Is culture organic?

I’ve been watching the demonstrations in Egypt daily, mostly through recorded BBC News coverage. It’s a cultural thing for me…I prefer to get my world news from the BBC, just like I did when I lived in Jordan in 1985-86. Watching these demonstrations, and the recent response from leadership, it’s clear that the President of Egypt figured he could just make one statement and everyone would go home. For the past 30 years, when he has spoken, the people didn’t speak back (mostly). Now, they are saying they are going to be different, and they want him to respond to their actions and requests directly.

This kind of organic change in a large culture is pretty impressive! How does it apply to organizations? When I work on large change initiatives in organizations, a culture change is often at the core of the project. Leadership might decide that they will use a product or IT system launch to move the values of a company in a certain way.  For example, initiatives related to SOX compliance may be used to encourage employees to view recordkeeping as an ethical value. This ethical value may be communicated through training and leadership messages. But will the culture really change? 

My experience is that leadership can try to determine a culture, but this will be felt by some (or many) as an imposition, an unnecessary change. Culture is more organic than that. And it’s my opinion that it is determined more by the majority of a group, as in Egypt, rather than a leader or two.