Culture

The behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social,ethnic, or age group: t

he youth culture; the drug culture.
The total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, andknowledge, which constitute the
shared bases of social action
Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an
organization and the meanings that the people attach to their actions. Culture
includes the organization values, visions, norms, working language, systems,
symbols, beliefs and habits.
Elements of the Cultural Web
The Cultural Web identifies six interrelated elements that help to make up what
Johnson and Scholes call the "paradigm" the pattern or model of the work
environment. By analyzing the factors in each, you can begin to see the bigger
picture of your culture: what is working, what isn't working, and what needs to be
changed. The six elements are:
1.
Stories The past events and people talked about inside and outside the
company. Who and what the company chooses to immortalize says a great
deal about what it values, and perceives as great behavior.
2.
Rituals and Routines The daily behavior and actions of people that
signal acceptable behavior. This determines what is expected to happen in
given situations, and what is valued by management.
3.
Symbols The visual representations of the company including logos, how
plush the offices are, and the formal or informal dress codes.
4.
Organizational Structure - This includes both the structure defined by
the organization chart, and the unwritten lines of power and influence that
indicate whose contributions are most valued.
5.
Control Systems - The ways that the organization is controlled. These
include financial systems, quality systems, and rewards (including the way
they are measured and distributed within the organization.)
6.
Power Structures - The pockets of real power in the company. This may
involve one or two key senior executives, a whole group of executives, or
even a department. The key is that these people have the greatest amount
of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction.
These elements are represented graphically as six semi-overlapping circles (see
Figure 1 below), which together influence the cultural paradigm.

Using the Cultural Web

We use the Cultural Web firstly to look at organizational culture as it is now,
secondly to look at how we want the culture to be, and thirdly to identify the
differences between the two. These differences are the changes we need to make to
achieve the high-performance culture that we want.
1. Analyzing Culture As It Is Now
Start by looking at each element separately, and asking yourself questions that help
you determine the dominant factors in each element. Elements and related
questions are shown below, illustrated with the example of a bodywork repair
company.
Stories

What stories do people currently tell about your organization?

What reputation is communicated amongst your customers and other

stakeholders?

What do these stories say about what your organization believes in?

What do employees talk about when they think of the history of the
company?
What stories do they tell new people who join the company?
What heroes, villains and mavericks appear in these stories?

Examples (car bodywork repair company):

We are known as having high customer complaints, shoddy work.

Staff members talk about the founder starting the company with a $1,000
loan..

The message is that we do things the cheapest way we can.

Rituals and Routines

What do customers expect when they walk in?

What do employees expect?

What would be immediately obvious if changed?

What behavior do these routines encourage?

When a new problem is encountered, what rules do people apply when

they solve it?
What core beliefs do these rituals reflect?

Examples:

Customers expect a newspaper and coffee whilst they wait, or a ride to

work.

Employees expect to have their time cards examined very carefully.

There's lots of talk about money, and especially about how to cut costs.
Symbols

Is company-specific jargon or language used? How well known and usable

by all is this?

Are there any status symbols used?

What image is associated with your organization, looking at this from the
separate viewpoints of clients and staff?

Examples:

Bright red shuttle vans.

Bright red courtesy cars compact, economy cars.

The boss wears overalls not a suit.

Organizational Structure

Is the structure flat or hierarchical? Formal or informal? Organic or

mechanistic?

Where are the formal lines of authority?

Are there informal lines?

Examples:

Flat structure Owner, Head Mechanic, Mechanics, Reception.

The receptionist is the owner's wife so she goes straight to him with some
customer complaints.

It's each mechanic for himself no sharing tools or supplies, little

teamwork.
Control Systems

What process or procedure has the strongest controls? Weakest controls?

Is the company generally loosely or tightly controlled?

Do employees get rewarded for good work or penalized for poor work?

What reports are issued to keep control of operations, finance, etc...?

Examples:

Costs are highly controlled, and customers are billed for parts down to the
last screw.

Quality is not emphasized. Getting the work done with the least amount of
direct costs is the goal.

Employees docked pay if their quotes/estimates are more than 10% out.
Power Structures

Who has the real power in the organization?

What do these people believe and champion within the organization?

Who makes or influences decisions?

How is this power used or abused?

Example:

The owner believes in a low cost, high profit model, and is prepared to lose
repeat customers.

The threat of docked pay keeps mechanics working with this model.
As these questions are answered, you start to build up a picture of what is
influencing your corporate culture. Now you need to look at the web as a whole and
make some generalized statements regarding the overall culture.
These statements about your corporate culture should:

Describe the culture; and

Identify the factors that are prevalent throughout the web.

In our example the common theme is tight cost control at the expense of quality,
and at the expense of customer and employee satisfaction.
2. Analyzing Culture as You Want it to Be
With the picture of your current cultural web complete, now's the time to repeat the
process, thinking about the culture that you want.
Starting from your organization's strategy, think about how you want the
organization's culture to look, if everything were to be correctly aligned, and if you
were to have the ideal corporate culture.
3. Mapping the Differences Between the Two
Now compare your two Cultural Web diagrams, and identify the differences between
the two. Considering the organization's strategic aims and objectives:

What cultural strengths have been highlighted by your analysis of the

current culture?

What factors are hindering your strategy or are misaligned with one
another?

What factors are detrimental to the health and productivity of your

workplace?

What factors will you encourage and reinforce?

Which factors do you need to change?

What new beliefs and behaviors do you need to promote?

4. Prioritize Changes, and Develop a Plan to Address Them

Tip:
See our change management articles for more on managing change successfully.

Key Points:
Used in this way, Johnson and Scholes' Cultural Web helps you analyze your current
culture, and identify what needs to stay, go or be added to if you're to achieve your
strategic goals.

Implementing cultural changes is not simple: it involves re-moulding values, beliefs

and behavior, and it's a major change management challenge, taking a great deal
of time and hard work from everyone involved. By providing a framework for
analyzing the current culture, and designing changes, Johnson and Scholes' Cultural
Web provides a good foundation for the difficult business of changing organization
culture. Using it, you can create a cultural environment that encourages success,
supports the organization's objectives and, all-in-all, makes for a better place to
work.

Whats the difference between organisation culture and climate?

It is always difficult to distinguish between organisation culture and climate, without getting drawn into heavy theoretical or
abstract analysis; they are intangible features of organisation life and as such can be hard to put into simple terms. However,
they are vital concepts forall of us to understand so it is important that you have some handle one each of them
Culture might be described as the foundation upon which any organisation is built. It develops over the longer term and
consists of the values stated and implicit- beliefs, norms and traditions which guide how the organisation does its business
and in turn how people behave. In simple terms, culture could be described as the personality of the organisation
and, often, the culture of a particular enterprise can be traced back to those personal values held by the founder, or
it is a reflection of the senior management in the business.
Although, it is somewhat intangible, culture has a significant role in influencing all aspects of life within the organisation and
indeed how it interacts with the outside world; think how different the culture might be in a brokerage firm on Wall Street from
that pervading within a charitable organisation. Consider too the various places you may have worked in your career; they all
likely had a uniqueness about them and this is a manifestation of its culture. In certain jobs you probably felt very
comfortable working there, in others you might not have felt the same affinity with the organisation.
Climate, on the other hand, could be described as something more surface level and relates to the here and now; it is about
what it feels like to work in the organisation. If culture is the personality, then climate has more to do with the mood or
prevailing atmosphere within the business. The climate is prone to more short term fluctuations and is determined by
many factors which include leadership, structure, rewards and recognition.
Understanding the basic differences between culture and climate is practically helpful for you as a leader as it should help
you to recognise that changing culture is a significant challenge, and may be out of your hands, depending upon your
seniority, but you can greatly influence the climate within your team by how you lead them. This has to do specifically with
your overall leadership style but also in how you design or improve work practices, recognise and reward performance and
how conflict is handled.

Steps in Organizational Culture Change

There are three major steps involved in changing an organization's culture.
1.

My earlier article discusses How to Understand Your Current Culture. Before an organization
can change its culture, it must first understand the current culture, or the way things are now. Do
take the time to pursue the activities in this article before moving on to the next steps.

2.

Once you understand your current organizational culture, your organization must thendecide
where it wants to go, define its strategic direction, and decide what the organizational culture
should look like to support success. What vision does the organization have for its future and how
must the culture change to support the accomplishment of that vision?

3.

Finally, the individuals in the organization must decide to change their behavior to create the
desired organizational culture. This is the hardest step in culture change.

Plan the Desired Organizational Culture

Pitfalls That May Cause Failure

Watch out for these pitfalls that could cause your organization redesign process to fail:
1. Loss of support from senior management
2. Leadership (particularly front-line) holding on/reverting to traditionalautocratic
style of leadership
3. Leadership not leading by example or exhibiting the behaviors they require from
their people
4. Not understanding that team and people evolve over time and not giving the
people the time to grow into the new way of operating
5. Not regularly using the vision and mission to drive decisions
6. The redesign is faulty - the elements are not in alignment
7. Team members are changed or rotated before the culture becomes unshakably
fixed, and the new way is now 'just the way we do things around here'

Routines and Culture in Organizations

by Shelley Frost, Demand Media
An organization's culture encompasses the general attitudes, norms and values that
define the company. A positive culture aids in retaining current employees and
attracting top candidates for new job openings. Routines play a key role in
establishing the acceptable norms and behaviors within the workplace. These same
behaviors help mold the company's culture. Analyzing the company's routines aids
in making changes as necessary to improve the culture.
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Significance
The routines managers and employees engage in day after day set the acceptable
standards for the workplace culture. If managers typically roll into work 15 minutes
or more late every day, that routine is likely to transfer to the employees. This may
create a culture that makes tardiness and bending the rules acceptable. The
routines used in the workplace become second nature to employees whose
expectations are influenced by those routines. For example, if a weekly staff
meeting on Tuesday mornings is part of the routine, employees expect that to
continue every Tuesday.
Considerations
Routines often start with the management team. The actions of the managers signal
to employees what is acceptable. Employees may begin establishing their own
routines to complete the assigned work. If the manager lets employees get away
with the routines they create, the staff assumes those behaviors are acceptable.
The company handbook is another guide that helps establish routines in the
workplace. The handbook should define the types of behavior and routines that are
acceptable.
Analysis
An analysis of your company's current routines gives you a better idea of how they
are impacting the culture. Spend time observing work performed in the office to
determine the regular routines. Taking notes gives you a reference for making
changes if necessary. Interviewing employees gives you a sense of how they view
the company's culture and the routines that are currently used. Meet with other
management staff to get their opinions on the routines and how they are affecting
the company's culture.

Changing Routines
If the routines at your company are creating a culture you don't want, making
changes to your expectations can help reset the routines. Focus on the particular
routines you analyzed that are detrimental to the company's culture. Create a plan
for correcting those routines to have a positive impact. For example, if employees
are in the habit of complaining to a supervisor to get out of work, establish a formal
grievance system employees must use. Write specific job descriptions and
checklists to ensure all duties are assigned. This gets employees in the routine of
completing their assigned tasks and handling complaints through proper channels.