I seem to recall a definition of Culture from an Organizational Behaviour course as being the reflection of a group’s values and beliefs. I could be slightly off on the verbiage, but that feels right (and serves my purposes now). So what is a company’s culture? It is a reflection of the company’s values and beliefs. Not of the individuals that comprise the company, but the organization as a whole. Yes, the individuals have an effect on it, but that effect is heavily skewed towards upper management or other people of influence.

A change in culture is the result of some sort of catalyst. It could be that the CTO was replaces with someone all gung-ho to SOA. Suddenly it is all-services all the times.! More services than you can share a stick at in fact.

The catalyst can be more subtle than that too though. If one developer becomes test-infected than maybe they both create better code and they tell two people, and they tell two people. Its the network effect at its more utilized.

Since it is July it is time for the Tour de France. And with it comes the perennial articles on doping. Cycling peddles a cleaner image showed up in today’s paper. While discussions of the cat-and-mouse games that go on are fascinating, these two paragraphs really stood out.

*On of the most encouraging signs is that some riders are starting to volunteer tops to drug testers about rivals they suspect are still cheating, breaking the code of silence that long prevailed in cycling, says an official directly involved with testing at this year’s Tour, which will roll into Paris on July 26.

Because of the necessary secrecy around drug testing, the official spoke on condition of anonymity. He believes the lesser-paid riders can no longer afford doping programs that are sophisticated enough to evade the password regime and so are spilling the beans on those they suspect still can.*

Something changed, and so the culture changed as a result. What part(s) of your culture could use a bit of gentle nudging to change for the better? And are you able to do it or is something else still necessary?