How often has your company tried to implement a new technology, process, organizational structure, only to find that the culture rejects the proposed change? Or gone through a merger, only to find that the cultures just don’t work together? These kinds of challenges are all over in business.

In business we like to say this is a ‘culture’ problem, but we don’t often interrogate what that means. We say the ‘culture’ doesn’t like change, but we treat the problem like a collection of individual problems. In other words, we use tactics that have been developed to help individuals through change in an effort to get groups/collectives/ cultures to change. This is a recipe for failure, and it is one of the biggest reasons why culture really does matter.  We need to understand it differently, and treat it differently, than we do individuals.

When a merger happens, we see the most clear implications of culture, both internally and externally.  The cultures of the two organizations that are coming together start to collide, and if they are big enough, within the industry or the larger economy there are cultural reactions to the event. These are moments when it is especially clear…. why culture matters.

freakingnews.com had a great picture of the Sears/Kmart merger and the Wal Mart reaction…. it is a cultural statement in and of itself: