Decoding Culture with Dr John Curran

In this second episode of series 4 I am going to explore how maybe we can begin to understand what the next few years might look like in terms of office design and use and how society perceives work.

To help me with this, I discuss with my guest Professor Jeremy Myerson his new book ‘Unworking: The Reinvention of the Modern Office that he co-authored with Phillip Ross.

Jeremy is a leading international writer and researcher in design. His specialist areas include inclusive design, the future of work and healthy cities.

He is Professor Emeritus in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art and Director of WORKTECH Academy, a global knowledge network looking at the future of work and workplace. He chairs the Learning & Research Committee at the Design Museum in London, and is co-founder and academic lead for the annual Healthy City Design international congress.

He has published more than 20 books on different aspects of design, architecture and innovation; his most recent titles include Designing a World for Everyone (2021) and Unworking: The Reinvention of the Modern Office (2022). 

 

He has advised businesses and governments on design around the world and sat the advisory boards of design institutes in Korea, Switzerland, UK and Hong Kong. He has curated major exhibitions at the Design Museum (New Old and Doing a Dyson) and the V&A (Rewind: 40 years of Design and Architecture).

And its also worth adding that Jeremy is very much in demand with the media for his insights on the future of work. So it is a great privilege to have him on the Decoding Culture Podcast

 

Before we hear more from Jeremy, I want to remind you that my training programme on organisational culture, leadership and team dynamics starts this September. The details are in the show notes below, along with a link to my executive and team coaching page

Also if you find these podcasts interesting and helpful please do feel free to leave a small donation towards the cost of bringing each episode and series together. It would be greatly valued. The donate link is also in the show notes below.

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Leveraging Organizational Culture for Impact: 

Learn how to decode and leverage organizational culture to work more effectively with teams, stakeholders and clients.

For leaders, senior managers and consultants - Learn how to deepen your understanding of organisational and group dynamics at the world renowned Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in order to sharpen your consultancy and leadership skills.

Executive and Leadership Coaching

About John:

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Decoding Culture Newsletter

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Why is having the ability to look in our everyday lives important when trying understanding how we behave and make sense of the world around us?

In this first episode of series 4 I am going to explore how Looking and observing provides us with rich cultural narratives that interweave into each other to produce tapestries of human behaviour. 

To unpack the benefit and power of looking I discuss with my guest Christian Madsbjerg his new book ‘Look’ – How to Pay attention in a distracted world.

For the past 15 year Christian has lived in New York. He is an author, entrepreneur and academic who works on the practical and commercial application of the Human Sciences. He is the co-founder of the global consulting firm Red Associates where he advised executive teams in some of the largest companies in the World on strategy questions based on empirical and organized observation of the human world. Christian is also Professor at the New School in New York that is part of Parsons. 

What I love about Christian’s book is that he explores different ways of looking and seeing – from art, philosophy and anthropology. A core point he makes is once you are able to look at yourself, you can start looking at the world around you.

We talk about watching people playing chess in Union Sq, New York City and discuss how observing chess players in a public space helps one to understand key human questions such as ‘what is winning’. Christian says practicing looking is so important to seeing around you and learning about human phenomena – it should be like going to the gym. 

As an anthropologist these types of conversations and thinking really do provide rich and fertile soil to develop interesting ideas around how culture frames who we are – from ritualised, conscious and unconscious performances.

Before we hear more from Christian, I want to remind you that I have two new training courses starting this year. The details are in the show notes, along with a link to my executive and team coaching.

Also if you find these podcasts interesting and helpful please do feel free to leave a small donation towards the cost of bringing each episode and series together. It would be greatly valued. The donate link is in the shownotes.

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About Christian

Website

LinkedIn

Look: How to pay attention in a world of distraction

Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the age of the algorithm

New School

The Peregrine

Anthropology and Anthropologists (Adam Kuper....not Simon Kuper)

Leveraging Organizational Culture for Impact: 

Learn how to decode and leverage organizational culture to work more effectively with teams, stakeholders and clients.

For leaders, senior managers and consultants - Learn how to deepen your understanding of organisational and group dynamics at the world renowned Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in order to sharpen your consultancy and leadership skills.

Executive and Leadership Coaching

About John:

Twitter

LinkedIn

JC & Associates

Decoding Culture Newsletter

TEDx

Hi I am Dr John Curran your host of the Decoding Culture Podcast and welcome to series 4. For those that are first time subscribers, the podcast focuses on the ways in which everyday culture and psychology shape who we are as human beings and social groups. As an organisational consultant, anthropologist and executive and team coach, I am fascinated by organisational culture and team dynamics - so these topics will seep into many of my conversations.

I have been talking to some really interesting people for this series. Before I run through who these are, I want good to give you a quick news update on what I have been up to since series 3…..which I am well aware feels like decades ago.

My big and recent news is that have been appointed Professor in Practice at University College London (UCL) anthropology department. The department is one of the most progressive anthropology departments and currently sits 4th best in the world. So it’s a real honour to be part of this. Specifically, I will support them in their new MSc called Anthropology and Professional Practice. This is a really innovative post-grad course that opens the world to students already working in their profession on how to incorporate anthropology into their work.

I am also co-Faculty Director, with Camilla Child at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations on their world renowned Practice in Consultancy and Change programme for those aspiring to become consultants. The Tavistock basically invented modern day organisational development consultancy and many of the theories and approaches around group dynamics. What’s so cool about the underpinning theories and approaches of the Tavistock is that they bring together systems psychodynamics with other social sciences like anthropology as part of the consultant’s theoretical and practical tool kit when decoding team dynamics and organisational culture. This….is….essential when working with the complexities of work place culture.

Last summer I was part of a series of talks over a couple of months at the Science Museum in London for Lloyds Banking Group where I delivered a number of short seminars to many of their senior staff on group and team dynamics and how to manage them. It is really interesting to see how culture and group dynamics are universal topics that all leaders need to be able to understand and work with.

This also shows up in the many webinars I have delivered recently on workplace culture and conflict. I spoke about conflict in the Financial Times Working It newsletter where the FTs Isabel Berwick interviewed me. One key thing I said was that there was no culture if there was no conflict – conflict is something we need to see as communicating something to us and not something we have to smoother. On that note, I have just been a guest on The Financial Times Working It podcast with Isabel and the FT’s Miranda Green where we have been trying to get our head around the complexities of office politics. I will put a link to the Working It newsletter and podcast below.

And…I have just had confirmation from Isabel that she will be a guest on this podcast where we will chat about her new book - The Future-Proof Career: Strategies for thriving at every stage. Can’t wait and Isabel has a fantastic bird’s-eye and worm’s eye understanding of work and work culture.

I have also been carrying out a number of consultancy projects within the National Health Service in the UK. This is an incredible privilege to be supporting senior leaders and teams in one of the most iconic institutions that is part of the UKs national identity. However, Covid-19, underpaid staff, the cost of living crisis, strikes and a lack of funding has understandably had a massive impact on how it is functioning. A focus on the development and training of managers and leaders to support their teams and departments will be one essential area that will demand investment and time. 

Finally, I have become a ‘Play maker’ for the Palace for Life Foundation which is the charity associated with Crystal Palace Football club in the Premier League in England. The Palace for Life Foundation has been working with young people from South London for over 25 years and recently I had a great morning at the The Premier League HQ in London, where I facilitated a senior leadership action learning session on working with team dynamics.

So there’s my quick update and you can keep up to date with what I am doing via LinkedIn, my Decoding Culture Newsletter and Twitter. Links are in the show notes.

Ok, I have six really interesting guests for series 4

My first guest is Christian Madsbjerg where we discuss his brilliant new book ‘Look’ – How to Pay attention in a distracted world. The book interweaves different ways of looking and seeing – from art, philosophy and anthropology. But what is central is that once you are able to look at yourself, you can start looking at the world around you. There is a lovely quote from Christian - that everyday you can leave your house and see magic. What a great mindset to have as a means of starting your day. He explains this in a lovely way by describing watching chess players in Union Sq NY. 

My second guest is Jeremy Myerson who is a leading international writer and researcher in design. His specialist areas include inclusive design, the future of work and healthy cities.

He is Professor Emeritus in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art and Director of WORKTECH Academy, a global knowledge network looking at the future of work and workplace. In this episode we talk through the future of the office and his book Unworking – The reinvention of the modern office that he co-wrote with Philip Ross. Jeremy is one of the go-to people around the future of work and hybrid working and he brings together his expertise in design and cultural trends to give some really rich views.

As mentioned earlier, I am really excited to be interviewing Isabel Berwick from the Financial Times and host of the FT’s Working It podcast and newsletter. Her link to her book will be in the show notes 

I will also have Leslie Brissett as a guest. Leslie is a world authority on group dynamics and advises boards, leaders and organisations on this subject. He is fascinated by what makes us human. I first got to know Leslie while he was at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and I found myself rapidly learning from him. Leslie is now Board Secretary at International Psychoanalytical Associations. We will find out more about his role in the podcast and also go deep into group dynamics and how it plays out at work. 

I will also have Dr Melissa Fischer on the podcast. Melissa is like me, an anthropologist who is fascinated with work and organisational culture. She has written a lot about this and I can’t wait to hear her views on work, the office and culture from an anthropological point of view. We will be sharing stories for sure.

Finally we end with another anthropologist, Dr Magnus Course from the University of Edinburgh. I am lucky, Magnus has sent me through his book that will be published this September by the University of Pennsylvania Press. It is called Three Ways to Fail: Journeys through Mapuche Chile. It is all about how failure is culturally framed. What is brilliant about this book is that Magnus deals with a big question like failure through the ethnographic lens of the Mapuche people in Chile and how they frame failure as an intrinsic part of being human. Magnus shares with us his personal ethnographic experiences of failure and how he moved beyond it. This is such a relevant topic at the moment in work culture and we are hearing a lot around why teams need to fail, especially with the views Prof Amy Edmondson. But by Magnus bringing in an anthropological interpretation will really make you think and reflect. 

So there you are, an outline of series four of the Decoding podcast. I will of course put relevant links in the show notes. Please do subscribe to the podcast and make lots of noise about it on social media and amongst friends and work colleagues.….if you like it of course. Lastly, if you want to support the podcast by making a small donation, then the donation link is in the show notes. Any amount helps towards the technical/editing cost and overall time taken to create each episode and series. 

Bye for now.

 

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John:

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This episode looks at how conflict exists within organisations and team dynamics. However, much of what I will talk about with my guest will also have relevance to all areas of conflict.

From my anthropological background and as an organisational consultant, I frame conflict as part of culture and not something that sits outside culture and threatens it. Instead of running away from conflict one can reframe it as a form of communication……it is trying to tell us something that, maybe we do not want to hear because it might hold uncomfortable truths or taboos.

In this episode I speak to Alex Efthymiades who is an expert on workplace conflict and mediation. She is the co-founder of Consensio Partners and works with organisations offering training and mediation. A few years ago I had the privilege of training under Alex and it empowered me to be able to situate conflict at the core of much of what I do as a organisational consultant and team coach. 

Alex brings to the conversation many important and interesting insights. One thing she said was that “every human relationship has conflict….and that is not a bad thing but a necessary thing”. She defines conflict as a “breakdown of relationships (that) can be something quite small that can become something quite big”. 

Too often we see leaders shy away from address workplace conflict at an early stage and Alex and I talk more about why this is the case. Alex also explains the 3 main myths around workplace conflict. 

If you are interested in organisational culture, leadership, coaching, HR, the social sciences and psychodynamic approaches of organisational consultancy, then this episode will give you a deep understanding to why conflict exists in the workplace and how it can be addressed.  

References cited:

Dr. Brene Brown,University of Houston, https://brenebrown.com/books-audio/

Dr. Peter Coleman, Columbia University, https://sps.columbia.edu/faculty/peter-t-coleman-phd

Dr. Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School, https://amycedmondson.com

Dr Marc Brackett, Yale University, https://www.marcbrackett.com 

John:

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JC & Associates

Decoding Culture Newsletter

Training Programme

TEDx Talk

So……this episode is part 2 of my conversation with Professor Les Back. Les is a leading sociologist and thinker at Goldsmiths University in London. 

He’s written many books and in part 1 we discussed his book The Art of Listening and how having the ability to listen sociologically opens up new ways of getting closer to understanding society. 

Part 2 develops this further where Les and I discuss we need to walk….and walk sociologically? To quote Les from the recording: “To study society you need to get your boots dirty and move”.

This is a powerful quote….and is relevant to not just to social scientists conducting ethnographic research, but also to leaders and HR in organisations. Sometimes when I coach or train leaders to get their boots dirty there is a resistance……this is understandable……

Forcing oneself to move through everyday cultural spaces that we think we know, like an office, and then push oneself to see different things and question why they are different…can be threatening to our embodied sense of rationality. We often don’t want to be challenged. 

I often think of culture as multiple frames that appear to have little curation. They are never static...the frames change in size and form to accommodate uncertainty. By physically moving, walking and listening sociologically, allows you to see multiple frame. The more frames you identify and interpret, the richer your understanding is of the cultural ecosystem is around you. 

We start our conversation on the roof of Warmington Tower at Goldsmiths university in South East London, looking over the London skyscape. We first discuss the cultural meaning of cities……..Cities for Les “are a cross roads of movement, of people, things and culture”. This is powerful and emphasises the need to move to be able to understand.

We then spend time observing at a busy bus stop, understanding the micro rituals at play and the multiple stories in front of us that the rituals frame. 

If you are a social scientist then Part 1&2 will add to your ethnographic repertoire. If you are a leader or work in organisational development or HR, these episodes will help you to begin to think about the importance of decoding culture.

Selected Writings:

Video on walking:

John:

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TEDx Talk

As a coach one of the central tools you have is to listen. Some call this active listening. Listening is not easy and something one has to practice because fundamentally you are listening to not just what is being said and what is not being said. Listening is therefore a holistic endeavour that is more an art than a technique. As an anthropologist I am also taught to listen to silence. Or as the anthropologist and FT journalist, Gillian Tett describes – listening to social silence. But why is the ability to listen so important to understanding everyday culture and society? 

To help me unpack this I spoke to Professor Les Back who is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths University in London. Les has written a fascinating book called the Art of Listening and he shows how by adopting a sociological mindset one can uncover many rich components of culture through listening. 

This was my first in person podcast recording for nearly 2 years and I met Les at Goldsmiths University. What become clear as a talked was that listening is not static and two way. There are multi-components to it. He also introduced me to the concept of sociological walking. Here we spent time listening to the city of London both from above and on street level. 

So fascinating was the discussion, that I decided to divide two episodes – one on listening and one of sociological walking.  

Selected Writings:

John:

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TEDx Talk

I am also the CEO of JC & Associates which is a consultancy that helps businesses develop better working cultures and relationships with their stakeholders. 

I have been working as a business anthropologists for over 20 years. By business anthropologist, I mean that I use my anthropological training to advise businesses on how to improve their organisational cultures, or think about how they connect with their consumers, or begin to design future strategies that take into account the most complex and often messy concept that they are constantly faced with, culture. 

There is no doubt that once leaders or teams embrace the subtle ways in which culture works, they can feel liberated and empowered to move forward in a positive way. However, selling-in an anthropological approach can, at times be a challenge. This is mainly because companies often need ‘quick fixes’ or want to see the value before they have addressed any business challenge. As I said, culture is messy and therefore it takes time to unravel, one needs to see in between the lines and identify the gray spaces of everyday culture. This a key strength of social or cultural anthropology in business. 

So, how to we make sense of culture and society and how do we communicate the massive value that an anthropological approach can offer business, politics, policy makers and more?

To help me explore this I spoke with Gillian Tett, about her new book Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology can explain business and life. 

Gillian is the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large at the Financial Times. She is perhaps best known for predicting the 2007-8 financial crisis, this led to her bestselling book Fool's Gold which was one of the definitive books on the crash. 

Like me, Gillian holds a PhD in social anthropology. She studied at the University of Cambridge, where her PhD focused on marriage rituals in Tajikistan. Her work for the FT has taken her around the world and she has won numerous awards, including Columnist, Journalist and Business Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. She is also a regular at Davos.

Although Anthro Vision has just been published it has already gained much acclaimed attention in the global media and business press. She has already discussed the book on BBC radio 4’s Start the Week alongside the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, 

While Melinda Gates states that. 'Anyone working to rebuild a more equal world will benefit from Tett's well-argued case that to solve twenty-first-century problems, we must expand our fields of vision and fill in old blind spots with new empathy.' All relevant links in the show notes.

I start by asking Gillian why she felt the need to write Anthro-Vision. I hope you enjoy.

@gilliantett

Financial Times

Moral Money Newsletter

Fools Gold

The Silo Effect

Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life 

Twitter

LinkedIn

JC & Associates

Decoding Culture Newsletter

Training Programme 

TEDx Talk

I have been working as a business anthropologists for over 20 years. By business anthropologist, I mean that I use my anthropological training to advise businesses on how to improve their organisational cultures, or think about how they connect with their consumers, or begin to design future strategies that take into account the most complex and often messy concept that they are constantly faced with, culture. 

 

There is no doubt that once leaders or teams embrace the subtle ways in which culture works, they can feel liberated and empowered to move forward in a positive way. However, selling-in an anthropological approach can, at times be a challenge. This is mainly because companies often need ‘quick fixes’ or want to see the value before they have addressed any business challenge. As I said, culture is messy and therefore it takes time to unravel, one needs to see in between the lines and identify the gray spaces of everyday culture. This a key strength of social or cultural anthropology in business. 

 

So, how to we make sense of culture and society and how do we communicate the massive value that an anthropological approach can offer business, politics, policy makers and more?

 

To help me explore this I spoke with Gillian Tett, about her new book Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology can explain business and life. 

 

Gillian is the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large at the Financial Times. She is perhaps best known for predicting the 2007-8 financial crisis, this led to her bestselling book Fool's Gold which was one of the definitive books on the crash. 

 

Like me, Gillian holds a PhD in social anthropology. She studied at the University of Cambridge, where her PhD focused on marriage rituals in Tajikistan. Her work for the FT has taken her around the world and she has won numerous awards, including Columnist, Journalist and Business Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. She is also a regular at Davos.

 

Although Anthro Vision has just been published it has already gained much acclaimed attention in the global media and business press. She has already discussed the book on BBC radio 4’s Start the Week alongside the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, 

 

While Melinda Gates states that. 'Anyone working to rebuild a more equal world will benefit from Tett's well-argued case that to solve twenty-first-century problems, we must expand our fields of vision and fill in old blind spots with new empathy.' 

Financial Times

FT Moral Money Newsletter

Twitter

Books:

Anthro Vision

Fools Gold

The Silo Effect

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week

Decoding Culture Newsletter

Training Programme 

Twitter

LinkedIn

JC & Associates

My name is John Curran and I am your host. I am a business anthropologist, executive coach, systemic team coach, facilitator and trainer. 

 

I am also the CEO of JC & Associates which is a consultancy that helps businesses develop better working cultures and relationships with their stakeholders. 

 

This episode is the second part of my interview with Professor Mark de Rond, who is Professor of Organisational Ethnography at Cambridge Judge Busines School, Cambridge University. 

 

Here, Mark and I explore the role that conflict plays in organisations and teams – from a fear of loss of identity to being a positive force in relation to idea generation and problem solving. I learnt a lot here about what we can learn from a underperforming rowing team.

 

We discuss how conflict is part of organisational culture and not outside it. And how can be interpreted as a form of communication. 

 

Mark shares with me his 6 step approach to having courageous conversations in lockdown and how we must not be deterred from working with conflict when we are all cocooned in zoom work environments. 

 

An important conclusion is the ability to create an environment that places empathy at the centre. Here, we agreed that leaders need to think anthropologically to achieve this. 

 

You can also find out where Mark will take his anthropological note book.

Please do subscribe to the podcast feed and please feel free to give the podcast a rating on iTunes. To keep up to date with interesting trends on culture, business and anthropology sign up to my Decoding Culture newsletter. The link is also in the show notes.

Mark:

Cambridge Judge Business School

“Courageous” conversations in lockdown

There is an I in Team (book)

Doctor's at War (book)

LinkedIn

John:

Twitter

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JC & Associates

Decoding Culture Newsletter

Training Programme 

Over 20 years ago I spend 2 years carrying out an ethnographic study of a psychiatric hospital in London. This was for my PhD in Social Anthropology. To gain ethical approval for my research, I became a member of staff and worked as a nursing assistant. By working the shifts I was able to get a feel of the daily rhythm of the hospital and how the often laten aspects of everyday culture shaped behaviour and perceptions around team work, care, policy and power. I was also able to experience and understand some of the key elements that made nursing and medical teams form in different environments; from when the wards were calm to when teams had to work as units when there were challenging periods on the wards.

 

Understanding how teams can work in challenging environments can help us learn more about the culture of teams in general; what are the driving forces that make a team connect and become high performing and what elements of team work challenge unity?

 

To help me unpack this further I spoke to Professor Mark de Rond, who is Professor of Organisational Ethnography at Cambridge Judge Business School, Cambridge University. Mark shares with me his experience of carrying out ethnographic research in Camp Bastion, which was a British Army base in Afghanistan. Mark’s area of focus was on the military medical team. He shares fascinating insights around how teams manage periods that demand focus, compared to periods which are less busy. He also describes the subtle cultural elements of teams that shape their identity.

 

We also discuss the growing influence of ethnography in business schools. 

 

This episode is the first of two with Mark. Episode 6 will focus on work place conflict; what causes it, how can we understand it and how can we manage it, especially when many of us are either working from home and/or having to work through the pandemic. Mark and I are both trained in work place mediation, so this, with our ethnographic and culture hats on provides some interesting listening. In the second episode you will also hear where Mark will take is anthropologist’s notebook.

Mark:

Cambridge Judge Business School

There is an I in Team (video)

There is an I in Team (book)

Doctor's at War (book)

LinkedIn

John:

Twitter

LinkedIn

JC & Associates

Decoding Culture Newsletter

Training Programme