Representatives of the alternative culture seek to alleviate anxiety among those whom they serve. In seeking to fulfill this function they provide a unique understanding and possible treatment of illness, pain, and death. They say: “you are a whole person, and you need to understand that your dis-ease is part of your spiritual being.” It is assumed in this culture that a patient’s community and support systems can be engaged to make a difference in how the patient copes with illness and creates health. Members of the alternative culture suggest that they can provide competent treatment, for they are skilled in new or very old ways of doing healing work. This culture focuses on empowering each individual to find and understand what illness, death, and pain really mean. Alternative practitioners encourage their patients to listen to their own voices and create their own healing and good health.
Virtual Culture: accompanying VUCA-Plus (and accelerating its presence and power) is the technological revolution that has impacted all sectors of 21st Century societies—including health care. Those in health care systems who are aligned with the virtual culture conceive of their responsibility as am engagement and use of knowledge and expertise that is being produced and modified at an exponential rate in our postmodern world. Philip Rosinski (2003, p. 54) notes that someone who embraces the virtual culture “values a dynamic and flexible environment, promotes effectiveness through adaptability and innovations, and avoids routine which is perceived as boring”.
Those aligned with this culture tend to value a global perspective and make extensive use of open, shared, and responsive learning systems. They are participants in what Thomas Friedman (2007) describes as a “flat world” which has abandoned organizational and national boundaries. Furthermore, with the exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the field of medicine, these health care workers are likely to be fully wrapped up in this new technology. While AI might be threatening in many regards, it is also “here to stay” and holds the potential of vastly improving the quality of medical diagnosis and treatment.
Leaders who are aligned with this culture speak about learning organizations. As Peter Senge (1990, p. 4), one of the early proponents of the learning organization, has noted: “The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization. Learning organizations are possible because, deep down, we are all learners.” Furthermore, as learners, we should not avoid taking risks and making mistakes, yet we should avoid repeating the same mistakes and taking the same unsuccessful risks. We learn from our mistakes (as well as our successes).
Members of a health care system who are aligned with the virtual culture not only tend to be increasing in numbers, they also tend to embrace many untested assumptions about their ability to make sense of the fragmentation and ambiguity that exists in the postmodern world. (Bergquist, 1993; Bergquist and Mura, 2005) They typically are quite wise and skillful in making use of digital technologies. They are likely to be frustrated in working with other members of their health care system who are not readily accessible via some portable digital device. These members of the virtual culture are inclined to work quickly and decisively with clients via many different media.
