The culture of records management

The most useful definition of organisational culture that I've ever seen is from Edgar Schein -

"Organizational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that have worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems."

I like it because it's actionable. It gives you a framework to think about the culture of your organisation in terms that you can understand, influence and ultimately change.

In a large percentage of the organisations that I work with, people are taught to feel like following the directives of the records team isn't something that they have to do.

If we work backwards through the definition, we have to come to the conclusion that at some point, telling people to ignore the records team solved a problem for the people in that part of the organisation.

Case in point.

Every agency I work with has a suite of process management solutions.

None of them comply with the archival regulation.

They are all evidence that solving a problem was more important than archival regulations for those organisations.

The idea that solving problems in the organisation is more important than archival regulation is now taught (covertly or overtly) to new members as the right way to think.

I think we could also make an argument that despite failing to meet standards, process management systems generally result in far better records than we see without them.

This leads me to the real question - when did records management start teaching new members that compliant records systems were more important than solving problems, producing better outcomes, and producing arguably better records?