A conversation with Grant McCracken on how to build “a living, breathing culture”

McCrackenTrained as an anthropologist (Ph.D. University of Chicago), Grant McCracken has studied American culture and commerce for 25 years. He has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show and worked for Timberland, New York Historical Society, Diageo, IKEA, Sesame Street, Nike, the White House, and Netflix.

He started the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. He taught anthropology at the University of Cambridge, ethnography at MIT, and marketing at the Harvard Business School. He has been affiliated with the Department of Comparative Media at MIT and the Berkman School at Harvard. He is a student of culture and commerce and explored this theme in Culture and Consumption I and then in Culture and Consumption II.

Grant has also looked at how Americans invent and reinvent themselves. He had explored this theme in Big Hair, Transformations, Plenitude and Flock and Flow.

Six years ago, he published a book called Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation with Basic Books in which he argues that culture now creates so much opportunity and danger for organizations that they need senior managers who focus on it full time. He is hoping this will create a new occupational destination for graduates in the arts and humanities.

His latest book, Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football . . . Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas, was published by Harvard Business Review Press (2012).

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Morris: Before discussing Chief Culture Officer and then Culturematic, here are a few general questions. First, in your opinion, what are the defining skills and characteristics of a great anthropologist?

McCracken: Anthropologists are good at reading culture and that gives them interesting powers of pattern recognition. Now that American culture is so dynamic, any such advantage n is a good thing.

Morris: To what extent can they be developed by formal education?

McCracken: Oh, I think they are entirely trainable. And it doesn’t take a formal education. All we need is a base of curiosity, intelligence, and creativity and it’s away to the races.

Morris: To what extent can they be developed only through real-world experience?

McCracken: I think a combination of formal education and experience serves best.

Morris: In your opinion, which of these skills and characteristics would be of greatest value to C-level executives?

McCracken: C-level executives have formidable powers of pattern recognition. The question is how we can give them the ability to read “soft indicators” in the study of contemporary culture, movies, trends, generations, subcultures. This is easier than it looks.

Morris: What are some of the core questions that anthropologists have in mind when preparing to begin a new project or assignment?

McCracken: Here’s one: “How to know what you don’t know…but think you do.”

Morris: How do you define “culture”?

McCracken: Culture is comprised of the meanings with which we define the world. And the rules with which we govern behavior.

Morris: In your opinion, to what extent is culture a structure? Please explain.

McCracken: The meanings of culture come from within a culture. That is why we define each generation in terms of both its structure and its values.

Morris: In your opinion, to what extent is culture an organism? Please explain.

McCracken: I don’t think culture is a organism in any useful sense, although goodness knows, it grows and changes as if driven by a genetic imperative.

Morris: What are the most common misconceptions about anthropology? What, in fact, is true?

McCracken: A lot of people think anthropology is about primates, or archaeology or small communities. These are all true in a way but it is also true that anthropology is very good at studying large, contemporary cultures.

Morris: Now please shift your attention to Chief Culture Office. When and why did you decide to write it?

McCracken: Culture matters so much to the success of a business. Take for instance the artisanal trend that has been growing at least since 1971 when Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse. McDonald’s, Kraft, and Subway are now struggling to adjust to the trend but had they had a CCO, they would have had around 45 years of early warning.

Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while writing it? Please explain.

McCracken: How so much of economics appears just to ignore culture.

Morris: To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ significantly from what you originally envisioned?

McCracken: It’s pretty close to it’s original concept, again a bad thing.

Morris: As you explain in the Introduction to Culturematic, it is ” a little machine for making culture. It is designed to do three things: test the world, discover meaning, and unleash value…It’s still a little vague, isn’t it? Some of you are saying, ‘I’m not exactly sure of what he means.’ Me neither. I am still working it out. The idea will get clearer as you read the rest of the book.” To what extent are you now clearer about “what it means”? Please explain.

McCracken: There are a couple of simple techniques for making culture out of culture…and this is where innovations come from.

Morris: Now please shift your attention to Culturematic. When and why did you decide to write it?

McCracken: I thought I was singing the same acts of creativity all around me. This, I said to myself is one of the ways, we make culture now.

Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while writing it? Please explain.

McCracken: How restless we are. How fast we are to create new innovations and adapt to them. Remember when Twitter was something new and odd. Now it’s absolutely standard.

Morris: To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ significantly from what you originally envisioned?

McCracken: Pretty close to the original

Morris: When creating a “living, breathing” culture, what are the most important dos and don’ts to keep in mind?

McCracken: I think the American corporation knows a lot of culture it doesn’t admit to knowing. Everyone goes home to watch TV. Everyone has their own activities and enthusiasm. Why are we not gathering this intelligence? Why are we not all serving as early warning devices?

Morris: Then how best to sustain that culture?

McCracken: I think a good system for reading culture would be tremendous fun and that would be enough to sustain it.

Morris: What are the sustain defining characteristics of a great chief culture officer (CCO)?

McCracken: Relentless curiosity, great powers of pattern recognition.

Morris: In your opinion, why are so many organizations reluctant to add a CCO to their management team?

McCracken: C-suites are already overcrowded. Who wants another person putting their oar in?

Morris: What is a “stealth CCO”?

McCracken: Someone who acts like a CCO but is not identified or even acknowledged as such.

Morris: Who are the “Philistines” that you discuss in Chapter Eight? What is their significance?

McCracken: There are lots of people who misunderstand culture…for a living. I won’t name them here, but certainly I do in the book.

Morris: Why are you convinced that anthropology “is the best instrument for solving key problems in the C-suite”?

McCracken: Culture is the dark energy of markets today. It forces change but we read it badly. An improvement here would have big implications.

Morris: What is spotting anomalies? That is, spotting whatever defies expectation, that doesn’t compute?

McCracken: Anomalies are those small moments when the world departs from our expectation, we are inclined to dismiss this as “just noise” and often it is that. But often it is the beginning of some larger change. It’s noise that will shortly become signal. the early we get to it and grasp it, the better. The big food companies now wish they had grasped the artisanal signal in the 70s or 80s. Now for some it’s too late.

Morris: Here’s one of several of your observations that caught my eye: “Sometimes it takes a P.T. Barnum to create a PT Cruiser.” Please explain.

McCracken: I was talking about the guru in question here who appears to sell his intelligence with a certain amount of showmanship.

Morris: For those who have not as yet read Chief Culture Officer, why did you include the two Bonus Features, “Ten Candidates for CCO” and “A Tool Fit for the Rising CCO”?

McCracken: I thought everyone liked bonus features!

Morris: As you explain in the Introduction to Culturematic, it is “a little machine for making culture. It is designed to do three things: test the world, discover meaning, and unleash value…It’s still a little vague, isn’t it? Some of you are saying, ‘I’m not exactly sure of what he means.’ Me neither. I am still working it out. The idea will get clearer as you read the rest of the book.” To what extent are you now clearer about “what it means”? Please explain.

McCracken: I was being a little provocative. I think once people have read Culturematic, they will be much better prepared to undertake innovations that come from culture, to make culture their own, as it should be.

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Grant cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

His blog website

His Amazon page

HBR link

Wired link

Psychology Today link

Twitter link

LinkedIn link

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