The Power of Culture — Part 2 of 3, The Power of Infrastructure

So far, in part 1 of our exploration of culture we have focused on the ‘soft side’ addressing the development of the beliefs, values and norms that crystalize our culture. In part 2 we tackle the ‘hard side’ focusing on infrastructure, infrastructure’s grown up sibling institutions, and the relationship between culture and infrastructure / institutions.

The ‘hard side’ evolves from scientific discovery. Over the past 50 years technology has replaced physical infrastructure with technical solutions with examples ranging broadly.

Paper has largely been replaced by screens and workplace tools. Offices and conference rooms have been augmented with video conferencing. Business operations of all stripes have been codified into sprawling multipurpose platforms such as enterprise resource planning [ERP], customer relationship management [CRM], and human capital management [HCM] Filing cabinets and collaborative tools have been replaced by cloud storage. We can go on. But, you get the idea. Technology continues to support a greater and greater amount of our infrastructure needs. Science continues to deliver supporting infrastructure. We as change agents need to determine when and how to use those technologies to their best effect.