the culture of organisations - myth, mystery or main event

8/7/2019 The Culture of OrganisatIons - Myth, Mystery or Main Event

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The Culture of Organisations

Myth, Mystery, or the Main Event?

By Barry Ross of From Here to There HR Services.


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Table of Contents

1) Introduction.

2) What is culture in an organisational setting?

3) Why is it powerful?

4) How is a culture created?

5) The role of leadership in determining culture.

6) How to design or change a culture for longevity.

7) Warning signs to cultural clash.


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1)This short booklet was inspired by some reading I was doing as I sat at my desk

thinking about how to re-position my business website and profile. I had been

reading an excellent book called How to book yourself solid by Michael Port. As aHuman Resources Specialist I am in the service business. A critical part of being

successful in the service industry is to know what service you should be offering and

this decision is largely based on identifying the service or offering that you are so

passionate about that you would do it for nothing. My passion, in an organisational

sense anyway, is culture. I have seen countless instances where opportunities are

over looked, poor decisions made, talented employees frustrated and money

squandered due to the interference of an organisations unique culture. To

compound the problem is an apparent significant lack of awareness of the subject, or

a lack of preparedness on the part of leadership to discuss the matter. Either way,

damage is being done and it is so unnecessarily wasteful. This booklet examines

culture in non academic terms but with some academic backbone. I trust it will be a

useful resource in providing insight, and ideas for shaping and changing your

organisations culture.

I n t roduc t ion


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2)Ask any ten people to define leadership and you will probably get ten differentanswers. So, I suggest it is with agreeing a definition of the word culture in an

organisational setting. One of the worlds leading scholars on organisational culture,Edgar Schein, defines it thus, Schein concludes that culture is a property of anindependently defined social unita unit whose members share a significant number of

common experiences in successfully addressing external and internal problems. Because of

these common experiences, over time this group of people will have formed a shared view of

the way that the world surrounding them works, and of the methods for problem solving that

will be effective in that world. This is quite a mouthful. Broken down I believe it sayssimply that a culture develops when a group of people find commonly acceptableways of doing things over time, and that these behaviours become permanent withuse. If you have spent any time in a group, team, or organisation you will noticebehaviours, thought patterns, and attitudes that guide and even dictate the actions of

the members of the group. For example, I went to a boys boarding school. In theprep room where we did our homework it was an offence to talk or read comicsduring work hours. If a prefect or teacher walked into the room and asked who wastalking, the offender stood up and accepted his fate usually involving some pain toones rear. This behaviour was rigidly policed during the first months of a school yearby the old-boys until the new-boys behaved in this fashion. This had been goingon for many, many years, and was part of the school culture to the point where onhearing the words, who was talking, the response of the offender became almostautomatic. This illustrates one version of a strong culture. In a work sense, I wasworking for a training organisation that had facilities that offered wonderful potentialfor use as a mini-conference centre. The facility was managed by an engineer and a

retired school principal. Despite desperate efforts to get management to see theadded value that such a centre could offer, they remained closed to the ideabecause the culture dictated that training should not get mixed up withsupplementary services. As time wore on the government withdrew its funding forsuch centres. The additional revenue that could have been provided by theadditional services could have sustained the operation. As it happened the centreclosed and the buildings were eventually sold off to a private company. Culture canbe a very destructive influence.

What is t he cu l t ure of an organisat ion?

So what therefore is organisational culture? In their article Creating and sustaining a

winning culture, Meehan, Rigby, and Rogers describe culture as, A uniquepersonality and soul based on shared values and heritage. It is the unique DNA ofthought, intention, attitude and deed that exists within every organisation, and thatguides thinking, attitudes, actions and intentions. This is my definition you may preferMr. Scheins, Meehan, Rigby, and Rogers version, or yours. When all is said and thedebate concluded we will all agree that it (culture) just is.

3)Why is organisat ional c u l ture so pow erfu l?I believe that the power of the culture is in its relatively unseen nature. It is not

common for organisations to have a statement of culture on the wall next to thestatement of vision or mission. Actually, I have not heard of one organisation that


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has such a statement. This is because culture is very hard to define in measurableterms but the effects are clearly discernable in every day organisational living. Thepower therefore lies in influence. Every thought is influenced by the intangible, everyaction a product of a subconscious awareness of what is okay around here. If wellunderstood and harnessed the culture of the organisation can be a very effective tool

for progress and change. If not understood or ignored, the culture can be debilitatingto the point of total failure.Now imagine a scenario in which a business is in decline. The business has goodproducts and services and has been a market leader for many years. But the markethas changed and is looking for a high quality but more affordable alternative. Tryingto sell more of what the market doesnt want is futile. Change is required. Thesolution is found in an innovation that offers the same product or service butpackaged in a way that makes it more affordable to the customer and is less costlyto provide. Genius you say! Yes but now about the implementation. The strategyrequires significant thinning out of the workforce because some of the services havebeen altered or outsourced. The management of the business is largely old school

or traditional in approach and the trimmed, no-frills offering is somehow beneaththem. In addition, the employees are highly unionised and antagonistic to change.The brand strategy is carefully crafted and communicated. A new brand mission,vision, and values are decided on after consultation with the workforce. The processof the structural and service changes begins.

The brand strategy requires further a participative style of management becausemore of the supervisory functions are to be driven downward in the business and themanagement structures are flattened. How are the traditionalists going to adjust tonot having a hierarchy to command? The employees themselves are experiencingsignificant trauma as they have seen some of their colleagues laid-off, had their ownjobs changed, and in some cases their salaries cut by up to 30%. How will theyadapt?

At each business unit in the new brand where the changes are implemented theleader of the brand participates in each change process. He clearly spells out thechallenge, the remedy, and the new way of work that will save the business. Heshows the management a new style of leadership, away from the old characterisedby autocratic, aloof management, and into a more visible presence on the shop floorduring which times team members are encouraged, called by name, rewardedpublically for extraordinary effort, and even asked for an opinion. This style is

repeatedly modelled by senior brand leadership at corporate level as well as atbusiness unit level. Time is taken to share business results with employees regularly.People see progress and the results of their efforts and begin to understand the painthey have suffered. At every opportunity the Brand Leader visits the business unitsand encourages and challenges the troops. More importantly, he is seen to be livingthe values espoused by the new business philosophy. The change is dramatic.Almost overnight the market embraces the new business model. The financialposition turns completely around and the business becomes the life blood of thecompany. Stories of unbelievable service exploits begin to stream in from employeesand customers alike. Employees who were ardent unionists become the companysbest service ambassadors. Everyone celebrates the new found prosperity.


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What was described here actually happened. I was part of it. The brand took off andliterally turned around the fortunes of a company in deep trouble in a recessedeconomy. Then something significant happened that serves to underline the deepimpact that culture has on a business. Due to the success of this particular brand thebrand leader was promoted to become the Managing Director of the whole company.

He was a dynamic leader who had been chosen for his get things done, nononsense style of leadership. He had come to the job with a reputation of beingsomething of a tyrant and a dictator who epitomised the companys break-legs styleof management that followed the style of the founder of the business many yearsprevious. The promotion had a curious effect. The leader who had so successfullyled the reviving change did not carry on the new philosophy that had brought suchsuccess, to his new position. Whether it was the larger span of control he was nowresponsible for and the accompanying pressures, or a new challenge that he feltrequired a different approach I cant say, but he reverted to his previous style. Thewhole company shifted in its behaviour and reverted to the so-called break-legsautocratic style. As he moved upward a successor was brought in to manage the

new and successful brand. The new manager was not strong enough to continue thesuccessful brand philosophy in the face of the revision to the old culture. Slowly thesuccessful brand took on the mindsets, attitudes and nuances of the old company.The business suffered enough for the management to look for other ways to ensuregrowth and new brands were added to the portfolio. While the business was stillsuccessful, it became in general a clinical operation lacking the warmth that shouldcharacterise its industry a far cry from the wonderfully warm, hospitable, and can-do approach that played so important a role in turning the brand into a companysaver. Over the years following the company never regained the incredible spirit ithad. It seems the company now re-brands itself every few years to somehow try toregain what it has lost.

This true story serves to illustrate the power of culture. It also demonstrates how theleaders character and style powerfully influence, even dictate the culture. The leaderwas either a product of the original break-legs culture, or recruited because hefitted well with it. The important part is that the old culture lived on even in the face ofan amazingly successful change process that inspired most employees. Culture ispowerful because it is deeply ingrained, it lies quietly in the hearts and minds of thelong serving members of the organisation, and it influences everything.

4)How is cu l tu re c rea ted?I must begin this section by making the following observation. Whether a culture iscreated by design, or not, every company has one. If the design component isabsent then the culture will develop of its own accord. Edgar Schein states that aculture is formed when in an intact group, members share a significant number ofcommon experiences in successfully addressing external and internal problems. Theemphasis here seems to be on the successfully negotiating problems as a means toestablish a culture. He goes on to add that when the group has successfullynegotiated the problems over a period of time those assumptions, attitudes, beliefsand behaviours become entrenched and so culture is developed. He goes on to addthat the role of the founder of the organisation is important in all of this. He states,The founder of the organization usually has personal opinions such as, This is better than


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that, or This way of doing it is better than that way of doing it; and so on. However, the

employees in the organization must collectively experience for themselves the validity of this

problem-solving methodology and of criteria for decision-making. Ultimately, if the

founders methods for reaching solutions work reliably and successively for the group, they

come to be taken for grantedand become the culture of the group.

In his article, How to change Culture Lessons from NUMMI, published in the MITSloan Management Review, John Shook notes that the organisational culture thatcharacterised the General Motors corporation before its joint auto plant venture withToyota underwent a complete metamorphosis during the time of the venture. He hadfirsthand knowledge of this because he was directly involved in the project. Theculture at the Fremont plant changed from one of absenteeism, poor workperformance, challenging of authority, striking, and even sabotaging quality, to oneof excellence in all aspects in which workers wanted to come to work and wanted tosucceed. He notes that the way the change in culture was changed was byimplementing Toyota production and management systems. In their work creatingand sustaining a winning culture, Meehan, Rigby, and Rogers state that the way to

change a culture is to change the behaviours that create culture. They say, Instillinga winning culture requires changing how people think about the company andaltering habitual behaviours. Edgar Schein notes, Schein asserts that managers whowant to shape their organizations culture do not necessarily have to wait foror

precipitatea crisis deep and powerful enough to generate this forced unlearning. Instead

they can lead their organizations through a more organized and deliberate cultural change

process if they do two things. The first is to direct significant effort toward understanding the

present cultures antecedentsthe initial evolution of the organizations culture that came

from successfully solving particular problems. With this understanding as a foundation, the

second thing that managers can do is to find or create a set of new problems that the

organization must confront repeatedly and successfully. In other words if you want tochange a culture then you must change a behaviour first. As you change behaviourand the behaviour is repeated over time so the culture will change along with it. Thisperspective is supported by Shook who says, Start by changing what people dorather than how they think. Its easier to act your way to a new way of thinkingthan to think your way to a new way of acting.

So to summarise, if you want to create, change or shape organisational culture, youmust make sustained behavioural change that will over time become embedded inthe organisational DNA and become identifiable as the organisations culture.

5)The ro le of leadersh ip in determ in ing the cu l t ure?Edgar Schein observes that the founder of an organisation has an important role toplay in cultivating a culture, usually through his or her individual preferences in theproblem solving dynamic that he outlines. He notes further that as the members ofthe organisation interact over time and jointly solve problems satisfactorily, thepreferences of the founder become less and less dominant in setting the culture.

I would like to suggest something quite different. I believe that the founderspreferences in terms of assumptions, attitudes, and actions are massively importantin determining an organisations culture. Further to this, every top leader who runsthe organisation will have an impact on the culture as his or her preferences begin tobecome apparent in the organisations daily life. I have a favourite saying. It goes,


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The characteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the king. Simplyput, the way the leader thinks and behaves (in terms of assumptions, attitudes, andactions) will determine how the organisation behaves and thinks. I have yet to seethis disproved. From this point of departure it becomes easy to understand howcultures are formed and influenced. If as we have seen above, changes in behaviour

lead to change in culture, then as people become aware through observationmostly - of the assumptions, attitudes, and behaviours preferred by the leader, sothey will adopt these and the way we do things around here will change. Thechange will happen slowly but inexorably. If the leader stays around for long enoughthe culture of the organisation may change permanently. If the tenure is relativelytemporary the organisation may revert to the original culture once the leader has left.It was for this reason that in my example above, the winning culture of the brand asinstilled by the brand leader faded as the leader left to take up higher office. As hetook up higher office the culture so successfully entrenched in the brand was notcarried through to the rest of the organisation because the leader reverted back tohis original and possibly instinctual style. An opportunity was lost.

If the leaders assumptions, attitudes, and actions are robustly entrenched theculture change may be radical, if not then more subtle changes may occur. It is worthmentioning that the NUMMI case study reflects that change was produced by theintroduction of the Toyota operating processes. While this is true, one must ask whatprecipitated the change in operating processes. It was a decision of leadership thatthe change must come about. While no monition is made of the role of leadership inengineering the change of culture, it can be deduced from the text that leadership alladopted the Toyota way. If they hadnt I would strongly doubt that the processesalone would have accomplished the change.

A colleague was relating an account of a project he was managing on behalf of alarge corporation in the energy production sector. The EXCO had identified the needfor change in reaction to the perceived change in the market. The CEO was thechampion of the change initiative and it was he who initially and strongly identifiedthe need for change. My colleague was employed to steer the organisation throughthe change process. The initiative began exceedingly well. The CEO clearlycommunicated through strategy, communication, and personal behaviour what wasrequired by the organisation in order to make the changes. Progress was expectedlyslow but for the huge size of the organisation, sure. The corporations managementwas technically highly skilled and many of them had significant length of service.This lead to initial resistance to change as one might expect. As time moved on

peoples attitudes began to thaw and the culture change process increased in bothspeed and quality of change. Then the world experienced the 2010 financial crisis.The business because of its size and sector immediately experienced the affects ofthe crisis in terms of its trading results. The CEO immediately placed the changeinitiative on the backburner as the management grappled with the crisis at hand. Theold culture reared its head again and the organisation took a quantum stepbackward. Instead of dealing with the crisis in the light of the newly expressedculture defining assumptions, attitudes, and actions, the company resorted to theold way of doing things. My colleague is still working with the organisation and istrying to revive the initiative. Time is unfortunately against him as is the fact that theorganisation has seen the leader waiver from the principles he so clearly and

passionately espoused when the change initiative was launched. Employees canforgive many things of leaders, but hypocrisy is rarely one of them.


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There is another reason why it is so important to understand the role that leadersplay in establishing organisational culture. Leaders come and go. That is the natureof life. As a leader does well, so he or she is likely to move to bigger and betterthings. But what of the organisation they leave behind? If you agree as I do that a

leader plays a huge role in determining or influencing the organisations culture, thenthe arrival of a new leader must upset the balance. We know this to be true at apractical level. New boss, new ways of doing things, new preferences, new attitudes,new assumptions, new actions does this look familiar? It should because thisorganisation is about to have its culture influenced. Organisational and learningpsychologists tell us that an adult learning a new skill goes through 4 phases oflearning. These are, unconsciously incompetent consciously incompetent -consciously competent - and unconsciously competent. They also tell us that anemployee takes between three to six months in a new job before they become fullyproductive. The time to competence generally depends on the complexity of the jobas a major among a number of factors. Employees who begin the same job with a

new company as they held in the previous workplace, and who may have beenexpert in their previous workplace still undergo the same learning curve albeitperhaps of a shorter duration. This is because there is more to a job than just doingthe work. There are a myriad of other things to learn, from where the coffee stationis, to whom to talk to if you need help with your medical aid claim form. During thisperiod the employee goes through a period of being incompetent (read not fullycompetent here). As they learn the ropes, so they regain the full competence theyhad in their previous place of employment. So here is a thought. If the culture (theassumptions, attitudes, and actions) change with new leadership not only is theleader not yet competent, but the changes in the culture render experienced andcompetent employees functionally incompetent until they have adjusted to the newway of doing things. In my industry, the hospitality industry, leaders of business unitsare changed routinely every three to five years. It is believed that these leaders getstale and need a new challenge in order to keep them productive and the service inthe hotels optimal. While this may be convention, I think it is bordering on the insane.Why would a company deliberately inflict change on its employees every few yearsin the name of progress especially when the leader who arrives is seldom similar instyle, values, assumptions, attitudes, and actions to the leader that departs. In myview this action renders albeit for a short time the entire business incompetent. Isuggest making changes to leadership only when they are absolutely necessary andthen make sure the leader who takes over fully lives the established culture, values,

assumptions, attitudes, and actions of the organisation.

A last thought if I may? Have you ever worked in a dysfunctional environmentdominated by the assumptions, attitudes and actions of a leader whose blind spotswere the cause of the dysfunction? Have you ever worked, or seen someone elsework really hard at trying to bring change only for the leader to reject all efforts? Ihave been there and it is frustrating beyond words. In a recent experience Idiscovered that I had not been the only one who over the preceding years had triedto bring an awareness of the need to change. Others had tried and failed as did I.One senior manager told me, you are wasting your time, he will never change! Thisleader was set in his ways, had a leadership blind spot as big as Texas, and a

culture had developed over the years, of passive non-cooperation. Tragically, theleader was a person of vast vision and amazing drive. Many of his ideas were


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impractical, but many were brilliant. Management had learned over time to roll theireyes at the latest idea or proposed direction and just do nothing if they didnt agreehoping, as it often happened, that a new idea would replace the previous and thatthey would not have to take action on what they did not believe to be correct. Theleader had taken to trying to do everything himself frustrating both himself and the

organisation. As he did other peoples jobs for them so people became comfortablejust waiting for him to do so. They were going through the motions. Here is anexample of a culture that developed not by design but by default.

6)How to des ign or change cu l tu re fo r l ongev i t y?The first and possibly the most important principle here is to be consistent and lookat the development of culture as a long-term thing, a journey. In Going for Gold,Gene Ference PhD. of HVS International states the following, Peak-performing

organizations always view this as a continuous process because despite the best of intentions,progress is often hampered due to conflicting agendas, personalities, and sub-cultures within

the organization. Therefore, building team culture becomes not a static event, but rather, a

dynamic process, and establishing a common team-culture requires highly interactive

processes.

Mr. Ference packs a lot into this statement. I see two basic points here. First, thecreation and development of a corporate culture is not a once off initiative. It is acontinuous process. Secondly the process must be characterised by a high level ofinteraction among the members of the organisation. This is not something that canbe hatched out in a boardroom somewhere and then hung on a wall for all to see.Culture is borne out of observation and dialogue. Observation of how leadership

behaves, and dialogue around what is okay (assumptions, attitudes, and actions) inthis environment are the defining issues. The role of founder/leader cannot beforgotten in this mix. As we have discussed above, The characteristics of thekingdom really do come from the character of the king.

Of course every initiative must begin somewhere. Meehan, Rigby, and Rogersbelieve that to change a culture one must change the way that people think aboutthe organisation and alter habitual behaviours. They maintain that step one is to do aculture survey in order to find out what is currently in place and then set newexpectations. Secondly, they suggest aligning the team and focusing on results andaccountability. Next, they suggest managing the drivers of the culture and lastly

celebrating success. This is basically a standard project management approach tothe change process and is I believe a useful perspective. What is worrying howeveris their focus on altering the way people think about the organisation. I have seeninitiatives where corporations try through training, focus groups, internalcommunications, and reward try to alter culture. In essence these projects try to alterthe way that people think about the organisation and then hope that cultural changewill become permanent. They seldom get sustained results. As my colleaguesexample above discusses, the first hiccup on the road can bring about a return to theold and comfortable ways if leadership is not strongly living the desired culture.Shook, in his reporting of the successful turnaround at NUMMI (New United MotorManufacturing Incorporated the Toyota, General Motors joint venture at Fremont),

has a slightly different emphasis. He maintains that the success of this culturechange process was the implementation of the Toyota production management


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systems. His position is to change behaviour and the hearts and minds will follow. Arecent study on motivation done by a group from Harvard University showed the onething that employees found most motivating in their daily work was progress on thejob. People want to know that what they are doing is somehow contributing to thegreater good and that they have made strides in achieving an objective. In a

dysfunctional environment people are not motivated. They know that their efforts arenot making a difference. By getting people to work in a highly organised system thatdelivers high quality results has the effect of motivating people. This motivationthrough progress if sustained for long enough generates goodwill and a positivemindset about the organisation. Of course there are other very important factorssuch as giving the employees the means to do their jobs well and having a failsafemethod for dealing with problems in a way that the employees can feel safe inidentifying and dealing with problems. This aspect goes to what Edgar Schein states,that culture is developed as group members find shared, successful ways of dealingwith problems that they encounter over time.

How then does one go about establishing and or altering an established culture?

1) As Richard Barrett noted in his bestselling book, Liberating the CorporateSoul, Organisations dont change, People do! This change must start withthe person at the top because the characteristics of the kingdom emanatefrom the character of the king. It is worth mentioning that a team culture is asmuch affected by the team leader as the organisational culture is by theorganisational leader.

2) In an existing organisation, do a culture survey to establish the current culture.3) Generate dialogue across all levels of the organisation to define what is

okay in terms of assumptions, attitudes and actions. The leadership of theorganisation sets the tone but must not dictate; or, the founder or foundinggroup must clearly spell out and agree on the assumptions, attitudes, andactions that will be okay in this organisation.

4) Set up a work system that; a) allows people to perform the work that they areemployed to do, b) allows employees to identify and fix problems as and whenthey occur, and feel safe in doing so, c) allows the people to see progress intheir daily task. This will build trust.

5) Once the work system, assumptions, attitudes, and actions are clearly definedand agreed, leadership must consistently demonstrate the courage to live theculture and to uphold the integrity of the work systems, assumptions, attitudes

and actions no matter what.Now this is a fairly basic process outline. There are many techniques to accomplishall of this but I believe the basic process is sound. It is worth mentioning that theToyota Company has a well established system of working that outlives thepersonalities that come and go. The development of a system that guaranteesprogress on the job, safe identification and resolution of problems, and consistentassumptions, attitudes, and actions, lived out daily by the top people, will set aculture that will live on to the successive generations of members of the organisation.


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6)Warning s igns of Cul tura l Clash.The trouble with culture is that it affects absolutely everything we do on a personal,societal, and organisational basis. You cant get away from it. This section will helpyou to identify some typical hot spots in organisations that can be attributable directlyor indirectly to a clash between stated values of the business and what is lived byleadership, or expected of the employees by the leadership. Remember, Thecharacteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the king.

1) General apathy or lack of motivation among the general workforce.Q: Do you find that once enthusiastic, innovative employees are suddenlydetached and doing only what is needed to get by?This is often because what people are told to do and what they see leadershipdo are not aligned Example: Employees are told that customers are treated

with respect and in a friendly manner. Leaderships style is to speak harshly toemployees in public, and to be unfriendly in their general dealings with theworkforce.

2) Employees are afraid to take decisions or use initiative lack ofaccountability.Q: Do you have employees or team members that show frustration at the lackof progress, or who seem to passively oppose the direction proposed byleadership?Often because leadership expects people to take ownership, but micro-manages employees or worse, delegates tasks and then promptly does thework themselves. If this is a general pattern in the organisation then this

organisation is in serious trouble and is likely to fail over time. Urgentcorrective action is required to change the culture.

3) Workforce does not trust leadership (1).Q: Are employees or group members generally and continually distrustful ofthe motives of leadership?We know trust is earned and if leadership continually over controlsemployees, this damages the trust relationship. Trust has its epicentre in themiddle of the brain in a small almond shaped area known as the Amygdala. Itis the centre of the emotions and all stimuli to the brain are filtered throughthis area. If the culture of the organisation promotes behaviours that offend,are perceived to be unfair, or are in any way objectionable to the generally

acceptable sensibilities of the group members, trust will be broken.4) Workforce does not trust leadership (2).

Q: How are the emotional triggers noted in 3 above acted out in theorganisational context?If leadership of various departments engage in information hoarding,unhealthy rivalry between departments, bureaucratic protection of resources,playing the blame game, and egotistical decision making seen as not in thebest interests of the organisation; this, in the face of an expectation to work asa team, will destroy trust.

5) Productivity is suffering due to petty in-fighting, spitefulness, cliques, andgossip.

Q: Do the group members seem to spend a lot of time around the watercooler, or at the coffee station discussing things in hushed tones?


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This may be as a reaction to the example set by leadership where personalimage, manipulation, and arrogance are manifest in opposition to the statedvalues of the company

6) Passive non-cooperation with authority.Q: Do members of the organisation seem to need constant pushing to deliver

expected results and appear to only as much as is required to stay out oftrouble?This may be a manifestation of frustration with leadership because the valuesof the organisation as stated are not supported by leadership, or, becauseleadership is unable to trust employees to do the work and so either interferestoo much or tries to do all of the work themselves for fear of failure.

7) Employees rarely offer any initiative, critique, or suggestion for improvement.Q: Do group members seem to shy away from participating in opendiscussion, or seem slow to offer an opinion even when it is asked for?When employees find themselves working in an intensely domineeringatmosphere, where leadership asserts itself too strongly to the point of being

dictatorial, they will protect themselves by withdrawing and doing only whatthey are told.

8) Significant number of disciplinary problems resulting in many disciplinaryactions.Q: Do you see a high level or an increasing level of disciplinary events takingplace in the group or organisation?This can be because Leadership either sets a poor example encouragingemployees to break the rules, or more likely, employees rebel againstleadership that is perceived to be unfair, self-centred, and arrogant.

9) High absenteeism.See (6) above.

If this seems like a series of pot-shots at leadership it is not intended with anymalice. This is simply what is. Most problems in organisations can be traced back toleadership, or a lack thereof. In fact, Richard Barrett in his book Building a valuesDriven Organisation states, ultimately, the culture of an organisation is a reflectionof the personality of the leader, or the personalities of the leadership group.Organisational transformation always begins with the personal transformation of theleaders.The list of hot-spots above is by no means an exhaustive list but perhaps there areone or two scenarios noted here that are a little too familiar. If so this could be a call

to arms to do something. Doing something about these symptoms can seem a littledaunting if you have either no experience at working with issues of culture, orperhaps you would like an independent specialist to assist you in your journey. If youneed help please contact me Barry [email protected].

I would love to be of service in helping you get from here to there.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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the culture of organisations - myth, mystery or main event

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