Which comes first? The process or the culture?

“Should we meet with primary and secondary leadership teams separately or together?”

This question came up during a recent chat with Joe Barder, IT Director at AIS Lagos, when we were figuring out a strategy for building their data culture. A simple question, but it got me thinking a lot about the difference between organizational culture and organizational practices, and how we need to consider both when fostering change.

At AIS Lagos, everyone is eager to dive in and start analysing data. However I also sensed some hesitation from Joe about jumping in without first establishing norms and shared practices. The question of whether to have data discussions at a whole school or division level is really about whether we want to start with targeted, relevant, and actionable sessions tailored for each group, or if we take the time to develop a whole-school shared understanding of what it means to be data-informed. In other words, do we focus on the culture or the practice?

On one hand, we have data ready to share, motivated teachers willing to use it, and students whose learning won’t wait for teachers to catch up. On the other hand, there are some risks to consider:

we know that our actions need to be sustainable. If the system can’t support what teachers want to do, they might lose that motivation.
Data can help or harm. We need to ensure that every teacher and administrator has the underlying beliefs needed to approach student and teacher information with kindness and care.
If we rush our implementation, we run the risk of some teachers being left behind.

Clearly, our approach needs to consider both. We need to support teachers with processes that allow them to take meaningful action, and we also need to build a culture that ensures those actions are aligned with our beliefs.

Defining Culture

We know that culture consists of three key components:

Engagement: How motivated and committed everyone feels towards the work.
Norms: The unwritten rules about how things get done around here.
Values and Beliefs: The core principles that guide our actions.

Fostering Engagement

At AIS Lagos, we’ve got the engagement piece covered, and we need to be careful to maintain that enthusiasm while working on the other two elements. School is in full swing and learners are not going to just stop learning while we figure this out.

Remember chemistry class and those gas particles that would bounce endlessly around their container, generating energy? Having enthusiastic processes without culture can look and feel a bit like that. Action is being taken, but is it meaningful? Or are we just bouncing around? How do we know?

Identifying Norms

Culture is about setting boundaries around that energy. We’re putting up walls, not to stifle action and growth, but to make sure the action is in the right direction. We want teachers to push against those boundaries, feeling motivated and safe to try new things. The more we push up against those boundaries, the more we start to see them and develop the ability to define them. In other words, we’re discovering our norms.

Committing to our values

Norms are essential, but arbitrary norms (those ones that sound like “that’s just how we do it here”) are not. In order to have purposeful action and processes we need to always ask and answer “why?”. When we understand why something matters to us, we’ve uncovered our values and beliefs.

Over time, the space in which our gas particles can bounce about becomes smaller; everyone understands how to engage in the processes, and why our actions matter. Actions become meaningful and focused, and everyone begins to move in the same direction. We’ve managed to get everyone moving together aligned to a sense of culture and purpose, without needing to slow down progress and dampen enthusiasm.