Lauri Vaisto, Principal Consultant at Duunitori, explores Jitske Kramer’s book ”The Corporate Tribe: Organizational Lessons From Anthropology.” Vaisto highlights Kramer’s fresh perspective on culture and practical insights for organizational cultural work. Kramer’s book offers valuable lessons on tribes and culture within organizations.
Written in August 16, 2022
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to read a book about culture for a change, leaving out the platitudes typical of the genre, such as what culture eats for breakfast at any given time? If so, The Corporate Tribe: Organizational Lessons From Anthropology by Danielle Braun and Jitske Kramer might be worth picking up.
At least in part.
The Corporate Tribe begins with a tune-up to anthropological thinking and cultural observation. The third part of the book focuses on practical cultural work in organizations from the perspective of five stages or ”Challenges”: Culture Creation, Continuity, Engagement, Recovery and Renewal. The authors’ own reading guide encourages readers to start where they are most interested. (It probably works, although I found it difficult not to wade linearly from cover to cover. A cultural convention?)
The best bites of the work are the ”journeys” to different times and places where communities have given rise to ways of cooperating and creating cultural structures.
These stories, learned through travel, also provide interesting insights into the everyday life of modern workplaces.
What does this have to do with leadership?
”Leadership is complex,” says the book’s chapter on leaders and power. People’s expectations of their leaders and leadership vary from situation to situation and culture to culture.
My own understanding of leadership is largely built on the idea of the need to move forward, which most often means making choices and decisions. However, it does not follow that a leader must decide alone. Rather, leadership involves taking responsibility for the decision-making process.
The Corporate Tribe presents culture as a consequence of power on the one hand, and as a source of power on the other. A leader who understands his cultural environment can derive considerable leverage from its structures. Understanding the ”cultural game” also helps to place your bets..
What about the workplace culture?
Since virtually the entire book deals with this topic, I will limit my attention to the ”manual” for cultural work at the end of the book. It is suitably simple in structure and will certainly serve as a good framework for thinking for anyone interested in cultural management.
However, its simplicity begs the question: can an organisation really be thought of as facing only one situation at a time? If a workplace of just a few dozen people can accommodate several subcultures, can a larger organisation be imagined to be at the same pace with its cultural challenges?
Probably not. And some of the tools of the trade are indeed placed in more than one ”compartment”.
Personally, I believe that sometimes effective cultural work can be just doing something. Every seminar and strategy day does not always need to be scripted in advance. It may even be better to sometimes just provide an opportunity and a theme for the meetings – and allow the culture to build organically.
What about the employer brand?
A sustainable employer brand cannot be based on a culture other than what is real. The exception is where the brand is characterised by a clearly and openly communicated desire to change and evolve (and a credible description of the goal).
Therefore, an understanding of culture and context is absolutely central to the development of any employer brand.
As an employer brand management partner, our job is never to invent – but to discover.
Lauri Vaisto, Principal Consultant, Duunitori
In my own role, I use principles and tools borrowed from anthropology to help us observe our clients’ reality.
If you have the courage to listen, all working communities have stories to tell about themselves. As an employer brand management partner, our job is never to invent – but to discover.
Buzz Trapt: Kula Circles = LinkedIn
It is natural for researchers to draw from their own research subjects, and the book is rich in descriptions of indigenous customs and rituals. While they provide an interesting illustration of the dynamics of human group behaviour, an informed buzzer will use discretion when drawing similarities between completely different contexts.
For example, comparing the 500-year-old Papuauvian-Guinean system of reciprocity with a modern online networking platform hardly does full justice to the meanings and nuances of the former.
Worth the Buzz: Culture is “in-between”
This work helps the reader to look beyond the jargon and artefacts that are overlaid on the surface, towards the points where culture actually happens and can be perceived.
Culture is the relationships we form and maintain with ourselves, our loved ones, outsiders, time, place, etc. Culture can be influenced, but it is not always as straightforward as we would like – and it is almost never dictated from the outside.
Worth the Buzz?
Worth the Buzz? is a project by Nordic Business Forum’s resident reader Lauri Vaisto. Lauri gets to know the NBForum speakers by reading their books – and sharing the insights with the public. In 2022, Lauri focused specifically on three themes:: management and leadership, workplace culture and employer brand.
The works in the 2022 project include:
- Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Rutger Bregman: Humankind: A hopeful History
- Jitske Kramer: The Corporate Tribe: Organizational Lessons From Anthropology
- Petter A. Stordalen: Thank God, it’s Monday!
- Amy Edmondson: The Fearless Organization
- Erin Meyer: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
- Zoe Chance: Influence is Your Superpower
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