Design culture
Design culture
Design culture is extremely important for me and one of my passions when working in teams. Having a space where we all feel safe and are confident enough to talk openly and share to create stronger products.
All of our learnings, ways of working and values all converge to create how we facilitate ourgroup sessions, talk to our piers and cultivate our craft. Design culture is our way of collectivelyinfluencing and enabling teams to work in a more collective and confident way. Our culture grows as we contribute to it and practice how we work within it. Its a constantly evolving ecosystem shaped by us, for us.
Defining culture
Culture is the tacit social order of an organization: It shapes attitudes and behaviours in wide-ranging and durable ways. Cultural norms define what is encouraged, discouraged, accepted, orrejected within a group. When properly aligned with personal values, drives, and needs, culture can unleash tremendous amounts of energy toward a shared purpose and foster an organisations capacity to thrive.
Culture can also evolve flexibly and autonomously in response to changing opportunities and demands. Whereas strategy is typically determined by the C-suite, culture can fluidly blend the intentions of top leaders with the knowledge and experiences of frontline employees.
As someone once said, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Culture for all
Part of our culture enables us to become more than just design. As part of who we are and what we do, facilitation forms a large part of our tool kit. Our open communication of design, session’s tailored solely for the extraction of ideas and liberation of thought, enable our piers. These ideals are encouraged in all areas of Shawbrook and become part of the wider culture.
Culture is a group phenomenon
It cannot exist solely within a single person, nor is it simply the average of individual characteristics. It resides in shared behaviours, values, and assumptions and is most commonly experienced through the norms and expectations of a group that is, the unwritten rules. Our space is a safe one. We work hard to create a culture of conscious, non-judgemental growth.