Awareness of the unspoken and unwritten

Every organisation has three layers of how they go about things.

First, there is the façade, a set of written policies, procedures, and processes which describe how work is done and how the organisation operates.

Second, there is "this is how we actually do things around here" as spoken by the people in the organisation. These are mostly stories and narratives of how people found different ways to get work done.

Third, and deepest, layer is how the work actually gets done. Very few people stop to reflect on what is it they do when they do what they do.

In the ideal world all three layers would be aligned and not too distant from each other. The further away they are, the more fertile ground for dissonance and detachment they become.

Something to reflect on.