The adage “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is still as true as ever. But structure sets the table. There is a long tradition of sociologist and cultural scholars who have debated the distinctions between society’s culture and structure which points to the fine lines and wide overlaps between both concepts. I don’t want to do that here. But I have been reminded of the importance of both in some recent work from several clients.
The importance of culture is central to the work that we do as diversity and inclusion consultants—especially when our goal is to progress in cultural competence. But consistently, we bump up against the demands and boundaries of structures. What do I mean? Without delving into the nuanced debates of where structures start and cultures begin, suffice it to say that social structures are the more immovable, durable and tangible aspects of society that form the boundaries in which culture lives. Social structures are things like racial demographics, economic systems, social class hierarchies, and the lines that connect our social networks. Culture is the more “squishy” stuff that lives between these structures. Structure is the dark lines of a coloring book; culture is the array of colors that fill them.
Or take a house as an analogy. Structure is the foundation, the beams of the frame that make the walls–which form the size of the rooms–and the materials that form the roof. But culture is what families do inside the walls of the house. You may have noticed that older homes had significantly larger “dining rooms”—their structure–to accommodate the cultural habit of families collectively eating together. But as the culture of modern families transformed, and members became more fluid and mobile, the structure of dining rooms shrunk or disappeared. This is how structure and culture work in larger society as well. And in the same way that the structure of a house shapes, limits and contains the cultural norms of families, larger social structures in society produce, delimit, and contain its culture.
I think it’s important for the work that we do to keep the distinct role of culture and structure clear in our minds. Recently, a client pushed back on the importance of stressing culture in our work by pointing to the hard and fast structural demands of the organization (business objectives, deadlines, management, test scores, racial inequality, residential segregation, etc.). These seemed to her to be more pressing, urgent, and “real.” And I think everyone in the room could relate to the glaring realities and limits that structures impose. Structures are glaring, undeniable and much easier to grasp sometimes than culture. This is why strategy, and strategizing, sometimes trump the importance of culture in many people’s minds—because strategizing circumvents the hard and “messier” work of building and changing cultures. But it’s important to remember that structure and culture work together—they are intimately entwined. Here’s an example.
People often ask me how I became more culturally competent (although they don’t always use these words), when they find out that I grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods and schools in the rural South that were not always open and inclusive of other groups. The answer is both structural and cultural. Here’s how: Growing up in schools that were more than 90% white, working class, and Southern made up the structure of my childhood. And for a long time, that structure shaped the type of culture that shaped my worldview for the majority of my childhood—creating small views of people and the world. But when I went off to University and began to travel to more diverse places—different structures—my worldview and culture expanded. And research bares this out as well. Racist ideologies for example, closely follow education lines—the higher your education status the less likely you are to hold to strongly racist views of the world. So the answer to how I changed is in part the result of moving between different structures. But the way that it happened was through culture. As I digested different worldviews in my college classes and had deep conversations with people very different than me, I was slowly transformed and shaped by new experiences. It wasn’t the different racial demographics of the University or the more diverse neighborhoods of the cities I’ve lived in; it was everything that happened in those conditions. In short, structure set the table, but culture was the buffet that nourished and transformed me.
