Our approach

As outsiders to your community or organisational context we are able to ask fresh questions that help you shed light on knowledge — and assumptions — that would otherwise remain obscured or unexamined.

Drawing attention to tacit culture — unlocking 'hidden' aspects of social and cultural knowledge

Most of the time we are unaware of the social and cultural ‘rules’ that structure our daily interactions. We don’t need to pay conscious attention to them, because we know ‘intuitively’ how to act in familiar contexts.

We might be more aware of the ‘grammar’ of social interaction and cultural rules when we face a new or changed context, like a new workplace culture, or when something in the external environment changes.

Even so, much of our ‘cultural’ knowledge is below the level of our consciousness (tacit culture), so when our usual ways of dealing with things don’t work, we’re only partly aware of how and what to change.

A graphic illustration showing the relationship between explicit (accessible) cultural knowledge and tacit (hidden) cultural knowledge. The left side of the diagram shows two human figures in conversation and is labeled 'Language.' The right side shows two human figures communicating non-verbally with touch and gestures, and is labelled 'Actions and environments). The top half of the diagram has a blue-coloured background and has the label 'Explicit (Accessible) Cultural Knowledge. On the left side, level with the heads of the human figures who are conversing, it has the label 'Conscious Verbal Communication'. On the right side, level with the heads of the human figures who are gesturing, it has the label 'Explicit Non-Verbal Communication' next to the right-hand human figures. The bottom half of the illustration has a pink background and is labeled 'Tacit (Hidden) Cultural Knowledge. On the left side, level with the bodies of the human figures who are conversing, it has the label 'Unconscious Communicative Frames & Cues'. On the right side, level with the bodies of the human figures who are gesturing, it has the label 'Unconscious Embodied Awareness'.

Enhancing cultural awareness

  • We help you unlock the hidden potential of tacit (unconscious) cultural knowledge systems and cultural 'frames' to build an organic and holistic organisational culture and outlook
  • We work with you to see your organisational culture — or your clients' cultural and social contexts — from a new perspective
  • This gives you new insights, leading to more intuitive systems and services
  • Our core strengths are in ethnographic research — a set of methods for investigating the social and cultural context of human interaction from the perspective of the participants themselves
  • By observing what people do and talking with them about their experience we open up fresh perspectives on familiar aspects of community or organisational life
  • Through this we help you reach a more holistic understanding of the conscious and unconscious social and cultural ‘rules’ that make your context unique
Click below to find out more…
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“People need ‘the confidence and tools to lean into, instead of shy away from, tension and conflict.”

Myrna Lewis Co-founder of the Lewis method of Deep Democracy
“We don’t see human complexity as the problem, but rather the pathway to the solution.”

Social Context team

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