Caleb Love's List: Organizational Culture

• • Interest in politics isonly negatively related to Power Distance, and in cultures inwhich power distance is more highly valued we find less interestin politics, possibly due to the lack of motivation to participatederiving from the legitimacy of hierarchical differences.
• • the strongestcorrelation with GNP is found for Hofstede’s Power Distance, andthere is also a strong link between GNP and the Hierarchy valuesof Schwartz, which also show the strongest association with HDI.All of this suggests that countries high in Power Distance andHierarchy have low levels of economic development
• • In a general way, Hofstedeclaims that the predominance of religious and philosophical ideologies emphasizing stratification and hierarchy is a key elementin the difference between cultures with high and low PowerDistance (Hofstede, 2001). A comparison that dichotomized cultures into Confucian and “others” (yes = 2, others = 1) f

1 more annotation...

• A function is a field (a discipline or kind of work) that involves similar professional skills and tools. These functions are often concentrated into departments, e.g. the Research and Development department (R&D), Marketing and Sales (M&S), Production (Prod), Business Services (BS), and the Shipping and Receiving departments (S&R). These are pejoratively called, “functional silos” – vertically oriented structures through which business processes flow horizontally. Organizational functions have their own vocabulary and acronyms and often work-group members view themselves as members of that sub-group, not part of the overall organization, e.g. “I’m in the Accounting or Sales Department.” In some extreme cases, lines of communication between these different functions break down and people squander enormous amounts of time and energy on toxic interpersonal or inter-departmental conflicts rather than doing productive work. Over time, “we versus they” thinking solidifies as one organization optimizes its own performance at the expense of other functions and ultimately the overall organization.

• Type 2: Connection (Why Things Get Done)

   

  Type 2 (Connection) focuses on teambuilding and why things get done in an organization. When an organization manifests the Type 2 (Connection) way of working, they believe that attunement to the external environment, innovation and radical change, exploring options and new ideas, and engaging with and influencing people to work together and collaborate will result in improved performance. They build alliances and cultivate relationships with people outside the organization (the public, interest groups, unions, media, and government agencies) and inside the organization where managers and staff members are encouraged to align their efforts with the organizational structures and systems in order to achieve the organization’s purpose, goals, and objectives. They exhibit the following characteristics:

   
   
  • Top managers build a broad consensus and commitment among managers and key personnel around the overall direction and goals defined in the strategic plan, and they can clearly communicate the organization’s purpose, goals, objectives, and core values to people inside and outside the organization.
   
   
   
  • The focus is on anticipating and acting on changes from the external environment (sometimes even before the details of a situation are fully understood), experimenting with multiple strategies and lines of action to anticipate changes in the external environment, then letting the results determine which is the best alternative. This data and information are used to identify new products and services that will meet the changing needs and demands of customers in new (or existing) market segments.
• • Managers use regular operations meetings and periodic events to build group identity (annual planning, team-building sessions, retreats, holiday gatherings, etc.), but managers and staff members still see themselves as part of the whole organization, not members of a specific department or sub-group. Consequently, they communicate and cooperate with other departments and functional units so that key information is shared (e.g. the left hand knows what the right one is doing).
   
   
   
  • People are energized by radical change that results from interacting with customers and the external environment and they believe that innovation and creative approaches to identifying and solving problems will enable the organization to achieve (or exceed) its goals and objectives.

• Type 3: Direction (How Things Get Done)

   

  Type 3 (Direction) focuses on leadership and how (that) things get done in an organization. When an organization manifests the Type 3 (Direction) way of working, they believe that defining a long-term direction, with strategic plans, goals and objectives, and creating and maintaining order and efficiency through structures and systems will result in improved performance. Using a quantitative, data-driven, analytical approach to performance, the organization’s strategic goals are deployed and monitored through operations plans, goals, and budgets that direct the week-to-week and month-to-month operations of teams and individuals in organizational units to ensure that those goals and objectives are achieved. They exhibit the following characteristics:

   
   
  • Top managers have set a clear direction for achieving the organization’s mission and purpose and this institution-wide planning process is codified into a written strategic plan that defines the organization’s goals and objectives. They use a balanced array of “vital few” performance measures (summary data) to monitor the organization’s progress toward achieving its goals and objectives.
   
   
   
  • High-level policies are aligned with (and support) achieving the strategic goals and objectives and these policies send a consistent set of signals that reinforce the desired behaviors. They encourage the desired behaviors and discourage actions and interactions that frustrate and undermine the organization’s core values and its ability to achieve its goals and objectives.
• • Managers use strategic goals, along with organizational unit plans, goals, and budgets to direct their week-to-week and month-to-month operations. They use fact-based decision-making with quantitative data and scientific analytics, not just business experience and intuition. They only budget for, and commit resources to, things that help them achieve the organization’s goals and objectives and are consistent with the organizations values.
   
   
   
  • Regular operations reviews of goals, objectives and budgets are conducted to keep the outputs of business processes and projects on track. In addition, the performance of business processes is regularly analyzed to eliminate unnecessary steps and tasks that negatively impact achieving the organizations goals and objectives.
   
   
   
  • The organizational structure allows the right people to work together on the right tasks to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives, and the lateral working relationships and lines of authority between organizational units are defined, e.g. who can say no to whom and under what circumstances.
• • People use their history and culture (stories, heroes, traditions) as a rationale that helps employees identify with the organization’s purpose and core values, and to teach new and existing employees how problems should (and should not) be handled.
   
   
   
  • Managers have a comprehensive method for mapping out the organization’s current and future talent needs, identifying and attracting top talent, and for mentoring key personnel using an effective succession management process. They encourage people look for new, cutting-edge knowledge to add value to the organization (to read widely, participate in professional societies, etc.) and they ensure that people are assigned work that they have the knowledge, skills, and problem-solving abilities to perform successfully.
• Every organization and its work-groups have all Four Ways of Working™, but they often manifest themselves hierarchically as a dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, and fourth preference for how work is performed and how performance is improved. Functional units in organizations almost always have a stronger preference for one (or possibly two) of the Four Ways of Working™ and rarely does an organization have an equally strong preference for them all. For example, if an organization’s culture has a dominant Type 1 (Production) and auxiliary Type 3 (Direction) way of working, leaders, managers, and staff members will tend to use these two ways of working almost exclusively when solving problems. The less developed ways of working almost always exist somewhere in the organization, but they are eclipsed from the day-to-day reality of operations and are either undeveloped or not seen as viable ways of working. In some organizational functions, they are marginalized, dismissed, demonized, and consciously repressed – pushed far below the surface of organizational consciousness, so that even the thought of using them as a valid approach to solving problems becomes undiscussible.

5 more annotations...

• Strong cultural norms about what is (and is not) acceptable behavior in the workplace can powerfully shape how people “see” themselves, others, and the world around them
• When viewed as a tool for change, organizational culture becomes a tangible tool-process for teaching people how to see themselves, others, and the world with the goal of creating deep sustainable change in organizations, and in the individuals that populate them.

• One poll, conducted by the national employment firm, Jackson Lewis, found that 40 percent of human resource managers linked relaxed attire and flexible work schedules to a laxity in workplace behavior and 44 percent noticed an increase in tardiness and absenteeism.