Cultures in Organizations

First: What is Culture?

Culture is a set of enduring values (beliefs, value systems) that are held by a group and that define its identity.

In a society

…culture is reflected in the pattern of relationships of people, sub-groups, government and organizations, and their products. It becomes embodied in the society's artefacts, activities, values, institutions, and knowledge.

In an organization, cultures are of two sorts:

Spontaneous culture

This is based on values characteristic of the society (cf. China, USA, France) or of the profession/industry (cf. fashion, accountancy, mining, military). Employees cannot avoid bringing society's values and those of their profession or industry into the organization.

Developed culture

This is about the leadership actively ensuring the prominence of certain values judged to be essential for survival and beneficial for achievement.

It is useful to develop a culture that will:

● maintain the distinctiveness (identity) of the organization
● support its effective functioning
● enable a good fit with its market and social environment.

Then: What is «Management Culture»?

Management exists to ensure successful achievement. So a management culture is a developed culture containing values deemed essential for achievement.

■ Q: Who is responsible?

A: Top management (i.e. the leadership) must shape the culture, handling misunderstandings and overcoming obstacles so as to ensure the appropriate values are upheld. This values work as being equally as important as strategic development or operational performance: but is poorly understood by many.

■ Q: Where do «appropriate values» come from?

A: The decision approaches, because each is a method for practical achievement.

■ Q: How do decision approaches provide values?

The management culture of an organization is defined by the pervasive presence (or absence) of values from the «modes of achievement» derived from THEE's approaches to decision-making.

Stages = New Values

Changing a culture involves identifying and installing the requisite values. These values must be explicitly applied, written down and talked about until they are fixed in memory. That is the only way to overcome their strangeness, and to permit genuine identification and understanding.

How values in each Stage will be explained:

► values needed to handle situations (i.e. tasks, problems, issues)
► values needed to handle the group (i.e. individuals, sub-groups, all staff)
► values needed to handle yourself

---

Cultural growth at every stage depends on starting from where you are and experiencing an urgent need to do better. Where you are, in too many cases, is a «neglected culture».

• Check here to see whether yours is a neglected cutlure.
• Recognize the drivers of «natural» cultural evolution.
• See a diagram of the whole developmental process now.

Originally posted: 17-Jun-2011