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Final conclusion or not: changing culture starts with looking better

Six blogs further. Six questions richer. Maybe you recognized yourself in them a few times. Maybe you also thought: this actually explains quite a lot. That is exactly what I hoped for with this series. Not that you now “know” what your culture is, but that you look differently at what happens every day. Because culture is not in words. It is in patterns. In repetition. In what feels logical and what doesn’t. This summary article will help you see those patterns more sharply, so you can more consciously choose which behaviors to reinforce.

Once you see what is really happening in your organization or team, it becomes harder not to. And that is exactly where change begins. Not with new plans or interventions, but by recognizing what is already there. What we do every day, without even realizing it.

What these six questions together show

Putting the six questions side by side creates a richer picture than any one label can ever give:

Together they show where energy flows and where tension arises. So often you see that one or two cultural values are dominant. That’s not wrong. Every organization has preferences. But dominance always has a downside: other cultural values get less space. And that’s exactly where many change problems arise.

By the way, the six questions in this series were not chosen at random either. They were inspired by the work of Cameron and Quinn, who describe culture as a balance between seemingly contradictory cultural values. What I’ve learned in 25 years of working with this model is that it’s not about having the right culture. It’s about the ability to consciously choose which behaviors you reinforce and which behaviors are given less room as a result.

What I myself see again and again

Change rarely fails because people don’t want it. It fails because we try to demand different behavior while the underlying culture remains the same. This is because, for example, we:

  • want to learn more, but more importantly celebrate results.
  • want more ownership, but steer tightly for control.
  • want to cooperate, but reward individual performance.

No offense intended. Grown logically, though. And so persistent precisely because of that.

The key question after this series

Perhaps the most important question remaining is this:

What behaviors make our culture logical and what behaviors do we unintentionally make difficult by doing so?

That’s not a question you answer in one sitting. It is, however, a question that helps you choose more consciously. To see where you can strengthen, adjust or add something.

Free culture scan

What this series has hopefully shown is that agility is not in one value or one way of working. It arises in the tension between four cultural values: innovate & discover, perform & win, manage & secure and collaborate & connect. These values do not have to fight each other, as long as you do not play them off against each other. They require conscious choices: what does this situation demand now?

If you want to make that question more concrete, it helps to make patterns visible. That’s why we at Scrum Academy have developed a free culture scan that explores these four culture values in six dimensions. Not as a diagnosis, but as a conversation starter. To give words to what is often already felt.

Use it as it fits:

  • individually, for reflection
  • in teams, as a starting point
  • or in leadership processes, to make choices negotiable

Change starts small

Culture cannot be designed. But you can learn to see it and understand it better. And that is often the beginning of real change. As soon as you see which behavior is being made logical, and which behavior gets less and less space as a result, freedom of choice is created. For yourself. For your team. For your leadership.

My advice: start small, with your own behavior. That is often the most difficult step. And at the same time perhaps the most important.

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