Continuing from Part 1...

https://durumis.com/ko/@ryan-reason/the-power-of-observation-in-workplace-culture-and-the-second-season-of-changing-partners-fgmn09r7

Looking at the 'Inside', Not the 'Outside'

Many organizations talk about improving, changing, and innovating organizational culture. However, most companies' approaches are limited to attempts at partial responses, as if there were model answers, by inviting experienced consultants to refer to external cases. However, it is important to remember that the actual 'field' inside the organization, where employees communicate and work towards common goals based on the workplace space, is the starting point for understanding the current organizational culture and considering what changes can be made and how.

Anthropologists identify the following as key elements that constitute culture:

• Space as text
• Impression management among members
• Action, Conflict
• Ritualistic acts and symbols.

In other words, culture is defined as everything about the symbolic expressions associated with communication.

It can be said that it is a continuous and never-ending process in which members existing within the space and place coordinate their social roles within the group they belong to through various actions based on their mutual relationships. One of the easiest examples to see this meaning is 'Single's Inferno Season 2', which is recently gaining popularity.

The ten handsome men and women appearing in the program in the poster are smiling at the camera while maintaining a organized arrangement. (Like the slogan of an ideal organizational culture, such as 'patient priority') However, these five couples who have already appeared with their ex-lovers become the subjects who create anxiety, excitement, and conflicts through emotional exchanges they have never experienced before by staying in one space. (As conflicts occur between subcultures seeking various values within the actual workplace space)

Viewers have the opportunity to see the changes between the cast members happening in real time through cameras set up all over the house, and through this observation, they gain their own understanding of each situation or attempt to predict relationships.

In addition, the ex-girlfriend's gaze at the 'bracelet' worn with the new love interest who she is interested in, the ex-boyfriend's stubbornness in taking on the role of a father who tries to change the ex-girlfriend who hides behind the excuse that she is originally careless, etc., are all surprising because they contain clues to the analysis of symbols and interactions within relationships that are needed to decipher organizational culture.

What if a leader within a company that is considering improving organizational culture and leadership, like a viewer of this program, turns their attention and criteria for change inward and begins to observe?

Organizational Culture is About 'What I Should Do', Not 'What I Can Do'

Observing is like challenging oneself, a constant awareness that there may always be shortcomings in one's perception and the decisions that follow. When leaders approach their members with this attitude and continue to confirm what they should do as leaders, members will also question their roles and do what is necessary.

Why don't you check it out today? What is the 'chair in front of this one' or the 'bracelet' that reveals the internal cultural conflicts that exist in your work space.

John Curran, Decoding culture podcast "3 myths about Wordkplace conflict"

Ervin Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Daniel Beunza, Taking the Floor: Models and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room.

Margert Heffernan, "Dare to Disagree."

Henrietta Moore, Space, Text and Gender.