Culture · Levels of culture · Component
Artefact inventory
What anyone could observe about how the organisation works — routines, language and status markers — recorded before anyone interprets it.
The deliverable
What it is
Artefacts are Schein’s surface level: the things a visitor could see and hear in a week. They are the easiest level to record and the hardest to read, because the same artefact can carry opposite meanings in different organisations.
The inventory keeps observation and interpretation apart. Writing down what is there first, and what it might mean later, keeps the description from being shaped by a conclusion someone already had.
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.
Working routines
How recurring work actually runs: meetings, handovers and approvals, and who speaks, decides and waits in each.
3 attributes: Observed sequence · Who decides · Observed on
LearnLanguage in use
The words people use for customers, mistakes, colleagues and work — including the jargon a newcomer has to learn.
3 attributes: Term · Used for · Heard in
LearnStatus markers
The visible signs of who matters: titles, access, invitations, seating, and whose calendar everyone else works around.
3 attributes: Marker · Distinguishes · Formal or informal
Learn
Write what is there before deciding what it means. An inventory that starts with interpretation finds what it expected.
The other components in levels of culture
Espoused beliefs record
The reasons people give for how things are done, in their own words — the level of culture that explains itself, sincerely and not always accurately.
LearnAssumption map
The taken-for-granted beliefs underneath the culture, inferred from artefacts and stated beliefs, each with its evidence and what it does to strategy.
Learn