Well, we've come to the end of this unit and of this course on the Power of Team Culture. I realize that this last unit on Continuity and Change has been intensively theoretical. Drawing on my own research on cultural motion and the forces that are at work on it. However, I do believe that if you understand the general principles I have been articulating, it will put you in a better position to comprehend the culture of the teams in which you participate. And it will also help to make you a better team leader. Critical in this last unit is understanding the interrelations among the forces that affect the motion of culture. We began with the initial forces which are the key to grasping what is most distinctive about culture. The fact that ways of acting, speaking, reasoning and valuing get passed on from person to person, group to group, generation to generation. By inertial force we mean that culture gets passed on first and foremost because it is there to be acquired. And then also, because it becomes habit. Entropic force is the tendency toward disorder in the course of transmission of culture. The forces of entropy and randomness work against inertia. They gnaw away at the order produced by inertial motion and disrupt it, often in random ways. Change is an inevitable aspect of the social learning and transmission process at the heart of culture. That is why people and here, we're usually thinking of leaders have to step in and do something to keep the team moving along a particular course. Or to change that course so as to better adapt to the world. Well, there's another topic, adaptation that we didn't really go into in this course and that is really important for culture. In any case, leaders can try to fight against the forces of entropy or they can try to effect changes to the existing culture. To do so, they use what I have been calling reflective or metacultural forces. Metaculture is culture that is about or reflects upon other culture. It indicates to people for example, how should they conduct themselves. Metacultural forces result from reflection about culture. Because of existing habits that means that people have to use internal thought processes to guide themselves in new ways. Like driving on the other side of the road. As we have now seen however the affective forces which I've grouped under the term interest play a tremendous role. The forces of interest are produced by the feelings and emotions. They impel or retard the movement of actual elements. A good leader not only understands the feelings and emotions that motivate team members. Such a leader is also able to build upon the existing deployments of interest in relation to cultural practices in order to actually perpetuate, or shift those practices. In the last lecture, I discussed the uses of negative interest. Physical force, sanctions, punishments as a way to motivate people to carry on or change aspects of their culture. It is perhaps worth noting here that the desire of American managers to have the right to fire employees is linked to the desire to motivate employees through threat of dismissal. They want to be able to deploy that threat as a force capable of affecting the motion of cultural practices. Similarly the use of rewards such as money in the form of wages, salaries, and bonuses is an indirect way of controlling cultural motion. However, in closing, I would like to come back to the ideas we talked about in unit three, symbols and rituals. Many business people trained only in economics among the social sciences think of people as purely rational actors. The deployment of money on a team, such as a business enterprise, is seen in terms of rational market exchange. But people in teams are motivated by more than money, or the fear of punishment. They are guided also by the shining ideals that the team embodies, ideals that they try to live up to in their daily lives and activities. In my many years of interviewing CEOs and other team leaders, I find that the very best ones understand this intuitively. They know how to employ symbols including themselves as symbols to motivate the group around team goals. Such leaders are in a way also natural anthropologists. They intuitively understand the flow of culture. Still even if we're not natural leaders the rest of us by studying team culture, and the principles of its motion can become better leaders and better team players. I hope this course will prove helpful to you in the future whatever teams you join or lead. And I encourage you to check out the other three courses that form part of this specialization. There's so much more to be learned. So farewell, and best of luck in your exploration of this topic. As well as on your journey through life.
