How American “rugged individualism” plays out in organizational cultures….
One of the big topics in September is how much to regulate our financial institutions to protect us against another freefall of our economic system. We are finding out that there is not as much agreement on the amount of regulation needed as we thought there was six months ago. This lack of agreement is leading many to dig deeper to understand our national U.S. psyche.
We are trying to understand what makes us tick - what are our national beliefs that drive popular behaviors and the practices of our business and government entities? A recent article of this type which caught my eye explored the role of how our American “frontier roots and rugged individualism” influences the degree of government regulation that Americans are comfortable with. The author uses a quote from Robert Shiller, a Yale economist, who goes back to George Washington, our first President to help us understand ourselves -
Washington said regulation should be done with a light hand. The word capitalism hadn’t been invented yet, but freedom had. Washington said businesses should be free. There’s this hatred of kings that we really have in our blood.
Now, I am familiar with the power of the U.S. belief in “rugged individualism” - we see it play out over and over in the cultures of American-based organizations. And, it clearly has become stronger over the past 10 years. There are varying degrees of strength of this cultural driver within organizations, but it can be simplistically described in its most extreme state as follows:
We value employees who are self-starters and who can figure things out for themselves. It is important to not admit to mistakes, because they can be used against you by others. And people need to aggressively seek out high-profile opportunities to advance their careers The negative consequences of this cultural driver when taken to an extreme are:
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Accountability for actions is difficult to enforce
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Management and development of people is not valued - we wait for the ‘cream to rise to the top’
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‘Winning for yourself’ and not for the good of the organization occurs which leads to internal competition between employees, managers and units
This “self-starter” value is very difficult to harness as a leader of an organization, as a regulator or as an elected official. It can work very effectively when the mission is simple and competition is low. But when the mission and necessary strategies become more complex and competition is higher, it can be a recipe for failure. The “self-starter” value can hinder people from working together to combine their knowledge and skills to address external competition. It does not support people to make decisions for the good of the business, their industry or the overall economy.
No one wants to squash the “self-starter” value - personal initiative is good, but the boundaries of competition need to be clear. The most common techniques used by organizational leaders to balance this cultural driver are to - regularly clarify mission and goals in response to external competition; put in place individual and group rewards or consequences based on goal achievement. But most importantly, there needs to be a leader who is willing and able to ”ride herd” in reinforcing the goals and maintaining the boundaries of competition.
The world is not the same as in George Washington’s time….
