Lesson 7 - Culture and Diversity Flashcards
Refers to all of a company’s attitudes, values, and beliefs as well as how they affect how its personnel behave.
Organizational Structure
Refers to the structure, values, sociology, and psychology of an organization.
Organizational Structure
“Organizational culture defines a jointly shared description of an organization from within.”
Bruce Perron
Method of “sense making.”
Culture
Assist in orienting its members to “reality” in ways that provide a basis for alignment of purpose and shared act.
Culture
A collaborative process of creating shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals’ perspectives and varied interests.
Sense-making
“Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as ‘glue’ to integrate the members of the organization.”
Richard Perrin
Culture is about ‘the story’ in which people in the organization are embedded, as well as the values and rituals that support that narrative.
Meaning is carried by culture.
Provide not only a shared view of ‘what is’ but also of ‘why is’.
Cultures
Emphasizes the significance of symbols and the necessity of comprehending them, especially the peculiar languages employed in organizations.
Cultures
A good company culture is built on open communication and information exchange. Directors must therefore develop a multichannel communication system that enables everyone to engage with ne another if they want to improve their cultures.
Foundation of Organizational Culture
The missions, goals, standards, and values that direct a company’s personnel are referred to as…?
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture tend to be more successful than less structured businesses because they have procedures in place to encourage employee involvement, performance, and production.
Importance of Organizational Culture
An advantage of having a supportive organizational culture is being able to motivate employees to act as brand ambassadors. Employees are interested in earning nice perks and fair wage for their work. When they go to work, they want to believe that what they do matters.
Advantage of Organizational Culture
Systematic way employees, leaders, and work groups behave and interact with each other.
Organization’s Culture
Collectively composed of values, beliefs, norms, language, symbols, and habits.
Company Culture
Social psychologist and foremost authority on global and organizational cultures, defined six dimensions.
Geert Hofstede
Six Dimensions of Organizational Culture
- Means-oriented vs. Goal-oriented
- Internally-driven vs. Externally-driven
- Easygoing vs. Strict Work Discipline
- Local vs. Professional
- Open vs. Closed System
- Employee-centered vs. Work-centered
Places importance on how work gets done.
Means-oriented Culture
The focus is on the way people do work and an emphasis on avoiding risk.
Means-oriented Culture
Identifies with what work gets done.
Goal-oriented Culture
There is a strong focus on achieving an end result.
Goal-oriented Culture
Of the six dimensions, this dimension correlates the most strongly with organizational effectiveness.
Goal-oriented Culture
Employees see themselves as experts; they feel they know what is best for the client and act accordingly.
Internally-driven Culture
“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Steve Jobs
Employees are very customer-oriented and will do whatever the customer wants. Their mantra might be, “the customer is always right” and their favorite metric customer satisfaction.
Externally-driven Culture
Refers to amount of structure and control.
Work Discipline
The approach to work is informal, loose unpredictable, and these characteristics facilitate high level of innovation.
Easygoing Culture
There is a fair amount of planning, which leads to efficiency and productivity. People take punctuality seriously and delegate work with detailed instructions.
Strict Culture
Employees identify with their boss and their teammates. This type of environment risks having low level of diversity , since there are social pressures to act, look, and talk in a certain way.
Local Organizational Culture
Employees identify with their profession or the content of the work.
Professional Culture
Newcomers are welcomed easily. People are inclusive and take the approach that anyone will fit in well with the organization.
Open System
More exclusive and newcomers have to prove themselves.
Closed System
Have managers and leaders who are approachable, and thus tend to see higher employee satifaction.
Open System
Leaders take responsibility for the happiness, well-being, and satisfaction of their employees even at the expense of productivity.
Employee-centered Culture
A focus on high task performance can come at the expense of employees. In this environment, there is a low level of empathy for personal problems.
Work-centered Culture
Organization Culture Profile
- Innovative
- Aggressive
- Outcome-oriented
- Stable
- People-oriented
- Team-oriented
All about meticulous attention to details.
Detail-oriented
These companies tend to be in customer-oriented industries in which such precision is valued.
Detail-oriented
Encourage innovation and gives employees company time to work on their own projects. This can result in a wide range of exciting new products developed by engineers or scientists working on their own.
Innovative
Value aggressive competition. Willing to make enemies in order to survive and thrive. Expanded rapidly through growth, takeovers, and mergers to gain a dominant position in the industry.
Aggressive
All about the results.
Outcome-oriented
Employees are trained to sell products, and they are evaluated on their sales performance.
Outcome-oriented
Employees know exactly who’s in charge, who to report to, and what they are expected to accomplish.
Stable
They value fairness, and are supportive of individuals’ rights and dignity. The result: a loyal and dedicated workforce.
People-oriented
Expects its employees to function as members of teams and to support other member when necessary.
Team-oriented
Group of employees’ way of life.
Organizational Culture
Factors that affect organizational culture
- Top Leadership Principles
- Nature of the Business
- Company Values, Policies, and Work Ambiance
- Clients and External Parties
- Recruitment and Selection
How an organization’s leadership team runs the business affects the policies, procedures,
and rules set for employees.
Top Leadership Principles
How an organization’s leadership team runs the business affects the policies, procedures,
and rules set for employees.
Top Leadership Principles
Values and philosophies of a great leader trickle down to employees to deliver end results for the organization.
Top Leadership Principles
The purpose, market, and operations of an organization have an impact on employees’ behavior.
Nature of the Business
Organization makes meaningful difference through products and services in the lives of clients.
Nature of the Business
Employees develop the values emphasized in policies, procedures, and work environment.
-Trust, Client Advocacy, Integrity in Communication, Growth and Learning Mindset, Positive Team Environment
Company Values, Policies, and Work Ambiance
Who you work with is one thing, but who you work for is another. The clients that the company serves are an often overlooked factor that affects organizational culture.
Clients and External Parties
The type of employees hired by an organization
has the largest effect on its culture—especially when a company is in high growth mode and is rapidly adding new employees.
Recruitment and Selection
Although there are many ways to initiate change, the most effective methods come from
the top down. One of the keys to making change happen is the actions of the corporate
leader.
Initiating Change
If there is no emergency, employees are likely to resist change.
Create a sense of urgency
If the need for organizational change is communicated from the top down, it must be
modeled from the top down as well.
Role Modeling
When a corporate leader is truly committed to change, he becomes a guiding light for the entire organization.
Role Modeling
Not only is it inspiring to see a leader taking his own advice to heart, but it’s also helpful to see what the change really looks like.
Role Modeling
Once a company has made a commitment to change, it’s important that all members of
the senior management team understand and embrace the change.
Changing Leaders
Once a company has made a commitment to change, it’s important that all members of
the senior management team understand and embrace the change.
Changing Leaders
In some cases,
individuals may dig in their heels and refuse to change their practices. When this
happens, the company has little choice but to terminate their employment.
Changing Leaders
Techniques to manage changes
- Excellent communication
- Changing leaders who present barriers to change
- Training programs
- Changing reward systems and corporate symbol
- Changing the look and feel of the workplace
Refers to an organization that intentionally employs a workforce comprised of individuals with a range of characteristics, such as gender, religion, race, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, and other attributes.
Diversity
Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace
- New perspectives
- Wider talent pool
- More innovation
- Better employee performance
Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace
- New perspectives
- Wider talent pool
- More innovation
- Better employee performance
Advantages of Having a Diverse Workplace
- Greater Creativity and Innovation
- Increased Productivity
- Reduced Employee Turnover
- Connect to a Wider Range of Consumers
- Increased Revenue
Challenges of Creating a Diverse Workforce
- Unfair Prejudice
- Communication Barriers
- Different Interpretation of Professional Etiquette
Unfortunately, there are individuals who cannot tolerate people who are different from them. This can result in racism, sexual harassment, or even religious discrimination.
Unfair Prejudice
Some of the members speak a foreign language. This could result in communication gap between employees, which will negatively impact your company’s productivity.
Communication Barriers
Different cultures have different traditions. In addition to that, they also have different values and etiquette when in comes to the workplace.
Different Interpretations of Professional Etiquette
