The Pyramid

Be a sponge. Keep what fits, discard what doesn’t, make it your own. I think a lot about developing healthy workplace cultures. I read a lot about it too. A book I highly recommend is Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture by Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn. Riveting stuff. This book explains the Elements of Organizational Culture. They diagram it as a pyramid.

At the base of the pyramid are Implicit Assumptions; built on those are Conscious Contracts and Norms; next comes Artifacts; at the top - Explicit Behaviors. At the base, the implicit assumptions aren’t observable. As you move up the pyramid, the culture becomes more and more observable.

I like that they display it as a pyramid because that’s how a culture in any organization is built – from the ground up. It’s a fantastic visualization of reality.