On creation

What we design designs us back.

How we design a room, a building or a city affect how we behave in that environment. Change the design and you change the behavior. Put another way, if you want to change the behavior, change the design.

The same is true for the policies, training and controls that we create in our organization. How we design them affects how employees behave. To change behavior requires that we change our designs. Culture is an outcome of our processes.

When my organization was revising its Code of Ethics and selecting new values, some were questioning the wisdom of writing aspirational statements that did not reflect our current reality. I would argue that all designs are aspirational. When we are done creating a building, it is only the start of a bigger design, the design of those who will inhabit it. Thus when we create a values-based Code, it is only the start of designing an ethical workforce.

Create today the world you want to see tomorrow.

Hat tip to Jason Silva.