"You truly have to understand how an organization works." -Fred Festa
Chapter 8: Organizational Culture
In my career I have had the privilege of experiencing two different types of organizational cultures. In my first job at W.R. Grace, the culture was well communicated to employees. I attribute much of this to the CEO of the organization, Fred Fresta. Fred gave quarterly town halls to the organization and the message that resonated throughout every communication always led back to safety. Grace has an excellent history with safety on the job and the executive team stressed the importance of it in all facets of the organization. Grace also emphasized six sigma process controls and lean techniques. It is assumed that much of this organizational culture was engrained in the organization from Fred. I have the distinct pleasure of personally knowing Mr. Festa, so I took some time to ask him about organizational culture and what it means to him personally, as well as it's importance for an aspiring executive level manager such as myself.
Fred said that the most important part of organizational culture is that you must understand it. He said you need to understand how a firm operates and recognize the priorities. He said he spent time getting to know the employees and organization by traveling the world for 4-6 months. I referenced a recent article I read (that is included in my Managing Change chapter) about Peter Löscher and his first 100 days on the job as CEO of Siemens. I asked if that was something he had learned over the course of his career since I read about similar experiences in the article. Festa indicated it was the process of "new manager assimilation" that he learned while working at GE. This interview was important to me as I consider my strengths around leadership and people-oriented skills. My aspiration is to be in a position such as Mr. Festa's in the future. It was interesting to hear his thoughts about organizational culture and how he would recommend I approach it in my career. In order to implement change in the organization culture, he said he had to change behaviors. He did this by rewarding those behaviors. He gave advice to me as an aspiring executive leader. He told me to understand how organizations work, listen to employees, and don't let it be known that I am the smartest person in the room. Advice from a real world CEO is priceless. I will take this advice and apply it as I continue my aspiration to become an executive level manager.
In the understanding organizational culture article, Peggy Lynch puts in to perspective the organizational culture of a group of school systems and the steps a team of superintendents took to evaluate the cultures in the different schools. This article was important to me because it resonated with the conversations I had with Fred Festa regarding the importance of culture. As consider my leadership and people-oriented strengths as a manager, it will be important that I harness those strengths into appropriately understanding a culture at any organization. Lynch went on to say that recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding culture are essential to leading an organization. It was confirmation from my previous interview about the importance of the topic and how it relates to the business world. Although the article is about a school system, I view the schools as different business units and the management team (superintendents) still had to understand the culture. Lynch closed with summarizing the six steps the team took to understand culture: Honoring the past, recognizing heroes, participating in the rituals, understanding the rules and rewards, acknowledging the communication systems, and recognizing the role of the physical environment. As I continue my journey through my management career, it will be important that I follow the advice given by Fred as well as recognizing the six steps being used to understand a culture.
The last article below talks about the organizational culture at Google and how the company innovates and maintains it's company culture internally. Data was gathered from 28 Google employees at the director level and above. The article describes the flexibility and freedom the company takes with employees to encourage openness and creativity among employees. This article is important to me because describes a company with an interesting and often popular organizational culture. I aspire to not only be an executive level manager, but also work for a growing and innovative company such as Google. Many other companies have taken similar approaches to culture and the video below takes a further look at the culture at Google. As part of the focus on innovation at Google in this article, the open system for innovation is presented in the article, describing the 5 main building blocks:
Fred said that the most important part of organizational culture is that you must understand it. He said you need to understand how a firm operates and recognize the priorities. He said he spent time getting to know the employees and organization by traveling the world for 4-6 months. I referenced a recent article I read (that is included in my Managing Change chapter) about Peter Löscher and his first 100 days on the job as CEO of Siemens. I asked if that was something he had learned over the course of his career since I read about similar experiences in the article. Festa indicated it was the process of "new manager assimilation" that he learned while working at GE. This interview was important to me as I consider my strengths around leadership and people-oriented skills. My aspiration is to be in a position such as Mr. Festa's in the future. It was interesting to hear his thoughts about organizational culture and how he would recommend I approach it in my career. In order to implement change in the organization culture, he said he had to change behaviors. He did this by rewarding those behaviors. He gave advice to me as an aspiring executive leader. He told me to understand how organizations work, listen to employees, and don't let it be known that I am the smartest person in the room. Advice from a real world CEO is priceless. I will take this advice and apply it as I continue my aspiration to become an executive level manager.
In the understanding organizational culture article, Peggy Lynch puts in to perspective the organizational culture of a group of school systems and the steps a team of superintendents took to evaluate the cultures in the different schools. This article was important to me because it resonated with the conversations I had with Fred Festa regarding the importance of culture. As consider my leadership and people-oriented strengths as a manager, it will be important that I harness those strengths into appropriately understanding a culture at any organization. Lynch went on to say that recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding culture are essential to leading an organization. It was confirmation from my previous interview about the importance of the topic and how it relates to the business world. Although the article is about a school system, I view the schools as different business units and the management team (superintendents) still had to understand the culture. Lynch closed with summarizing the six steps the team took to understand culture: Honoring the past, recognizing heroes, participating in the rituals, understanding the rules and rewards, acknowledging the communication systems, and recognizing the role of the physical environment. As I continue my journey through my management career, it will be important that I follow the advice given by Fred as well as recognizing the six steps being used to understand a culture.
The last article below talks about the organizational culture at Google and how the company innovates and maintains it's company culture internally. Data was gathered from 28 Google employees at the director level and above. The article describes the flexibility and freedom the company takes with employees to encourage openness and creativity among employees. This article is important to me because describes a company with an interesting and often popular organizational culture. I aspire to not only be an executive level manager, but also work for a growing and innovative company such as Google. Many other companies have taken similar approaches to culture and the video below takes a further look at the culture at Google. As part of the focus on innovation at Google in this article, the open system for innovation is presented in the article, describing the 5 main building blocks:
- Key drivers: an innovation-oriented culture, with competent and committed individuals with a passion to innovate.
- Facilitators: empowering and coaching leaders who remove obstacles to innovation.
- Hygiene factors: a semi-structured organization; an innovation-oriented performance and incentive system; and continuous learning. These factors can support innovative behaviour, or inhibit it if you get things wrong.
- Foundation: a top management and board who expect and encourage change.
- Knowledge transfer: achieved through open innovation and cooperation, together with external interaction, spin-offs and acquisitions.
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Take a look at this video compilation from YouTube. It compiles a few different blurbs about Google and the organizational culture. Do you work at a fun organization? Companies have started to replicate this culture and we have seen even local companies take after some of the ideas of a "campus" like atmosphere with a relaxed setting. Companies such as Red Hat have adapted similar culture trends that Google incorporated early on in the tech boom. |
Exercise
Scavenger Hunt
Purpose - To understand that different people have different view on the culture of an organization.
Directions - Get in groups of 2-3 (can be already arranged groups in MBA program) and put on the board the list below. In your groups, go around the building (If at the university, use the school in which they are in i.e. management college. If somewhere else, use the place of business). Spend 6-9 minutes looking around the building or place of business and jotting down information related to one of each of the four items below. Pictures may be used to help clarify. Come back to the room and stay in your groups. Spend ~5 minutes to discuss what each team found. Different aspects of organizational culture identified and discussed.
The list:
-The mission or value statement about the organization
-Anything pertaining to customers/clients
-Something pertaining to location
-Leadership or management
Purpose - To understand that different people have different view on the culture of an organization.
Directions - Get in groups of 2-3 (can be already arranged groups in MBA program) and put on the board the list below. In your groups, go around the building (If at the university, use the school in which they are in i.e. management college. If somewhere else, use the place of business). Spend 6-9 minutes looking around the building or place of business and jotting down information related to one of each of the four items below. Pictures may be used to help clarify. Come back to the room and stay in your groups. Spend ~5 minutes to discuss what each team found. Different aspects of organizational culture identified and discussed.
The list:
-The mission or value statement about the organization
-Anything pertaining to customers/clients
-Something pertaining to location
-Leadership or management
Bibliography
"Google Grows on People." Strategic Direction 29.9 (2013): 16-18. Web.
Lynch P. understanding organizational culture. Leadership [serial online]. September 2006;36(1):20. Available from: MasterFILE Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 1, 2013.
Lynch P. understanding organizational culture. Leadership [serial online]. September 2006;36(1):20. Available from: MasterFILE Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 1, 2013.
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