on "positive" organizational culture

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

I want to state at the outset that this message is about organizational 
culture in general and not about anyone in particular in the past or 
present.

On 3/5/20 9:03 PM, Jay Daley wrote:

> I prefer to aim for a more positive culture both by the way I 
> contribute and by what I expect of others. The culture of an 
> organisation is set by the worst behaviour people are willing to expect.

I would state your sentence differently - the behavior of those who 
control an organization, in the long term, approaches the worst behavior 
that the community is willing to tolerate.   This is because there will 
always be pressures on the leaders that tempt them to "bend the rules", 
and has nothing to do with the specific people who are in charge.

The problem with a "more positive" culture (if by that you mean one in 
which it's considered inappropriate to ask questions or air concerns), 
is that a lack of transparency is the perfect incubator for 
corruption.   There is perhaps some room for fine-tuning, but it is not 
possible to have the best of both worlds.

I would say that a positive culture for an organization like IETF is one 
in which every contributor has reason to believe that their 
contributions will be evaluated fairly and openly, and in which there is 
no reason to suspect that anyone is putting a thumb on the scale to 
favor one contribution over another for reasons other than technical 
suitability.

But those conditions absolutely require transparency, even at the 
expense of some discomfort.

Keith