Culture · How it is passed on · Component
Story canon
The internal stories that circulate about how people behave here — each with the norm it teaches and whether it is still being told.
The deliverable
What it is
Every organisation has a small set of stories its people retell: the founder who turned down the large contract, the engineer who stayed all night, the manager who was let go after one comment too many. Their moral is a norm, taught more durably than a policy because it arrives as an event.
These are stories told inside, and about behaviour. The story the organisation tells outward, to customers and markets, is the brand narrative and lives in the Brand Core; the two draw on the same history and do different work.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
Story as told
The story in the form people actually tell it, including the details that have changed through retelling.
3 attributes: Narrative · Told by · Collected from
LearnNorm carried
The rule of behaviour a listener would draw from the story, written as the instruction it implicitly gives.
3 attributes: Implied rule · Relates to · Direction
LearnStory currency
Whether the story is still being retold, by whom, and whether newer stories have begun to take its place.
3 attributes: In circulation · Last heard · Replaced by
Learn
Ask which story a newcomer heard in their first month. The one they repeat is the one the culture is teaching.
The other components in how it is passed on
Socialisation path
The newcomer’s first weeks as a designed sequence: how they are brought in, who guides them, and what they report having learned.
LearnRitual calendar
The recurring occasions through which a culture repeats what it values — ceremonies, reviews, gatherings — with what each signals and whether it has drifted.
Learn