I was giving a presentation on Friday about culture and what it means in business. I asked the group to define ‘culture’ in a way they found useful. One person brought up the idea of ‘tribal knowledge’, which led to an interesting and robust discussion about tribes and their role in business organizations – do they exist, what do they achieve, how do they work?  These are good questions to ask yourself about your own organization if you are trying to figure out why a particular effort is working or not.  There are no right answers – only what works for you to understand and define your environment.

Tribal knowledge, according to the group I was working with on Friday, works to indoctrinate new members, keep existing members in line, and provides a barrier to entry for people they want to keep out.  It also can’t be replicated or documented (nor should it be attempted), and it is an important source of ‘facts’ that are the basis of new ways of doing things.  For this group, those were all useful ways to think about it, and the discussion resulted in some ‘ah ha’ moments as they thought about how they have participated in tribal knowledge creation, reinforcement, and longevity.