Analysis and have factored this into planning change: notably when turning public sector organisations into private companies (something I have done a few times over the years)

The model is simple in concept, but challenging to apply

1. Stories–The past and present events and people talked about inside and outside the company.
2. Rituals and routines–The daily behaviour and actions of people that signal acceptable behaviour.
3. Symbols–The visual representations of the company including logos, offices decor and formal or informal dress codes.
4. Organisational structure–Includes structures defined by the organisation chart, and the unwritten lines of power and influence that indicate whose contributions are most valued.
5. Control systems–The ways that the organisation is controlled including financial systems, quality systems, and rewards.
6. Power structures–Power in the company may lay with one or two executives a group of executives, or a department. These people have the greatest amount of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction

http://www.valuing-your-talent-framework.com/sites/default/files/resources/Johnson%20and%20Scholes%20Cultural%20Web.pdf

The problem now is that the application is less likely to be via leadership and management and more by message manipulation. Moreover, the six elements above are very different today than in 1992

The new cultural web

a) Stories–These are now fake news by social media in echo chambers which play back only what we choose to hear from friends, followers and facebook. This is different from office gossip at the watercooler – especially for those without an office or a watercooler. In the gig economy, the contracted and the self employed have very different source of stories to those of 27 years ago.
b) Rituals and routines–For the reasons above these are also very different nearly three decades later where our waking moments include a check of facebook, Instagram, twitter, breakfast TV and a quick check on what other people feel our meaning and purpose should be.
c) Symbols–This hasn’t changed much, but has perhaps grown in significance. We all aspire and despite the next generation being poorer than the last it is more important than ever to fight for the oxygen of fame and to “buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like”
d) Organisational structure– Organisation are flatter, more disbursed (often global) with informational structure (who gets included in messages) more important than reporting-lines which are likely managed by document rather than discussion.
e) Control systems–Financial systems, quality systems, and rewards have also changed. With zero-hours contracts and the gig economy we are measured by our presence and attendance more than our value as a human.

The above is a social commentary on life in 2019 whereas the original cultural web was more about the organisation. However, I think we are seeing boundaries collapse and it is increasingly difficult to discern where one ends and the other begins. The boundaries used to be between Monday to Friday and 9 to 5. Whereas now flexible work patterns and collaborative partnerships and short-term project focus make it increasingly difficult to define an organisation beyond the task that it is currently performing.

If Gartner are right that CIO's will steer cultural change then perhaps George Orwell was right too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

I hope not.