ShareThis
While writing my last post here on Gradkin I briefly talked about viralizing a company’s organizational culture but I never mentioned how to do it. Hence, here’s the follow up post where I’ll elaborate on that. The concept I’m going to rely on to make my point is memes.
A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures -thank you Wikipedia-.
The British scientist Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashion, and the technology of building arches. If Dawkins lived today, I’m sure he would have included Lolcats on his list.
Creating and spreading memes
Some types of viruses become successful organisms because they are simple and adaptable enough to be able to survive in a hostile environment long enough until they shelter in a host that lets them to replicate. For your memes to go viral you need to do the same thing: your meme has to be catchy or tempting to survive long enough and spread. It also has to be simple to adopt -so use the KISS method: Keep It Simple Stupid-.
You can enforce a policy, a way of doing work, how to manage idle time or whatever you can think of, but the moment you turn around, it will be gone and forgotten. Pushing ideas onto others is not the most effective way to get things done your way.
If you want to shape or create a culture that sticks you need to create the desire to adopt it. People also like to own what they do, so forget about keeping the credit for it. You have to be willing to let go and allow others to take ownership of the memes you release into the environment.
How to easily start a meme in your company.
Every time I finish my on-call week I send an email to managers, directors and administrators detailing all the events that transpired during that week -that’s the usual procedure-. But I don’t limit myself to just sending that information. I include opportunities for improvement that I detect and I also send commendations and kudos to staff’s supervisors to let them know when their staff went above and beyond. This has not only gotten me “back-kudos” from the higher-ups (which motivates others to do the same) but is also a morale enhancer for those people that don’t usually get credit through this particular channel. I just added something on top of what was already being done. In other words, I plant cultural viruses on my emails.
That alone does not configure a meme but if others start doing it it, in time, it will become one. That meme then becomes common practice, which then becomes an element that merges into a department’s culture.
Stronger memes will have a wider reach and spread across the whole organization instead of staying within the area or unit level. The reach of your virus will then depend on how ubiquitous you want to make it, so keep in mind that the strength of a meme will only depend on the knowledge you have of your organization and how creative you are.
Seed your verbal and written interactions with cultural viruses and make them spread like wildfires.
