Chapter 12 Flashcards
What is culture?
Is the meshing of shared values, beliefs, business principles, and traditions that imbues a firm’s operating style, behavioral norms, ingrained attitudes and work atmosphere.
Is important because it influences the firm’s actions and approaches to conducting business.
Ex: the culture in the Marines is different from a tech company. The marines have life or death decisions whereas the tech company is more loose and breeding creativity.
Where does culture come from?
Founders
How do you sustain culture?
Screen applicants and hire those who will mesh well with the culture (would you want them in the office next to you.)
Incorporate discussions of the firm’s culture and its behavioral norms into orientation programs for new employees and training courses for managers and employees. (Publix training programs and the tests for the managers before they promote you plus they give you training before you become a full fledged manager of a store etc.)
Have senior executives frequently reiterate the importance and role of the firm’s values and ethical principles at the firm’s events and in internal communications to employees.
Expect managers at all levels to be cultural role models and exhibit advocated cultural norms in their own behavior.
Make the display of cultural norms a factor in evaluating each person’s job performance, granting compensation increases, and deciding who to promote.
Stress that line managers all the way down to first-level supervisors give ongoing attention to explaining the desired cultural traits and behaviors in their areas and clarifying why they are important.
Encourage company personnel to exert strong peer pressure on co-workers to conform to expected cultural norms. (sports having team meetings without coaches to say how they should be acting/performing)
Hold periodic ceremonies to honor people who excel in displaying the company values and ethical principles.
What is a healthy culture?
Has deeply rooted widely-shared values, behavioral norms, and operating approaches.
Insists that its values and principles be reflected in the decisions and actions taken by all company personnel.
Good strategy execution:
Performance
High-performance cultures:
Commitment to achieving stretch objectives and accountability.
Adaptive cultures:
Willingness to accept change and take on challenges.
What is an unhealthy culture?
Lacks values and principles that are consistently preached or widely shared
Has few or no traditions, beliefs, values, common bonds, or behavioral norms.
Incompatible subcultures
Change-resistant cultures
Politicized cultures
Insular, inwardly focused cultures
Unethical and greed-driven cultures
Poor strategy execution=poor performance
How do you change a problem culture?
Identify facets of the present culture that are dysfunctional and impede good strategy execution. (One man’s trash is another man’s treasure)
Specify clearly what new actions, behaviors, and work practices should characterize the new culture.
Talk openly about problems with the current culture and make a persuasive case for cultural reform.
Follow with visible, forceful actions–both substantive and symbolic–to ingrain a new set of behaviors, practices, and norms.
How do you make a compelling case for culture change?
Explain why and how certain behavioral norms and work practices are obstacles to good execution of strategic initiatives
Explain how new behaviors and work practices will produce better results.
If the need for cultural change is due to a change in strategy, cite reasons why the current strategy has to be modified.
What are substantive culutre-changing actions?
Replace key executives who are resisting or obstructing needed organizational and cultural changes.
Promote individuals who support cultural shifts and can serve as role models for the cultural behavior.
Appoint outsiders with the desired cultural attributes to high-profile positions.
Screening all candidates for positions carefully, hiring only those who appear to fit in with the new culture.
Mandate that all personnel attend culture-training.
Design compensation incentives that boost the pay of teams and individuals who support culture change.
Revise policies and procedures to drive cultural change.
What is MWBA? Management By Walking Around
Is used by leaders to stay informed about how well the strategy execution process is progressing
Involves spending time with people at company facilities, asking questions, listening to their own opinions and concerns, and gathering firsthand information about how well aspects of the strategy execution process are going.
