S2 Ep1: Prof.Jennifer Howard-Grenville - Myths of Organisational Culture

Hi, and welcome The Decoding Culture Podcast and the first episode of Series 2. 

 

The Podcast focuses on the importance that culture plays in all areas of business and society; from how it shapes organisations, work to how it influences consumer experience, innovation, design and larger societal trends. 

 

My name is John Curran and I am your host. I am a business anthropologist, executive coach and CEO of JC & Associates which is a consultancy that helps businesses develop better working cultures and relationships with their consumers.

 

What is organisational culture? Why does the business world so often mis-understand it and when there are attempts to frame its importance, why is it is done though the design of simplistic models that tend to serve well no one? To get to the root of these questions I spoke with Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville who is the Diageo Professor of Organisation Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School, Cambridge University. 

 

This was a fascinating conversation…so much so that I mis-judged how deep we needed to get into each section to give the topic of organisational culture its due respect. 

 

So, I am going to divide our conversion into two episodes. Episode one looks at how organisational culture is often frames. Here we explore the myths of organisational culture that Professor Howard-Grenville has identified in a recent paper. Episode 2 focuses on using the anthropological theory of liminality as a process of organisational change. We also discuss what the future of work might look like post Covid-19. 

 

Since the Decoding Culture Podcast has a new home, you will need to subscribe to the new feed and please do rate it on iTunes 


Show Links:

• Jen's articles:

Organisational Culture as a Tool for Change 

What Regulators need to Know about Organisational Culture

• Jen's LinkedIn
• Jen's Twitter