Heroes and heroines as creators of culture, cont…
My last post of 2008 ended with the hope that heroes and heroines will emerge in our organizations, in our society and within ourselves in the next year as we work to re-fashion our global age. As we are now in 2009, my thinking becomes more practical. What resources of character should we be mining in ourselves as we embark on our heroes’ quests?
It suddenly came to me that there might be an answer to that question in our culture data base. In helping organizations identify their workplace culture, we regularly ask folks to identify the past and present heroes and heroines of their organizations. These people’s names are not important, but what they are known for is. You can trace the underlying drivers of a workplace culture by identifying patterns in how people within organizations respond to crises. I looked through the data base to see if there were themes regarding the personal character of heroes/heroines across organizations and industries over the past 20 years.
And yes, there were clearly characteristics common across organizations. Heroes/ heroines were repeatedly described as -
- Tellers of Truth …consistently and in a timely manner
- Leaders of People …supporting others to greatness
- Holders of Historical Knowledge …sharing their technical expertise and experience
- Visionaries with Business Savvy …using their positive attitude to set goals and achieve them
- Bringers of Change Forward …providing constant direction as ‘turnaround’ experts
Rather straightforward and practical things that all of us can practice in living our heroes’ quests today and in the months ahead.
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