Leading Workplace Change™

The U.S. presidential election is in the news and there have been a number of in-depth articles about the organizational workings of some of the candidates’ campaign staffs.  One such article was by Peter Baker and Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times (6.8.08) called “The Long Road to a Clinton Exit.”  This article is a treasure trove of information about Mrs. Hilary Clinton’s campaign, but what caught my attention were the clues to understanding the culture of her campaign staff.

One of the first cultural clues identified from the article was, as would be expected, a strong drive to win.  But, there are myriad approaches in the world on how to win which in turn create differing ways of working within a staff.  Many of the quotes seemed to point to an offensive or attack approach to winning based on “overwhelming force” and the drive to capitalize on a reputation of past success.  The article authors noted – “…her (Mrs. Clinton’s) campaign represented a back-to-the-future effort to restore the Democratic dynasty of the 1990’s…”

Another cultural theme that jumped off the pages of the article was the strong sense of internal competition among campaign staff members which was noted as distracting them from battling their external opponents.  The following quote gave me an insight to the original source of this way of working - “On election night, Mr. Clinton grew playfully competitive with his wife over who had done more events or had more impact…Mr. Clinton wanted to know exactly what the returns were in the places he had been and Hillary hadn’t been. He kept showing Hillary and she would laugh.” So it appears that one of the sources for why the campaign staff competed so strongly against each other was the modeling of rivalry between Mr. and Mrs. Clinton themselves.

It is my sense that every grouping of people who work together over time with a common purpose develops a set of shared rules of behavior that can be identified as some form of an organizational culture.  These rules are many times not talked about, but primarily people watch how the leader(s) act - who they promote and follow the behaviors rewarded.  If these behaviors produce success in meeting the group’s purpose – a culture is set in place. 

The last sentence above sounds very final, but what happens if the culture does not help a group to achieve their purpose?  In a fast-paced environment, it just may be too late.  The alternative is for leader(s) to pay attention to the rules of behavior within their organization – ask the question if these rules are helping and if not, start first by modeling the behaviors they think will bring success.

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Leaders Leading by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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It was a long time ago, but there was a time that prominent social theorists accused behaviorist of being communists. Those of us who believed that the best understanding of human behavior was achieved through systematic observation rather than theorizing about the nature of humanity were a minority but were not communists. We eventually won the day; behaviorism is now the dominant paradigm in the social sciences. But we did so not by casting theory aside, but by integrating theoretical and empirical approaches.

 Theory is only theory unless tested by observation. Empiricism is often only description without a theoretical framework. Behaviors are only behaviors unless viewed within the perspective of a unifying theory. So, two different ways of understanding the world around us have come together to enhance our understanding of why we behave the way we do in different situations. Adherence to extreme positions got us nowhere until we understood that we were both trying to understand human behavior.

 The study of culture has advanced from theory to concept. The concept can be tested empirically. After observation of many different organizations we now know that there is something called organizational culture that influences people’s behavior within an organization. We can use this concept to structure systematic observations of organizations in order to understand why the people within organizations behave the way that they do. We can then use this information to compare and contrast different organizations and different organizational cultures. I wonder where we’d be if we had stayed in two opposing camps tossing names back and forth without seriously examining our similarities and differences.

Tags: Numbers, data & theory by John – XEverything
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My family likes to eat shrimp all year and not only in season, but I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to act differently. How I reacted to this article is a good example of one kind of push people usually need to change how they act.

The article outlines the pro’s and con’s between purchasing “wild-caught, farm-raised, U.S. or Asian shrimp.” The reporter, Meredith Ford gives the reader details about how shrimp gets to our fish markets and they are not pleasant - spread of disease, use of antibiotics & pesticides and destruction of ecosystems - all this info made me think differently about the shrimp I love to eat

But, the part of her article which affected me the most were her final thoughts - she recommends that we need to think about eating less shrimp; saving them for special occasions; and, to understand the greater cost to our planet than the price we pay per pound of shrimp!

Wow, this thought is coming from the Food & Drink section of a daily newspaper in the United States - asking us to think less rather than more. This pushes against the grain of our American cultural belief that we have unlimited natural resources. Essentially, she is asking us to think differently about the food we eat and our lives. 

Thinking differently is the first step towards acting differently.  

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I don’t remember when it started – just a general unease when everyone around me seems to agree – but I think I started becoming aware of my unease when I was teaching at night in a suburban junior college in the mid ‘60s. The Dean had said – “when teaching adults you have to be creative and find ways of getting your students involved in the classroom.”  

Well, my grand idea to engage my students was to juxtapose the principles of the Nuremberg trials with the arguments for and against the exodus of draft-age American men to Canada. To my surprise, I found myself the only one in the classroom on one side of the argument – all thirty some odd of my students were on the other side of the argument. So much for engagement - enter outrage - so creative was I that my teaching contract was terminated.  

But I persisted in my teaching and later became an instructor at a major state university while earning a graduate degree - bright young students, all 18-22, white, from middle-class (and up) families. As with any profession that puts you in front of people for long periods of time, all professors have to enjoy hearing themselves pontificate (interjecting, of course, the obligatory joke or two during each class period). But after a while, it becomes boring.  

My fellow graduate students – from all over the country – could debate the finest points over multiple pitchers of beer for hours at a time. No such luck when it came to the undergraduate classroom. I continued to spray my lectures and prayed that some of my students picked up some of the pearls while I entertained myself. (This, of course, is the widely used “spray and pray” method in teaching.) But I did begin to realize that I was unlikely to be successful in eliciting student participation if no one in the room had any “different” ideas. 

Next stop in my career – a large urban university in the center of a major metropolis – students from throughout the country, around the world – different backgrounds, socio-economic, cultural, racial/ethnic. I learned everyday – so did my students – I learned that if there are no “different” ideas to exchange, no one learns. Diversity is an antecedent of learning. I stayed awhile — 28 years — and learned something new everyday. Perhaps there’s a message here for organizations that aspire to be “learning” organizations.

Tags: Personal-Ah-Hah Moments by John – XEverything
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 The Sunday New York Times recently had an article (6/15/08 by Anand Giridharadas) about a founder and his company - Mr. Mukesh D. Ambani and Reliance Industries. It is an epic story about a man’s drive, inherited from his Father to make a living for his family that evolved into something bigger - ”a revolutionary thinker with bold ideas for what India ought to become” - a visionary who is now the richest man in India - a second-generation billionaire.

The fun part for me in reading this in-depth article was to tie all the personal stories, company myths and the author’s insights into a simple picture of the Reliance Industries corporate culture.  As I finished developing my list of values, it looked very similar to some of the pioneering American-based companies that we have worked with over the years, but with clearly the feel of India. Some examples are - Mr. Ambani’s early childhood living in Mumbai’s “chawls” or tenements instilling in him the “combative mentality of an outsider.” - and his Father’s early ventures in the yarn trade business requiring a “special canniness…or creative maneuvering around the bureaucracy,” due to regulations of a socialist-leaning government.  

So if you have the chance, read this article about Mr. Mukesh Ambani and share with me what you think are the corporate culture values driving how his company Reliance Industries does business.

Tags: Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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We have worked with a number of companies who use branding as a way to market their products.  These companies are diverse in the products or services they market from consumer goods, medical products to wilderness preservation, but an interesting common cultural theme amongst them all is the need for folks within these organizations to embody their organization’s  brand if they want to fit-in and be successful. The phrases we hear from these folks in our culture discovery work are:

• Need to manage your personal image as if it were a brand
• Important to represent our brand image when interacting with customers
• Need to live and breathe our mission in your personal life

This common cultural theme was confirmed for me again when I recently read an article about the transition in leadership occurring at Coca Cola. This is a company which uses branding to market its products and my sense is their brand image is upbeat, about feeling good and about fulfilling dreams.  The article by Joe Guy Collier in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (7/2/08) quotes a  beverage industry specialist as saying that the retiring Coca-Cola CEO, Neville Isdell - “basically fixed the company and its culture … he used the force of his own personality and style to provide leadership - giving people faith and confidence in the company again.

It appears that Isdell knew how to embody the Coke brand and capitalize on it, and employees felt comfortable and galvanized with this kind of leader.  Sure he did many other things to return the company to growth and profitability, but improving employee morale is mentioned many times as one of his successes.  So the question is when do leaders in organizations that have what I call - brand corporate cultures need to live and breathe their organization’s brand image in order to be successful in their role?

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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