One reason to why culture eats structure.

“Just as with other kinds of infections, some individuals, or rather some of those individuals’ positions, more infectious than others. For example, managers and leaders will infect people with both their approaches and commitment.”

This quote is taken from a book in organisational communication that I’m currently reading for a university course. The reason that I think it’s important to write something about it is because I think it’s dead wrong. Here’s why.

The quote implies that organisational structure can have a bigger impact than the organisation culture on the individuals in said organisation. No matter of where in a group of people a disease or infection starts, it’s going to spread. That’s the nature of diseases. Cultural expressions, as negative attitudes or talking down on something, are just like that. They spread.

Whether or not an organisation is formed like a pyramid or like a circle, they’re always going to be infected. What the organisation can do is make sure it’s a healthy virus. And as soon as unhealthy ones start spreading, take care of them.

It’s naïve to think that we can in any way use structure to get rid of cultural expressions that we don’t want in our organisations. Thinking that, we can turn back to Weber to see that it’s the mindset of the people that directs the structure, not the other way around.

Managers might be exposed too, and have more legitimate power over more people within the organisation. They might be able to make a virus spread faster. But they are in no way in a monopoly on spreading them.