GBN Causes.cultural.change

7/31/2019 GBN Causes.cultural.change

1/28

Causes and Consequencesof Cultural ChangeA GBN WorldView Meeting Report

GBNGlobal Business a member of


2/28


3/28

WorldView Members& Guests

Heather Ainsworth

Kodak

Nancy Bambic

DuPont

Erika BrockhouseCoca-Cola

Dionne Colvin

Toyota

Christian Crews

The Waitt Family Foundation

Todd Egeland

CIA

Nicole Gilbert

Nissan North America

Anne Messbarger

CHRISTUS Health

Marcia Daley

Herman Miller

Stan Rosen

Boeing

Gary Wright

Proctor & Gamble

Jennifer Wright

Nissan North America

Network

Mary Catherine Bateson

anthropologist

Betty Sue Flowers

poet & educator

Joel Garreau

journalist

J.C. Herz

online & interactive media expert

Van Jones

community activist

Chris Riley

brand strategist

Alex Singer

film & tv director

GBN

Lynn Carruthers

Napier Collyns

Eamonn Kelly

Sophia Liang

Jay Ogilvy

Diana Scearce

Erik Smith

Causes and Consequences of Cultural Change A GBN WorldView Meeting Report GBN Global Business Network 2003

The Meeting Agenda

Monday December 9

Welcome Reception & Dinner

Defining Culture and Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Signposts of Cultural Change: A Hollywood Perspective . . . . .7

Tuesday December 10

Causes and Stories of Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Creating Scenarios of Cultural Change to 2015 . . . . . . . . .13

Consequences and Implications of Cultural Change . . . . . . .23

Who Was There?


4/28


SETTING THE CONTEXT

Defining Culture

Our first step towards a better understanding of the causes

and consequences of cultural change was to define what we

were talking about. Arrayed around the border of the box are

definitions drawn from academic textbooksthey are compre-

hensive, valid, and, quite frankly, dry. So at the start of the

meeting, the participants offered their own perspectives on

what culture means to them. Some of these definitions aligned

closely with the academic ones, others were more personal

and visceral.

What would you write?

to think like a human being is to think in terms

of stories, and I tell my students that they can set

aside all the fancy definitions of culture they mayhave learned in anthropology or the humanities

and think of culture simply as those stories that

we tell one another to make sense of our lives.

Jay Mechling,

Professor of American Studies,

University of California, Davis


5/28


Picturing Cultural Change

The term culture is slip-pery: we all experience it

everyday in extremely per-

sonal ways, yet it is difficult

to capture in words. As par-

ticipants explained I cant

describe it, but I sure know

it when I see it! Others

noted that often knowing

culture is much easier

once youve gotten out of

your own and have spent

time in another. Since

changes over time are eas-

ier to identify, we invited the

participants to bring and

post some images that rep-

resent specific changes inculture.

What images capture the

idea of cultural change

for you?


6/28

Each participant found one of these question cards beneath

their dinner plate. To guide conversation, we asked partici-

pants to answer their own question and then respond to tho

of others at the table.

How would you answer? What have been your

experiences of cultural change?


Initial Questions

How have you

detected culturalchange?

How has your

organization effectivelyrespondedor not

to cultural shifts?

What is an important

source of cultural

change that yourorganization is not

paying attention to?


7/28

Not surprisingly, these conversations wereboth animated and wide-ranging. Each table

shared highlights of their dinner conversa-

tions, and some major issues emerged:

the difference in culture between for-profit

and not-for-profit work environments

the place of the individual and the group

in different cultures

the importance of the cultural relationship

between the U.S. and other parts of the

world, and

the necessity of forgetting as a step in

the cycle of cultural change, i.e., one must

forget in order to changea positiveamnesia.

Several of these themes would echo through-

out the meeting.


Some Revelations


8/28

Being in Los Angeles, what could be more appropriate tha

an opening presentation by Alex Singer on the role of ente

tainment, media, and cultural change. A member of both

the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Alex has been a

GBN Network member for 15 years. In his presentation, h

tracked several dimensions of cultural change using film

clips from four countries.

Women, Men, and Sex

1937 It Happened One Night

1991 Jungle Fever

2002 Y Tu Mam Tambin

Humanity, Technology, and Cultural Icons

1968 2001: A Space Odyssey

Control and Manipulation of Time

1999 Run Lola Run

2000 TimeCode

2001 Memento

2002 What Time Is It There?


Film and Cultural Change


9/28

Signposts of Cultural Change

Alex kicked off the presentationwith a sure way to get an audience

attention: sex. He moved from a

risqu scene in 1937 showing

Clark Gable without an undershirt,

to an interracial affair, to a nearly

comicalyet graphicscene of

afternoon sex between two teen-

agers. Films separated by nearly70 years highlight and reflect the

massive cultural change that has

happened in this arena. What will

shock us next?

The second themehumanitys

relationship with technologyis

seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey.This also raises questions about

the iconic and mythic nature of

some films: Are they doing more

than simply reflecting cultural

change? Do they show the way

ahead?

The final theme revolves aroundtime, and our relationship to it

something that Alex considers a

central issue we are grappling with

today: Are we not enslaved by time

Can we be in charge of it? How

malleable is it?

What films would you haveselected? Why?`



10/28


STORIES OF CULTURAL CHANGE


11/28


12/28


More Stories of Cultural Change


13/28


14/28

Causes and Consequences of Cultural Change: A GBN WorldView Meeting Report GBN Global Business Network 2003

SCENARIOS ON THE FUTURE OF CULTURAL CHANGE TO 2015

Predetermined & Uncertain Forces

Votes Predetermined

12 Current value systems that are driving most global corporations render them

incapable of contending with these issues of cultural change

9 Aging population

6 Importance of China

6 Importance of India

5 Increasing levels of connectedness

5 Identity determined by more than age

4 More & more urbanization

3 More & more myths & conspiracy theories & widespread belief in them

3 Increasing diversity

3 Global warming, and other global problems

2 Continued growth & expansion of networks: both formal & informal

0 Religious diversity

0 Acceptance of authority and hierarchies (esp. by Millennial Generation)

0 Neurosis is perennial

0 Economic globalization

0 Technology & communication will continue to make the world a smaller place

0 American hegemony

0 A more painful world in 15 years

Starting from these provocative ideas and insights about causes and consequences of cultural

change, we brainstormed forcesuncertain and predeterminedthat would drive cultural

change between now and 2015. Uncertainties are exactly that: dependent upon other forces,

they could play out in a variety of ways. Predetermineds are deep trends, probably already evi-

dent today, that will play out in a relatively certain way. After the brainstorm, we voted on which

forces of cultural change would be most relevant for business. All of the uncertainties and pre-

determineds are listed here, along with the votes each received.

What would you add to these lists?

Which do you think are most relevant to business?

Which ones would you vote for as most relevant to the way your organization relates

to and handles cultural change?

One participant asked an interesting question that received a high number of votes: What is

beauty? The question is too open-ended to be easily framed as an uncertainty, yet it resonated

extremely well with everyone in the room because it got at both the subjective and normative

aspects of culture while also capturing the aesthetic element. So we set it aside to ask later

when we thought through the implications of each scenario world.


15/28


Votes Uncertainty

12 Techno-centric vs. human-centric expansion of technology

12 Top-down vs. bottom-up leadership

10 Reconfiguration of generational pattern, i.e., relationship between age and

authority

10 Global governance or global markets?

11 What is beautiful?

10 Interactions between hierarchies & networks

10 Cultural hegemony vs. cultural diversity

9 Centralized vs. decentralized technology

7 Increasing friction between American hegemony and a European model, esp.

related to leadership

6 Will there be change in incentive programs of businesses to take cultural change

into account?

5 Reliance on fossil fuels vs. alternative sources of energy

5 Nature vs. nurture assumptions

4 Will growing Circle of Empathy continue, or will it be a U.S. vs. Them globalization?

4 What are we willing to go to war for?

4 Strengthening of special interest groups as agents of social change, or weakeningof national American government as resource for social change

3 Development of strong global or international institutions

2 Cyberculture: how it defines itself? what it means?

Votes Uncertainty

2 Where will the locus of the voluntary choice be: individual, group, state, world?

2 Does increased connectedness make people more or less responsible?

2 What happens when there is no meta-narrative?

2 Working at for profits vs. working at not-for-profits, esp. motivation

2 How fast technologies, particularly biotechnologies, come along

1 And is there pushback to new biotechnologies?

1 Continuing American cultural hegemony

1 How necessary will experience in virtual world be for leadership?

1 Meta vs. individual narrative: how does it influence behavior?

1 Will it be the voluntary or the involuntary future? And what is the metric?

0 Optimistic or pessimistic world?

0 How much shared experience do we have?

0 TOE: Theory of everything

0 Degree of & response to globalization

0 Do we like the future or not? Does the world feel good? Who is having fun?

0 Will a religious revival show up?

0 Stronger social institutions developing, or not

0 How we define culture, identity, connectedness

0 Will we engage some of the disenfranchised?


16/28

Interplay betweenHumanity and Technology

Nature of Globalization

Sources of Leadership,Change and Innovation

Relationship of Corporationsto Cultural Change

The Technology Axis captures the relationship between te

nological developments and the dominant understanding of

human beings, i.e., how we learn, how we realize potential. A

one end is the view that people grow through a combination

of nature and nurture, where breakthroughs in technology

are fewer, and perhaps less welcome. At the other end is th

view that people are essentially determined by their biology,

and that this caneven shouldchange through technology

The Globalization Axis focuses on the cultural side of

globalizationwill U.S. domination move beyond military to

cultural hegemony? Or will cultural diversity flourish around t

world?

The Innovation Axis lays out one of the fundamental ten-

sions of change: where and how it originates. At one end is

the classic command and control hierarchy with innovation

and leadership flowing down from the top. At the other end

is a more flexible and distributed model of change, with inno

vation and leadership emerging from the bottom.

The Corporation Axis forms the crux of the cultural lens:

whether corporations play more of a leadership role in cultu

change, or if they find themselves more often than not follow

ing cultural change.


Axes of Uncertainty

nature2:biotech determinism

global markets:U.S. cultural hegemony

bottom-up & networked

follow

nature + nurture

global governance:more cultural diversity

top-down & hierarchical

lead

The next step in developing a set of scenarios was to create axes that expressed particular dimensions of uncertainty about the

future. We clustered uncertainties and a few predetermineds that received high numbers of votes and that were similar in content

into the axes below. Many different axes of uncertainty could be created from the list above, and those below reflect the most

compelling themes that surfaced in our brainstorm conversation.


17/28


The

ScenarioMatrix

Learning World

nature + nurture

nature2: biotech determinism

lefollow

Evangelical Corporation

Bio-CyberPunk GATTACA

After discussing several pos-

sibilities, the group decided

that combining the first and

fourth axes into this matrix

would make for the most rel-

evant and interesting set of

scenarios. Small groups

then developed each sce-

nario more fully. The tem-

plates with the original data

are shown on pages 1922.

After the meeting, and withtime for some more reflec-

tion, GBN made a few addi-

tional refinements to the

scenarios in order to make

the set more divergent, chal-

lenging, and relevant.Interplaybetween

Humanityand

Technology

Relationship of Corporations to Cultural Change


18/28


19/28


Implications

of theScenariosfor Businessand for

Beauty

Learning World

Implications for Business

Command and control style meets with difficulty here. Open-source becomes

an important metaphor for how work gets done, and most projects are

accomplished through a Hollywood ad-hoc production style.

In this scenario, beauty isdiversity, a mix & match collage, energetic

creativity, connectivity.



A clear sense of organizational values is absolutely necessary to attract

both talent and customers. Customers are more demanding on more fron

Product packaging is extremely importantthe product is a whole lifestyle

not simply an item. Teamwork is emphasized, somewhat like corporate cu

ture in Japan.

In this scenario, beauty isin the eye of the employee. An individual se

tion of enhancements, both biotech and developed through personal effort.

Bio-CyberPunk


Corporate opportunism and flexibility is key. Keeping options open as long

as possible. Speed to market is critical. Markets are more fragmented and

product lifecycles faster. Capability to rapidly prototype is very important.

In this scenario, beauty isindividually interpreted biotech enhancements.

They can be home-made or bought. No universal agreement: a lot of creativ-

ity, though not always for the better.

GATTACA


Brands remain very strong. The dominant aesthetic is well-defined and

nearly monolithic. And customers want the image. Individuals surrender

themselves to the well-oiled, efficient organizational machine. Hierarchicrigid. Yet there is a sense of underlying instability and fragilitysecurity

a major concern.

In this scenario, beauty ispurchased. Bio-engineered perfection

enabled by elegant code.

nature + nurture

nature2: biotech determinism

lefollow

Interplaybetween

Humanityand

Technology

Relationship of Corporations to Cultural Change

The point of creating scenar-

ios is not just to tell interest-

ing stories about the future.

The point is to tell stories

that can be used to talk

clearly about the implica-tions of each world, to think

about what organizations

would do to survive in each

world, and to provoke a con-

versation about strategies

that businesses could use to

thrive in each world. To get

our heads further into eachscenario world, we returned

to the unexpected question

that came out during our

earlier brainstorm: What is

beauty?


20/28

The axis endpoints are c

porations leading cultura

change and an interplay

humanity and technology

characterized by a natur

+ nurture understanding

of people.

* These are reproductions of the

actual scenario templates com-

pleted by the participants at the

meeting.


Scenario Templates*



21/28


GATTACA

The axis endpoints are coporations leading cultura

change and an interplay o


characterized by a nature

i.e., bio-deterministic,

understanding of people.


22/28


Bio-Cyberpunk

The axis endpoints are co

porations following cultu

change and an interplay o


characterized by a natur

i.e., bio-deterministic,

understanding of people.


23/28

The axis endpoints are cporations following cul-

tural change and an inter

play of humanity and tec

nology characterized by

nature + nurture under

standing of people.


Learning World


24/28


CONSEQUENCES AND IMPLICATIONS

What Would Armani Do?

GBN Network Member Chris Riley, founder of Studio Riley, played a unique role

at this meeting. Drawing upon a decade as head of strategic planning at the

brand and advertising agency Weiden+ Kennedy, Chris was charged with act-

ing as an implications provocateur to focus the groups attention on the so

what aspect of cultural change. He began by observing how the conversation

at GBN has changed in the last decadefrom one where economics and tech-

nology dominated, to one where culture has moved far up the agenda. Its a

more difficult conversationbecause issues of cultural change open a door

into everythingyet understanding and insight into culture and values are

more and more important. Chris has a clear point-of-view:

I believe that culture is ideas, the way we live, the humanity of our world.

Economics and technology are mechanics. But culture is about people,

about the way we feel, the way we think, the attitudes we adopt. And that

infiltrates every single aspect of what we do. So if youre in business, cul-

ture affects every single action of the business: baked-in assumptions,

ideals, beliefs, personal contextall affecting the work you do.

Chris turned to our four scenarios with an unusual example to illustrate implica-

tions for business: What would Giorgio Armani do in each world? This brand is

fundamentally about cultureelegant, sophisticated tailoring in Milan, Italyso

Chris sees Giorgio doing well in worlds where corporations lead cultural

change, especially in the Evangelical Corporation where the nurture idea

plays. In GATTACA, Giorgio takes advantage of biotech advances by offering

a line of Armani Enhancements. On the left side of the matrix though, the

brand runs into difficulty because the corporation is reacting to cultural

change. In Bio-Cyberpunk, customers create their own image of Armani,while Learning World is a crisis for the brand.

In closing, Chris posed three questions for finding business implications of

cultural change: from a cultural point of view, how does your company learn?

Formally and at a distance? Without relationships? Or through close relation-

ships? Secondly, how do you communicate your product, your brand, your

company? And finally, how does your company relate to other human beings

in the world, and how do you relate to people in your organizations?


25/28


26/28


27/28


Acknowledgements

Eamonn KellyDiana Scearce

Erik Smith

WorldView Meeting Directors

Sophia Liang

Meeting and Report Producer

Erik SmithReport Author

Lynn Carruthers

Visual Recorder

Nancy Murphy

Editor

Kelly Kaufman

Designer

2003 Global Business Network. This publication is for the exclusive use of Global Business Network members. To request permission to reproduce, store in a retrieval system, or transmit this document in any

form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, or otherwise, please contact Global Business Network.


28/28

590 0-X Hollis Street Emeryville, CA 946 08 510 .547.68

GBN Causes.cultural.change

Documents

Transcript of GBN Causes.cultural.change