Friday 22 July 2011

PENCIL CASE FROM MONTREAL

When I was a boy, my cousin, who was in the Merchant Navy, was a romantic figure. He occasionally appeared in my young life, newly returned from some exotic place. Always he brought some new thing. Once, gold trinkets from Surinam. Another time, unheard of brands of sweets from the far east. Once, even, a wife, from Guyana.

Once, he brought me a pencil case from Montreal. It's lid was made of sealskin. On it, the word Montreal in gold letters on a leather plaque in the middle of the sealskin lid.

The sealskin was mesmeric and lives still - incongruously - in my memory. It was impossible not to touch it. It was much hairier than one would expect. But the grain went only one way. Stroke it one way and it felt smooth. Move your hand the other way, and it was bristly and harsh.

Culture shifting is like stroking the sealskin. The elements, the levers of culture - the people, the systems, the rewards, the ways of working, the myths, legends and narratives, and the goals can all be aligned. Then the feeling is as smooth as the grain of the sealskin.

Or they can be misaligned, and create an abrasive, disfunctional result.

It is the job of the culture shifters to sensitize themselves with the grain, and attune it to goals, gently stroking it the right way, adjusting it more and more to the required direction, attuning it always with and never against that grain.

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