Many people involved in organizational design still tend (or, at least, strongly desire) to think of organizations as collections of components, some of which are people whose primary characteristic might be the specific skills for which they imagine them to be programmed. These designers further suppose that these components are more or less interchangeable according to the purpose or skill they possess, and can be arranged or rearranged at will to suit various aims, such as mergers or process re-engineering efforts.
We know, however, that something loosely referred to as corporate culture can impose itself in ways that are inconvenient to such efforts. Unfortunately, since the first inklings a century ago of the presence of such a thing in our organizations, we have not made much progress in understanding what it really is, or what purpose it actually serves – more precisely, that it can support if properly acknowledged and encouraged, or that it can frustrate if ignored or even abused.
At first we assumed it didn’t exist because we saw the people who worked in it essentially as inconsequentially replaceable parts like any other, and ourselves as the only actors of any value or capability on this stage. In the succeeding decades, with a combination of resentment, amazement, and stubborn condescension, we began to discover some of the characteristics of this phenomenon. However, we continued – and continue – to struggle to make them out through the distorting lens of our persisting assumptions that, fundamentally, they are the clay, and we the potters.
We still don’t talk or think seriously enough about it. We focus on the people at the top, particularly the singular individual leader. We imagine that this person, if sufficiently imbued with the professed leadership qualities, can work change within a corporation almost at will.
When we do turn to what is going on inside the corporate culture, we tend to view it simplistically. It is, we persist in imagining, a passive force that can resist, but not organize or create. Without the active and guiding force of the individual leader it is at best a pointless, rudderless force, and at worst a negative influence that must be suppressed or sent to the reeducation camps.
The truth is, it is much deeper than we think. There is life stirring in its depths that we can’t see, influence, or benefit from if we only offer it a glancing surface examination while we skim along overhead with blithe self-absorption.
We can poison it though. And that is what we typically do when we we act on it with the presumption that we are its master. We are not. We are its steward. It is in the latter role, not the former, that we instill it with an energy that serves all of our corporate purposes.
We will return to this topic on Monday. Tomorrow we’ll be taking a brief look at a peculiar comparison between CEOs and politicians observed in last week’s Economist magazine. Please do stop by!
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Today’s tip: Speaking of The Economist, nations, and culture, please see this brief but very interesting piece celebrating the stateless multinational corporation. Worth a moment of your time.
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It has interested me to see how different offices have molded the corporate culture to their own specification. I’ve seen offices that cannot harness it and others that have used it to gather a great momentum and unity.
Hello and thank you for your visit and comment. I agree that harnessing a corporate culture – even molding it around a corporate purpose – is a better way to look at what managers can do than “creating” or “changing” it.
Thanks again for stopping by – I hope you continue your visits and offer your thoughts again in the future!
Jim – YES. For one of my clients we developed a “Followership” program. It has made more positive difference so far than the CEO has been able to bring about. Just a thought in keeping with your thoughts….
Edward Hall said that culture was the collection of our common unvoiced assumptions, the things “everybody knows.” Deal and Kennedy defined culture as “the way we do things around here.”
When I go into a new organization and need to suss out what’s really going on I do three things. I ask: “Who succeeds around here?” I listen to the kinds of stories people tell each other. And I notice who everybody looks at in a meeting when it’s time for a decision.
Hello Lee,
That’s very interesting – as you know, I am not fond of the idea of “followership,” but that is because it is usually used to append otherwise hapless persons to the putative greatness of a singular individual leader.
Based on your brief description of the effects of your program, you seem to be using it in a broader sense, more frankly and deeply addressing what is really happening inside the organization. Would be interested in hearing more.
Thanks for stopping by with this!
Wally,
I cannot imagine a more effective way than your three steps to discover and prize open the windows into the deeper regions of an organization’s culture. They are all just perfect, but your third point also addresses the potential for the presence of an unofficial chain of command in an organization, or people who are sometimes referred to as opinion leaders or influence points. This touches on an important element of the topic of corporate culture. This may have to be addressed in order to argue my larger assertions about organizational leadership.
This is terrific advice – thanks so much for stopping in with it!