Identifying and appreciating national and organisational cultures: two triangles that can help

Many collaborative ventures have an international dimension. The Lewis Model, created by Richard Lewis of crossculture.com, offers a way of identifying and appreciating the many differing cultures you are likely to encounter. Click Here for a multimedia demonstration of the model and other helpful ideas, advice and services.

Richard Lewis's model inspired me to create my own Organisational Culture Triangle, which identifies the types of organisational cultures you are likely to encounter when working in partnership and how they tend to interact with each other.

You can learn more about the Organisational Culture Triangle and other aspects of collaborative working by going to Sleeping-with-the-Enemy-Achieving-Collaborative-Success-3rd-Edition

Digging beneath perceptions of leadership

Here is a very interesting short article that summarises some of the key findings of a study by the Swinburne Leadership Institute. It set out to identify how leaders from different sectors are perceived by the Australian public:

http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2015/04/community-leaders-most-trusted?sthash.vkiFJ0J0.mjjo

How we perceive the people, leaders and organisations we work with obviously has a great effect upon our interactions with them, and when we are working in partnership with a wide range of people, leaders and organisations from many differing sectors this mix of perceptions can generate patterns of behaviour which are complex, difficult to manage and an obstacle to progress.

One way to begin managing this complexity and difficulty is to dig beneath our initial perceptions of our partners towards a deeper understanding of what drives their behaviour and actions.

This can be done by identifying the organisational cultures our partners come from and how these mould our partners' thinking and ways of doing things. Once we have achieved this we can begin finding ways to:

1. Enhance our interactions with partners
2. Exploit partners' cultural strengths
3. Minimise partners' cultural weaknesses

Whilst reading the above article I was struck by the slight similarity the five sectors of leaders has with the five organisational cultures I identify within my 'Organisational Culture Triangle', which I researched and created to help people navigate the often complex, cross-cultural dynamics of collaborative working.

You can find out more about the 'Organisational Culture Triangle' by reading this post and the ones that follow it. 

I also explore the five cultures of the triangle and how they behave and interact in Chapter 10 of my book 'Sleeping with the Enemy', which you can find out more about by clicking on the link to your right.