I recently discovered kintsugi, which is an art form from the Japanese tradition that takes a broken vessel and repairs it with gold paint, thus making the breakage a source of beauty rather than a reason to throw the whole thing away. I came across it when I rediscovered my love of Death Cab for Cutie (yes, that band we all listened to in our younger years, and yes, they are still great).
Death Cab for Cutie named an album after this practice, and when I discovered what it meant I was in awe. I never knew something like that existed, and finding out about it made me immediately apply the concept to many aspects of my own life where I felt like things were broken and far from beautiful – in fact, many of which seemed like a total waste and better for nothing than the trash.
What does this have to do with company culture? Well, I was hoping you would ask.
Because we live in a world where nothing is perfect (sorry to kill that dream for you) we often come across things that are destructive or destroyed. We deal with breaking and broken things all the time – even at work. Especially at work, as it were. We have a group of people all striving together towards…something…and they may or may not share a common vision. Whether people are at work for a paycheck or because they believe in the cause, it’s very rare to come into an organization that is not dealing with broken culture in some way, shape, or form.
What I love about kintsugi and this idea that broken is not wasted or ugly is that even when we come across those really ugly places in our business culture – for example, we were talked down to by a person in the organization who is constantly talking up the values, or the leadership fails to be transparent, or the break room is a pit even though the company says it values its employees – these are not reasons to lose heart. In fact, take heart, because here are the broken pieces! You found them at last, and once you see them and can identify them, you can put the whole thing back together with gold.
This is not easy. If you are the type of person who can see things that don’t exist yet, you probably have an uphill battle in front of you to bring people into a place where they can both see and share your vision. Don’t let yourself give into discouragement – instead, look for the pieces you might be able to put together today. And then tomorrow, look for pieces you might add to that.
Change is slow. Sometimes you’re dealing with something that resembles a shattered piece of crockery rather than a plate that would be easy to match together. Regardless, once you start – keep going! You will get there eventually, and the result will be beautiful.
Your activity: On a blank sheet of paper, draw a picture of a broken item. It can be a plate, a cup – whatever comes to mind. Then label the pieces. If you’re thinking about your company culture, the pieces might be called employee retention, transparency from management, how we deal with failure. There are no right answers. Then, look at what you have in front of you and brainstorm how you might be able to have a positive impact on at least one of those areas. If you are brainstorming about employee retention, you might come up with things like improve communication, team development, or hiring for fit. Once you have identified these items, how will you execute the change?