Managing Corporate Culture
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Managing Corporate Culture: Expert Views
Corporate Culture Is Important in All Businesses
Those who believe that corporate culture is a myth invented by consultants or business authors probably never worked for a real company. Whether you’ve worked for a fast food, government or Fortune 500 company, you know that corporate culture always exists.
Identifying the components of a corporate culture is always important to effective management. Regardless of your style or behavior pattern, your ability to manage successfully will be in direct proportion to your ability to recognize and manage the existing corporate culture.
For example, if the line employees in a smaller organization wield power in excess of their positions on the organization chart, trying to change this situation quickly will be an exercise in futility. Changing this corporate culture is equivalent to changing the personality of a mature adult. While it can be done, it will not be easy.
Reading and learning from those who have studied the varieties and vagaries of corporate culture helps you understand the components and strengths of these conditions. Corporate culture can be advantageous or detrimental to an organization's operations, both large and small. In all cases, corporate culture is important. Recognized experts have diverse opinions on the definition of corporate culture and the role it plays in the success or failure of companies.
Knowledge Is Power: Expert Views Are Important, Even If You Disagree
The Millward Brown Group of Warwick, England, since acquired by WPP in 1989, defined corporate culture as “the principles, beliefs, norms and cultures that characterize a specific organization.” Maintaining that corporate cultures are not static, Brown advised that people be prepared to accept and adapt to changes over time.
Edgar Shein, a professor at the Sloan School of Management (MIT), believes that corporate culture is the most difficult organizational component to change as it is rooted deeply, sometimes for decades, in the fiber of company heritage. He believes it defines a company’s values, for better or worse. More importantly, Shein maintains that leaders have the responsibility to create and manage corporate culture; it should not be merely left up to fate or happenstance.
The team of Terrance Deal and Allan Kennedy put it much more simply: “Corporate culture is the way things get done.” Their theory components are not quite as basic, however. They believe that corporate culture is built on two primary components: risk and feedback. They mention four types of corporate culture:
- This high-risk culture features quick feedback on all issues and fast rewards to those making positive contributions. While this culture can generate timely results, its nature often creates a dangerous, stressful workplace.
- “Work hard/play hard culture.” This variation features constant feedback, but encourages only minimal risks for all participants. Typically the managers and leaders do most of the work. They, not all staff, are the “work hard” in its title.
- “Bet your company culture.” This is the “Las Vegas” of corporate cultures. Characterized by low feedback and very high risk, participants seldom have a clue whether they will win or lose.
- “Process culture.” This type identifies the classic stratified organization with middle management and bureaucratic layers to filter through. These entities seldom know whether they will receive high or low feedback levels or positive results. Staff tends to receive many responsibilities, but seldom sees the completed product.
A somewhat different view of corporate cultures comes from Charles Handy. He believes that corporate culture was most strongly attached to a company’s structure and evolves into a mirror image of that inherent design. He mentions “power culture," with authority centered on only a few people. With little room for complicated hierarchies, office protocol is also lacking, which at times is a good thing. Conversely, “role culture” involves middle management and bureaucracies, leaving few decisions to be made by individuals.
Handy states that when teams are responsible for most activities and problem solving, they function in a “task culture." Participative management companies typically function within a “person culture.” While all employees have some form of authority, they tend to focus more on themselves rather than their jobs and company goals.
There is one bottom line with these and all other corporate culture beliefs: managers must identify their company’s corporate culture type, regardless of what title they give it, and find the best way to use its strengths and weaknesses to improve staff performance. For example, offer career improvement tools (e.g. education) and install rewards that meld with the culture to create positive achievements. A strong corporate culture raises some managers above the crowd and paves a smoother highway up the corporate ladder.