Chris White spoke at a ted talk in April of 2019. The main message throughout his lecture was a culture within the workplace that can create the best employees. His address focuses on the protest that was held at Google because the workers were tired of “checking our identities and workplace values at the door.” Not everyone feels that comfortable at work where they can speak their mind and protest for what they believe in without feeling at risk for their job. Mr. White later goes into great detail about walkouts and how they used to be public and a major deal, know they happen on a daily basis, and often going unnoticed by others in the form of “checkouts” or when we go blank while at work. From an employer’s point of view, there are three things that can be done to minimize this, the first is to unblock communication. These walkouts and checkouts happen because people feel like they have been silenced and they feel the necessity that they have to be heard. The next step is to become responsive. It is never enough just to hear people out we need to listen and address the issues. Finally, one needs to aim higher. Chris White believes that the worker is “more than just the sum of our resumes”.

Chris White’s saying goes hand in hand with Geertz’s belief that “culture is not just another piece of the puzzle; it is the puzzle”(238).  When one wants to understand and attempt to build a culture they must first know about the “webs of significance, [and] the systems shared meaning”, which is the very definition of culture (238). This is important to understand in both situations because no matter how close-knit the culture is there will always be “subcultures and counterculture”(238). Geertz gives an example of the different departments within a workplace and how they have their rivalries. The salespeople call the accountants ‘bean counters’ while the accountants call the salespeople faster talkers. They belong to the same company and have the same goal, but there is still this division. This brings cultural performance into the equation, or the “very actions by which members constitute a reveal their culture to themselves and to others”(238).

When considering what it takes to create a thriving culture it becomes evident why the people working at Google decided to walk out. Besides the ingredients to Chris White’s arguments of suppressing the voices of their workers, the lack of response from higher management to problems that were brought in front of them, and lastly not aiming higher. These were the reasons that the walkout occurred in the first place. To be a good leader and to have people who are willing to follow you and listen to you, you first need to understand their needs and listen to what they need to be happy. At the end of the ted talk, Chris White said that the people are more than a combination of their resumes which relates directly to the culture being the puzzle. The puzzle is always multiple pieces, and once you solve these pieces it generates a clearer picture for one to enjoy. But instead, the pieces are the individual cultures, and only through uniting all of the different cultures within the company can the company redeem new light. Once this new light is seen it helps unify the subcultures and counterculture and disperse of those rivalries between accountants and salespeople. Overall bringing the cultural performance from an I to a We.