The three levels of culture - Schein

We are talking to a client right now about a project that involves a fairly strong change management component, and in particular an important element of “cultural change.” So I was looking up some concepts and frameworks focused around culture and cultural change, and came across some references to Edgar Schein. I had read his classic 1992 book “Organizational Culture and Leadership” a long time ago. It emphasizes the need to take organizational culture into account in any change management effort. Whether it is organizational learning, development or change, culture is likely to be the primary source of resistance.Schein basically defines culture at three levels:

Artifacts are at the surface, they can be easily observed, although not necessarily easily understood.
Espoused values are more conscious strategies, goals and philosophies.
Basic assumptions are the core and the essence of culture. They are largely unconscious, and therefore hard to discern.

The three levels get to the core of what culture really is (again, according to Schein): “A pattern of shared, tacit, basic assumptions that a group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that is considered to have worked well enough to be taught new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to these problems.”

Interesting and certainly valid, my only concern would be how actionable is really is. As Schein himself acknowledges, describing and changing culture is a notoriously difficult endeavor. He recommends an iterative and almost “clinical” approach, similar to the relationship between a psychiatrist and her patient. Whether all of us strategists have those clinical skills is another question. I’d be curious to hear about people’s experiences.