Organization 21C: Someday All Organizations Will Lead This Way

Human Nature, Culture, and Environment—Collision or Combination?

My concern in this chapter is the implications of the idea that there is potentially a collision between what stays the same—evolution's preprogrammed maturation and functioning of human brains—and what is changing with ever increasing rapidity—economy, demography, and ecology. Between the rock of our unchanging nature and the blizzard of social change lies the landscape we call culture. Culture is one of the most difficult concepts in our language—used to denote a mix of tangible and intangible differences between every kind of social unit. In groups it is used to denote the climate and norms. In organizations it is “the way we do things around here.” In states and ethnic groups ...