The Knowledgebase

Inspiration

Shared understanding

Bringing purpose to life

Additional resources

Blueprint content:

Links to Blueprint resources that provides context or further information on this course topic

External content:

Links to books & other external resources

This HBR article How Leaders Can Create a Purpose-Driven Culture (hbr.org)   discusses how the success of emphasizing a corporate purpose beyond mere profitability largely hinges on organisational culture and draws on examples from companies such as Netflix,  LUSH,  Atlassian and Cisco.

This article explores a number of questions including how companies can set the stage for ethical behaviour: Building an Ethically Strong Organization by Catherine Bailey and Amanda Shantz

Edgar Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership attempts to provide definitional rigour and clarity to the concept of culture so that researchers and practitioners understand how culture influences institutional performance. 

In this article Rethinking leadership and organisational culture, Simon Western argues for a re-think about leaders and organisational culture. It challenges the heroic model of a CEO transforming organisational cultures as if organisations were closed systems and cultures were ‘things’ to be changed.

In How avoiding shadow values can help change your organisational culture, John Neil and Michelle Bloom of The Ethics Centre outline why the biggest challenge for boards in governing culture is that while unspoken dimensions are difficult, but not impossible, to identify and measure, they are more powerful than official ones because they operate below the surface. Boards are key to changing an organisation’s culture because they more closely reflect its actual operating culture — its “shadow” values and principles.

In this article Corporate culture – grasping the ungraspable from Ajit Menon and Allen Zimbler argue corporate culture can be measured but it takes a nuanced approach.

Cheating: Ethics in Everyday Life by Deborah Rhode explores how the perception that “Everyone does it” can be self-perpetuating. – the more that individuals believe that cheating is widespread, the easier it becomes to justify. It then goes on to discuss strategies necessary to address it, including more cultural reinforcement of ethical conduct and how sustaining a culture that actively discourages cheating is a collective responsibility and one in which we all have a substantial stake.

In his book Payoff: The Hidden Logic that Shapes Our Motivations, Dan Ariely digs to the root of money motivation, and explains how understanding it can help us to successfully approach different choices in our lives.

Change the workplace, change the world, by Alan Watkins and Nick Dalton explores the evolution of people practices in a series of ‘waves’ from paternalism, power and then process, to people, profit, paradox and planet.

This blog People like us do things like this by Seth Godin discusses how we are driven to become a member in good standing of the ‘tribe’. We want to be respected by those we aspire to connect with, we want to know what we ought to do to be part of that circle. 

Common Beliefs, Not Common Behaviors by Bill Fischer we should be rethinking purpose and values, as a fundamental statement of beliefs. This is particularly important in preparation for larger ecosystemic transformations in the future; restoring the human imperative as the prime organizational asset for navigating uncertainties; not so much as mimicked behaviors, but as shared beliefs, rather than shared systems or shared processes. 

On diversity:

In his book Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse thinking, Mathew Syed argues that individual intelligence is no longer enough; that the only way to tackle these complex problems is to harness the power of ‘cognitive diversity’.

This article from Boston Consulting Group argues diversity drives innovation and innovation drives diversity. BCG Partner Rocío Lorenzo explains how diverse leadership teams establish themselves and thrive. 

In Adding Women to the C-Suite Changes How Companies Think, an article for HBR Corinne Post, Boris Lokshin, and Christophe Boone share new research that explores exactly how the addition of female executives shifts companies’ strategic approach to innovation.

This article Getting to the heart of the case for diversity argues that a focus on the business case for diversity distracts attention from the much stronger moral, social, and economic cases, which is what we should be drawing on to motivate change.

It’s one thing to have a racially diverse team. It’s another to unleash that team’s potential to do great things in your organization. And yet there is very little guidance on how, exactly, to do the latter.  In this article, from HBR You’ve Built a Racially Diverse Team. But Have You Built an Inclusive Culture? by Jill Perry-Smith outlines three research-backed strategies. First, learn to recognize difference instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. Second, work to uncover common ground. And third, commit to having difficult conversations instead of avoiding them.

A TED original podcast About WorkLife – in How to Bust Bias at Work organizational psychologist Adam Grant continues his exploration of anti-racism with the science of debiasing individuals and organizations.