Experience culture first-hand.

I’m sitting in the airport, waiting for hours for my flight to board. I’m reminded of a childhood story series of the mythical town of Chelm – where the people are foolish, and the wise men are the most foolish of them all.

One year after they built the train station in Chelm, many of the residents had taken the opportunity for the first time in their lives to travel outside of their little village to other nearby towns. But not Levi. He was one of the wise men, and boasted that he need not travel, for what is there to learn more than he already knows. Chelm has it all; a bakery, a tailor, a marketplace, even a small school. But Levi’s wife Sarah urged him to try the train. She thought traveling to a new place might make him even smarter.

Her friends explained the process to Sarah when they were boasting how their husbands loved traveling. She explained to Levi how easy it is. The train station is not far from the market, and travel is much easier than horse and buggy. You just sit comfortably, with no bouncing around. You can even talk to the person next to you. After an hour or two, you just walk off and you’ll be in another town with all sorts of new things to see and people to meet.

Levi decided it was time for him to travel. He packed a small lunch bag and walk to the train station. He sat down and waited. He was not interested in talking to anyone since the people around seemed so busy anyway. He waited for about two hours and decided that he must be far enough. So he got up and walked out of the train station. Alas, he saw a market – one that looked just like the one in Chelm. The bakery also looked just like the one in Chelm. In fact, someone called out to him – “Hey, Levi! How are the twins?” Levi laughed to himself, ignoring this stranger. He thought it was so funny that in this far-away town there was someone named Levi who had twins.

Shortly after eating his lunch, Levi walked back to the train station, making sure to sit in a bench facing the other direction, and waited for two hours before getting up and going home. He laughed as he told Sarah how silly the whole trip was. “I knew that everything in the world is already here. There’s no need to travel, all places are alike.” Wise man, Levi!

So I was reminded about this story as I was sitting and waiting –  going nowhere, and thought – how does this apply to Enterprise  2.0? and I thought about corporate culture and availability biases.

We all know what we know, but we make assumptions about what we don’t know. Let me be concrete and relate my perspective. About 20 years ago I worked at Xerox. I liked the corporate culture  – it was all about doing the right thing, with high quality and integrity. I did some work in the UK, French, and Dutch offices of Rank Xerox – somewhat similar culture to the parent Xerox, but also different in a European sort of way. Then I worked at a small consulting company, and soon enough I discovered that management was taking advantage of our customers – a situation I did not want to be associated with, so I left. The place was super friendly, but the value system was below my standards.  I would not have known such a culture existed without actually being there.

I then spent 15 years in financial services where the culture was more aggressive. You  had to have thick skin to survive . Due to contractual terms, I’m not yet at liberty to express much about my work as an industry analyst. I’ll soon be free to share some thoughts (and will be able to sleep more peacefully at night). But for now, I’ll say – the culture was also different.

A few months ago I observed how how different business is in Germany from what I was used to. And now that I’m working in Silicon Valley, I’d  say  I feel like I’m working in a different country, or era. The work culture is different than what I’m used to. Not better or worse; simply different.

By culture I mean – the behaviors and expectations that one regards as expected and accepted. For example: At Fidelity, I recall that any new idea was met with fierce challenge – not opposition per se, but a frontal challenge to prove that it had merit. Forrester was even more so this way. I notice that Yahoo! employees prefer to meet face to face, but I spent my entire tenure at Forrester never actually meeting some of my teammates – and that was perfectly OK there. Yahoo! has its character – some elements are probably common in other Silicon Valley companies, some are just Yahoo!-specific cultural behaviors.

My point, and the connection to the travel story, is that these “cultural” things are only really understood by direct experience. Sure, you can read about it – like you can read about  riding a bike, or fighting in a war – and the words might be interesting. But reading about it is nothing like really experiencing it.

You cannot separate corporate culture from the Enterprise 2.0 conversation. But at the same time, you’ll have a hard time talking about any corporation’s culture if you are an outsider. Oh, and by the way, the culture in the next building, or floor, or work group, will differ from the culture in the group you are in.  So you have to go there to find out more.

What does this mean? You have to be a bit of a traveler and soak up the real experiences yourself. Otherwise you are like Levi – assuming that others are just like you – and that’s not very wise.

Tagged as: behaviors, culture, Enterprise 2.0, travel