Taming the Dragon:

Shaping Organizational Culture for

sustainable success
 It can’t be stolen by thieves or taken away by the king
It can’t be divided among brothers and is weightless
If spent regularly, it always keeps growing
The wealth of knowledge is the most superior wealth of all
 Dedicated to

Minakshi

My harshest critic and my biggest fan

“Our Deepest fears are like Dragons guarding our deepest treasures”
- Renier Maria Rilke

“Culture eats Strategy for breakfast” – Peter Drucker

“It simply is not an adventure worth telling, if there aren’t any

dragons” – J R R Tolkien
CONTENTS

• Preface
• The Cultural Conundrum: A growing Challenge
• Culture: Organisations, Groups, Families
• Part 1: The Anatomy of Culture
• The ‘Earth’ Element: Paradigms
• The ‘Air Element’: Aspirations
• The ‘Fire’ Element: Emotional Fabric
• The ‘Water’ Element: Engagement
• The ‘Space’ Element: Environment
• Culture of the Family Unit
• How does an effective Culture look?
• Part 2: Defining the Culture Challenge: Assess and Assimilate
• ‘Talk to me’: The ‘language’ of Organisations
• ‘We have a situation!’: Defining the Cultural Conundrum
• ‘What is the change?’: The new future
• ‘Settling accounts’: What is our Cultural Debt?
• ‘Show me what to do!’: Define behaviour
• Part 3: Implementing the new Culture: Action
• ‘Let’s do it!’ : Role Modelling
• The Culture ‘Players’: Early adopters
• The ‘Non Negotiables’ : Core beliefs
• ‘Casting a spell’: Cultural Hypnosis
• ‘Once upon a time’: Story telling
• The carrot and the stick: Rewards/Punishment
• ‘Lets talk about it!’: Communication
• The Conflict Paradox: More the merrier!
• Part 4: Deepening the Culture: Adhere
• ‘What are others doing?’: Social Learning
• ‘This sounds like fun!’ Ritualizing the behaviour
• ‘I can’t do without it!’: Values to Virtues
• ‘Show me the money!’: Calculating the returns
• The Value Stream: Bringing it all together
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
 Preface

“If I have seen further than others,

it’s by standing on the shoulders of
giants”
– Sir Isaac Newton

There is a famous story of two young fish who are moving around in the river, nibbling at
plants and having fun.
An old fish passes by, swimming slowly and languidly.
The old fish looks at them and smiles, commenting “ Hi, young ones, how is the water
today?”

The young fish smile back and move on without saying anything. A few moments later, once
the old fish has swum out of earshot, one of them turns to the other and says “What is
water”?

The fish were living in the water but were not aware of it’s existence. It had been present
when they were born and was always there, every moment of their lives. It’s existence was
never questioned by them and their minds never bothered to question or assess it in any
way.
If the water became warm or cold, they would relate this change to other things but not to
the ‘fluid’ which was supporting their very existence.
When something is with us since we gained consciousness to engage with the world, and
continues to stay with us, we literally ‘lose sight of it’. Our rational mind accepts it as a part
of existence and stops analyzing or questioning it.
Something very similar could be said about Culture. We are social animals and learn to live
with people right from the day we are born. We rapidly imbibe habits, norms, behavior and
ways of engaging which fall below our awareness and are anchored in our habits. This
‘invisible’ matrix of values, beliefs, mindsets, behavior and social engagement processes
adds up to be our culture.

So what is the brouhaha over Culture? Why is it called out as an important part of any
organization, social group or family?

This question has been asked and answered by many people and yet continues to be a
subject of discussion, speculation and conflict.

For many of us, in organisations, family or social groups, the Cultural forces are like the
‘Elephant in the room’. Everyone senses that these ‘forces’ are impacting us and our
behaviour with each other, but we do not discuss or talk about it, more for the reason that
we are unable to grapple with the multi dimensional complexity of the whole thing. We
struggle like the blind men who are feeling an elephant and trying to define parts of the
body, thinking that the specific body part is the whole elephant, and then arguing about it
with each other.

Let me share the story of a client from a few years back.

This client was in the area of college education and had been growing at a good pace. The
main value offering was to educate young adolescents and also help them develop into
good human beings. The teachers were expected to role model virtues like self-discipline,
respect for others, team work, helping others etc.
The top leadership, which was building a profit driven organization, had a very different
approach towards the academic staff. There would be disrespectful behavior, sarcasm,
blaming and one-upmanship. The teachers were facing a bunch of hard-nosed, tough
leaders and were expected to ‘turn around’ and show a virtuous and humane face to the
adolescents.
What was the issue here?

They had good strategy, planning and execution and yet, the teachers were either
demoralized and literally going through the paces or were resigning from the company at
the earliest opportunity. The CEO was a bit surprised to see the sudden exits but would
repeatedly convince himself that those who were resigning were ‘losers’ and ‘good for us
that they are gone’. He was unable to see the toxic environment that was being fostered
and which was conflicting with the espoused values of the organization.

Needless to say, they were unable to execute any strategy successfully to the end. It was as
though an invisible ‘lead weight’ was pulling down the organization, despite pumping funds
and resources into it.

This ‘lead weight’ was clearly a culture conflict which was a blind spot for the leaders and
not being addressed by them.

The study of organizational culture has largely been led by academia and experts in the US
and Europe. Its only in the last few decades moved to center stage in the Indian
subcontinent. An organization’s culture is impacted by the culture of the country, region,
industry and the religions in which it is nested.
Indian society carries the ‘weight’ of thousands of years of culture layered by millions of
gods (Yes, more than thirty million!), thousands of languages and dialects, countless rituals,
beliefs, multiple religions, horrendous armed invasions, multiple spiritual paths and a recent
emergence from slavery. These deeply embedded foundations impact the culture of an
Indian organization.
For organizations in India, it is imperative that they study culture from the perspective of
the Indian ethos and way of thinking.
A large part of the principles of Organizational Culture explained in this book are common
to any region or country. But there are key aspects of the Indian culture which would impact
how people function and engage with each other in the organization.

But before that, let’s try understand the relevance of shaping (or transforming) culture.

The culture of an organization is a multi-faceted and complex web like construct and making
an effort to decipher it without any clear purpose is a waste of resources.

This is more so as the culture keeps evolving or changing shape due to internal and external
forces.

Transforming culture becomes important when there are internal or external culture
conflicts or a need to infuse new values for the growth of the organisation.

At such times, it is very helpful to map the organizational culture, identify the specific
cultural aspects which are relevant for the change, and bring in a process to ‘shift’ the
culture just enough to bring about the desired results.

Over the last ten years, I have engaged with more than a hundred organisations in the area
of Culture building, behavoural change and Leadership development. Many of these
engagements have been rigorous and detailed projects to transform the Culture, while
some have been more empirical requiring to tweak around and achieve our objectives.

All of them have been deeply insightful and added immensely to my understanding of the
myraid dimensions of Culture and the weblike interconnection with factors like religion,
country, family, society and value systems.

My learnings from these organisations prompted me to observe cultural forces in families,

social groups and societies. I could draw parallels between these different ‘Cultural arenas’
and identify the fundamental laws which build Culture and how they influence the
behaviour of people.
I learnt that if we manage Culture of any group, we can dramatically improve in the
following areas:

a. Infuse a strong sense of purpose for the group members

b. High level of engagement of the group members
c. High productivity of the group
d. Passion, happiness and sense of fulfillment
e. Enjoy working with each other
f. Powerful emotional Resilience which would manage any setbacks of life.

As I delved deeper into the workings of Culture and how it’s forces impact the dynamics of a
group, I could truly appreciate the powerful influence of these forces on us.

I have truly seen magic happening with organisations, social groups and families.
Organisations which were struggling to develop new products or win new markets shifted
the cultural elements and found themselves addressing their challenges with fresh
perspectives and winning. Families, where the children were slipping into negative
psychological states, acquiring bad habits or falling into bad company, turned around the
overall engagement process (a key element of Culture) and rescued the children from future
disaster. Informal social groups, which had been formed for noble causes, but were falling
apart, were able to get their mojo back by addressing key cultural forces.

Culture has become a passion for me. Not just the culture of an organisation, but the culture
of any group of three or more people, which has come together for a purpose.

Yes, even a group of three people has it’s own unique cultural elements, which ensure that
the group sustains and moves towards its purpose. We will discuss more of it later in the
book.
Here I would emphasise the importance of Culture in the family context. Most of the
principles, tools and academic work on Culture has largely been related to the organisation,
with the intention to drive productivity, employee engagement and improve ‘Total
Shareholder Return’.
Yet, Culture is a significant and I daresay, most powerful aspect of the family unit. The
foundation for a happy and successful life of a child is built in the ‘cultural crucible’ of the
family unit.
A family’s Culture is build on key values. The parents role model these values, talk about
them, share stories and the children imbibe them for life. A few honest interactions with an
individual can give you a blueprint of the family culture he/she has experienced in
childhood.
As I coorelated the elements of Culture for different groups, from the structured and formal
organisations, the small but powerful family unit to the informal groups brought together
for ‘fun purposes’, I was delighted to ‘see’ the common thread of cultural forces which
influence the groups. As Culture is a manifestation of group psychology and behavioural
science, its power is derived from common aspects of human nature, whether in an
organisation or a family.
My further engagements with organisations and passion to understand Culture, made me
learn the ‘language’ of organisations. As I will discuss in more detail in a later chapter,
Organisations actually ‘talk’ to us. We just need a paradigm shift in our minds to listen to the
‘endless chatter’ that the organisation is throwing at us. This ‘language’ is subtle but once
we decipher it, the information we get is priceless and goes straight to the reason for the
problem or challenge the organisation is facing.
I would coorelate this paradigm shift to the three dimensional pictures (Autostereogram)
that we see so commonly now a days. (picture given below).
The above picture is seemingly a confused mix of colors, but if we focus at a point behind
the picture (and defocus from the picture allowing two images to emerge), you would see
the three dimensional image of a shark inside it.

Similarly, once we start looking at the various Cultural aspects, a colorful and detailed
picture of the Culture emerges.

On the topic of family Culture, I would go to the extent of saying that the family culture
seeps into our organisations in many ways. Let’s look at this from the perspective of Indian
family culture and Organisations.

As per the Hofstede model and six dimensions of Culture, India has a relatively higher
Collectivist Culture. This means that we want to be part of a strong social structure and the
individual is less significant than the family. This is the opposite of the Individualistic Culture
in the USA, where the individual is more significant than the family.
We have cousins, aunts, uncles who are connected to us, we have more family gatherings
and we go out of the way to help family members. There is a much higher level of
informality in our social engagements. The seniors of the family are given lot of respect and
their ‘advise’ is taken seriously.
This powerful family culture seeps into our organisations, where we look up to the authority
figures as ‘family seniors’. There is a tendency to accept their word as gospel and not to get
into a conflict. In case of serious conflicts, employees would not confront their bosses, stay
quiet and just not do the work properly (like a recalcitrant child).
The authority figure or boss would bring an approach of a senior family member, who is
‘taking care’ of the family members and they should repose their faith on the family.
This kind of behaviour is seen not just in Indian organisations but even in US multinationals,
where it directly conflicts with the ‘Individualistic’ culture of USA.
The conflict emerges in situations like given below:

a. A younger man becomes the boss of the team: “How do I take orders from a man
who is my nephew’s age. I give orders to my nephew all the time”!
b. The boss encourages the team to raise any point of difference in a meeting: “How do
I show disrespect to a ‘senior’ (i.e my boss) in an open meeting by getting into a
conflict?”
c. Team is empowered to take all the decisions: “I have take a decision but need my
boss’s alignment before I action it. I will find a way to get his nod before I start on it”

Through the book, I will revisit all the principles from the perspective of a family and help
build an understanding of how the authority figures in the family can understand and drive
a culture which will reap immense benefits for the family members.

How do we compare Culture to a Dragon?

The dragon is a highly complex symbol, combining images of the serpent and the bird, two
loaded images in isolation. Together, they form one of the most powerful monsters dating
back to antiquity.

In the Orient, a dragon is a mystical animal which has supernatural power, wisdom, strength
and hidden knowledge. If left un tended, it could spew fire and burn everything, creating
chaos and destruction. If it is tamed, it could spread its massive wings and fly you into the
skies, way beyond what you imagined.
Heroes typically fight ("slay") dragons to gain control over territory; dragons are also usually
guardians of a treasure,whether it be material (as in GOLD) or symbolic (as in knowledge).
Killing the dragon is the conflict between light and darkness, (knowledge and ignorance).

I would metaphorically compare the Culture of an organisation to a dragon. One key reason
is that Organisational Culture is viewed, incorrectly, as a harmless ‘way of doing things’
which hums in the background of daily activity.As something deep, unfathomable but surely
not disruptive or damaging.

That is surely far from the truth.

A culture which has been ignored can wreak havoc on all the good plans of a family, group,
organisation or country. A dysfunctional Culture may take time to show results, but when it
wakes up, like a fire spewing dragon, people wonder what went wrong and it’s too late to
make amends.

An organisation which finds it products becoming obsolete, a family realising that the
children are deep into bad habits, a financial crisis creeping up on a group, sudden and
irreversible attrition of good people from a company, a declaration of a divorce, and so on
are situations where the ‘dragon’ was ignored and now is starting to spew fire.

On the other hand, a Culture which is aligned to the present situation and the
internal/exteranl forces, will unfold it’s powerful wings and take the organisation into the
heights of prosperity.

In this book I have attempted to explain Culture in the following areas:

Part 1: The Anatomy of Culture:

Culture is a multifaceted, dynamic and evolving ‘being’ which has to be understood before
we can attempt to shape it to our desire. My own experience of working with many
organisations of different shapes and sizes and helped me reach some understanding of the
anatomy of any Culture. These key elements that constitute culture are also common to the
Culture of any family, group, society or country or region. So, I would daresay, that my
observations of families, social groups and societies over the last many years has also added
tremendously to my understanding of the elements that constitute Culture. Actually, I have
realized that Culture is vastly beyond an organisation and that the family unit is the most
powerful crucible of Cultural forces which impact the eventual culture of organisations.
Society and social groups also play a much more tangible role in impacting an organisational
culture, then has usually been believed. A restricted approach to Organisational Culture,
which just focusses on the forces at the workplace, will not do justice to the change process.
It may need to include the impact of society, social groups and the current environment in
which the organisation is nested and operating.

Part 2: Defining the Culture Challenge:

As we breakup the Culture into it’s components and look at each of them seperately, we
understand the linkage of the components and how they are silently influencing the
organisation, group or family. How we behave, interact, set up our surroundings and engage
with each other are some of the manifestations of the Culture. They are the ‘tip of the
iceberg’. We start with these manifestations and then coorelate them to the invisible
paradigms, emotions and environmental forces (iceberg below the water) which are driving
the present culture. We define the change of behaviour which will constitute the new
culture and then work backwards to shape the paradigms and emotions, thus creating a self
feeding loop to shift the Culture.

Part 3: Implementing the new Culture:

Implementation of a new Culture does not happen linearly. It has to be ‘attacked’ at various
fronts, and across the hierarchy. At each level of the hierarchy, there are different tools
which effectively work at building the new culture. The tools are administered akin to a
surgeon operating on a patient and transplanting an organ, in a harmonious sequence of
activities.

Part 4: Deepening the Culture:

Implementing the culture is just the beginning. The real work starts when we start to
deepen the Culture. This is the part where we hope to see the ‘magic’ of the Cultural forces,
which can make people behave and engage in the desired manner, as though driven by a
powerful, hidden force. Here is where the Culture truly takes roots in the psyche of the
organisation and starts accelerating it towards the desired goal.

My experience in engaging with organisational Culture and observing this ‘invisible force’ in
families and social groups has made me realize that if we truly understand the key elements
of Culture, the organisation’s culture literally ‘talks to us’, freely sharing what are the
espoused values, hidden paradigms, accepted behaviours and the linkages between them
which are driving the organisation. Though this is so obvious, when we are wearing the
correct ‘lenses’ of Cultural understanding, it can be absolutely invisible to those who are not
aware of it.

This leads me to the understanding that for many leaders (and heads of family, like parents
or uncles/aunts) the Cultural forces are largely a ‘blind spot’ which they persistently ignore,
like an ostrich with its head in the sand. They push ahead with brilliant strategies, putting in
all their energy, using interpersonal skills and so on, but do not try to unravel the Cultural
forces which are thwarting their efforts and reducing the productivity of the organisation.

This book is a humble attempt to lift the veil on the mystery of Organisational Culture and
show how elegantly these forces impact us daily in our family unit, social groups and
organisations.
The Cultural Conundrum: A growing challenge

It is not the strongest of the species

that survives, nor the most intelligent
that survives. It is the one that is the
most adaptable to change.” —
Charles Darwin
Question: In the past, have you ever had the feeling that your organisation or
family was going in the wrong direction and there were some fundamental changes
that were required to be brought in so as to win over the present challenges?

At around 1 am on 3rd December, 1984, the residents of Bhopal woke up to a foul smell,
finding it difficult to breathe and irritation in their eyes. They rushed out panicking and
unsure whether to stay back or join the crowds running away from the invisible gas which
was enveloping them.

The Union Carbide Pesticides plant had leaked about 42 tons of Methyl Iso cyanate and it
had wafted into Bhopal and surrounding towns with the blowing winds.

In the following twenty four hours, more than 3000 people died.

Over the last 36 years, 15000 people have died due to the after affects of the gas and more
than 500 thousand people have suffered from health issues.

Children born 20 years after the incident are suffering from cerebral palsy due to the health
impact on their parents and the polluted ground water.

The court cases against the local Union Carbide management and the global leaders
continued for years and have now been closed. Yet the local populace continues to suffer
the grave mistakes done almost four decades back.

When giving his ruling, the Chief Judicial Magistrate stated that this disaster was due to the
‘synergy of the very worst of American and Indian Cultures’.

After 36 years, the Bhopal Gas tragedy has been branded as the ‘worst industrial tragedy in
the history of the world’ even surpassing the horrific impact of the Chernobyl disaster. The
official conclusion is that it was gross negligence and unsafe procedures which caused this
disaster though there are also claims of sabotage.

In both cases, it is a stark example of how a poor culture can cause such irreversible damage
to an organisation and society at large.
Understandably, Union Carbide had set up a pesticides plant in India so that they could
produce at a low cost and be more competitively priced. Further, they had convinced the
government to allow them more than 50% shareholding and keep full managerial control of
the plant. This was helpful to ensure that there were no external forces influencing their
decisions related to production and safety. Their primary objective was to keep prices
competitive and hold a strong share in the Indian market and those of neighbouring
countries.
Any organisation’s culture is driven by Values, which are the core beliefs on which the
organisation is run by the leaders. These values in other words are ‘the way to run the
organisation so that we grow and make money!’. As these values are deeply embedded in
the culture, all the decisions, strategy, communication and behaviour are influenced by
those values.
Now, seemingly the Culture of Union Carbide had the core values of profitability and
growth. That was the reason they set up a plant in a third world country (with less
regulations on safety and other ‘unnecessary expenses’) and took full control of running the
plant, though the rule (at that time) was to partner with an Indian organisation, so that
there is no interference in their decisions at the local level. They wanted to set up a low cost
plant and produce competitively priced fertilizer to make money.
The Culture of the organisation was influencing these decisions and ‘convincing’ the leaders
that ‘this is the best thing for Union Carbide’. Everyone was talking the same language and
happy that they are taking great decisions for the organisation.
Another important core value of Safety was down the list and not a core value of their
Culture. So they would stay barely above the Safety compliance demanded by Government
regulations. Any ‘red flags’ by the local managers were ignored, safety budgets would get
cut and leaders were not talking about Safety.

This was a fundamental Cultural Conflict as they were handling a highly toxic gas like
Methyl Iso Cyanate.

So, though they were designing well thought out strategies, the basic value system (Cultural
thought process) which had relegated Safety down the list, was setting them up for disaster.
We could conjecture that if the leaders had stepped back, assessed their Cultural values
and shifted the Safety value up the list, they would have spent a bit more money to improve
the Safety standards and avert the disaster.

Five years after the tragedy, The Indian Supreme Court passed a judgement against Union
Carbide and asked them to give 470 Million USD to the victims and their families. Union
Carbide closed the factory down.
The estimated expenses on Safety that would have averted this disaster would add up to a
miniscule percentage of their loss.
The culture of the organisation blinded the leadership to this ‘reality’ of the situation.
Of course, the details of the story are not that direct or simple, as many other factors would
have been involved, but it is a stark reminder of the way a misaligned culture can obfuscate
our vision and lead us up the path of misery.

In 1976, Kodak was the ‘800 pound gorilla in the world of photography’, clearly the biggest
and most powerful player. To give you a perspective, 85% of all cameras and 95% of all films
sold in the world were from Kodak. Just an year back, an engineer in Kodak had developed
the first digital camera. The technology was new and promising, but the business model was
not seeming lucrative.
Kodak’s business model in traditional cameras was to push the cameras at competitive
prices and make margins on the film, processing paper and equipment. They had
established an unbeatable network of outlets and processing labs, and were controlling the
complete ‘food chain’ of the ‘film photography’ market.
Digital cameras did not need film and in many cases, no processing as you could see the
picture on your tv screen. This was a total disruptor of their carefully built empire and cash
rich business.

So they decided not to focus on Digital Cameras.

Let’s step back for a moment here. Suppose a new technology is emerging in your product
space, which is making it ‘easier and faster to use’ for the customer. Why would you decide
to push an older technology? Let’s hold this question and see what happened.
In 2005, Kodak was leading in digital camera sales, followed by Sony and Panasonic, but it
was a small market.

The Kodak leadership decided that they would continue to invest in marketing traditional
cameras, and further expanding their network of processing labs and photography studios.

That strategy presumably did not work and by 2010, Kodak was lagging behind in the
exponentially growing digital cameras market.

No one wanted traditional cameras.

The whole infrastructure supporting sales of film and processing was not required.

Kodak had to file for bankruptcy in 2012.

Kodak was built firstly on the technical brilliance of the co founder, George Eastman who
revolutionized photography in the late 1900’s , making it much more convenient, better and
cheaper.

Secondly it was build on the sound business strategy of the ‘engine and gravy train’. They
dominated the complete process from ‘capturing the moment on camera’ to ‘holding the
picture in your hand’. Nothing could go wrong here, as they captured the market by selling
their cameras at competitive prices and ‘milked it’ on the consumables.

The company had developed a culture which was focussed on product quality, marketing,
retaining market shares and dominating the traditional photography ‘food chain’.

The invention of digital cameras was a major disruptor which required a culture of
innovation and risk taking.
They were required to dismantle their own successful business strategy and focus on the
new trend, building sustainable business models around it but they had not nurtured the
core values and Culture which could make them do that. The leadership had not gone
through that kind of experience of risk taking and disrupting the existing model.
So like a set of highly paid ‘ostriches with their heads buried in sand’, they kept focussing on
the business of ‘making world class photographic films’ and slipped behind in the real
market of ‘capturing beautiful moments with more convenience, speed and better quality’.
It required a shift in culture which did not happen.
As we look around with our ‘Culture’ lenses, we can see innumerable such situations not
only in organisations but even in social groups and families.

I have seen many families, which have been enjoying a lavish standard of living built on a
steady job and an increasing salary. One day the sole earner loses his or her job and
suddenly the family is struggling with uncertainty. The family members have to bring in a
unknown value of ‘frugality’ in their lives, a shift in their Culture. Where earlier, they were
spending without a second thought, now they had to weigh each such decision carefully.

Some of the families are unable to make this cultural shift and descend into continual
conflict or even breakup. Some families are successful and shift their Cultural values to
survive.
For some of these families who have learnt to embrace frugality, when they get back into
the good days they continue to hold on to the value of frugality, investing the money more
wisely.

Most of the above situations are those where a family or organisation had to shfit their
Cultural values to survive.

These situations could be defined as ‘Cultural Conundrums’.

It’s a state where an organisation, group or family steps back and starts wondering if the
Culture needs to be changed, how would they do it, and what ‘sacrifices’ are required, so as
to ensure sustainable growth.
In today’s world, these ‘Cultural Conundrums’ are becoming more frequent with companies
and families.

We are in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambigious) and changes are truly
disruptive whether in the area of technology, human resources, competition, regulations or
cash flow. In these times, challenges may not be resolved just by adopting a new strategy.
The unanswered question is more like ‘what are the cultural values which will support this
strategy?’. A dramatic shift in strategy requries a fresh set of paradigms or way of looking at
the world and unless we do not address the cultural context, we are bound to fail.

The Cultural Conundrum has to be addressed at the earliest, as It takes time for the Cultural
Shift to happen. Sometimes it becomes too late to benefit from the change.
The irony is that leaders find it difficult to become aware of a Cultural Conundrum before it
hits them. Once they see the negative impact of a misaligned culture, they develop sound
‘wisdom in hindsight’ and how obvious was the change that was required.

I have seen the case of many working parents who spent their time busy in their work,
building their careers, fostering a value of ‘individual development’ in the family. Work
(which represents the primary way to individual development) was given top priority. So
engagements related to family were done but not given equal priority. The child grew up
accepting this value and got disengaged from the parents, seeking emotional comfort in his
peer group. When the child was in the teens, the Cultural misalignment showed it’s colors,
with the child slowly drifting away. The parents tried to ‘manage’ by focussing on the well
practiced role of ‘parents’, unable to bring in a new value of ‘friendly, non judgemental and
respectful engagement’ with the child. The child moved into late teens and the relationship
was beyond repair.
The above instances show that to successfully resolve Cultural Conundrums it’s important
to get the timing right. Mostly leaders or parents get a sense that things are not moving in
the right direction, but snowed down by daily pressures, and the enormity of the required
change, they keep delaying it.
My experience with numerous organisations has revealed that these shifts can be done
within months (in case of families, within weeks) if they are implemented with the right
rigor, attention and tools.

As mentioned earlier in the book, studying culture and shaping it becomes relevant when
we are faced with a Cultural Conundrum.

How do we know that we are facing a Cultural Conundrum? We will understand more of it
later in the book.

Let’s look at a few more perspectives on Culture and how it is critical for the organisation.

Firstly, It defines your company’s (or family’s) internal and external identity

Here’s a thought exercise: write down on a piece of paper five attributes that best describe
your organization’s culture. You might write something like “good work-life balance” or
“lots of meetings” or maybe “team-oriented.”

Now, spend a few minutes thinking about why each of those attributes is important to your
organization in particular. Why is it significant that your company has a good work-life
balance? What makes these culture attributes valuable to your people and customers?

Organizational culture will reverberate across all aspects of your business, family or group
because it represents the way we engage. It’s simultaneously our identity and image,
which means it determines how your people and customers perceive you.

Secondly, your culture can transform employees (or members) into advocates (or critics)

One of the greatest advantages of a strong organizational culture is that it has the power to
turn employees into advocates.

Your people want more than a steady paycheck and good benefits; they want to feel like
what they do matters. And when your people feel like they matter, they’re more likely to
become culture advocates—that is, people who not only contribute to your organization’s
culture, but also promote it and live it internally and externally
Before we move forward to understanding Culture, it’s components and how shape them in
the desired fashion, I would like to share a few critical ‘truths’ or assumptions (from my
experience and insights) which will underlie the arguments given in this book.

a. No Culture is good or bad: Most leaders and employees look at Cultures as being
desirable or not good for the organisation. But Cultures are neutral. They have just
one purpose. And that is to keep the group alive and thriving. Every Culture is
created with the ‘sum of the best intentions of each group member’, when the
group is created. Each new entrant adds to or subtracts from the culture, shifting it a
bit depending on how influential he or she is in the organisation. If an organisation is
surviving or growing, the culture has worked. It may not have worked for everyone
or in every situation, but it has surely ensured that the group survives in its
environment. Apple (under the stewardship of Steve Jobs) is a great example of a
difficult (and toxic, probably) culture which helped the organisation create great
products and become the most valuable company in the world.

b. A dysfunctional Culture can destroy the organisation: Though Cultures are formed
to help the organisation live and grow, they themselves can start destroying it, like a
snake devouring its own tail. This happens when the values and paradigms of the
existing culture are not useful for the internal and external challenges faced by the
organisation. The Nazi culture, created by Hitler, is a classic example of a Culture
which destroyed the organisation. The Nazi’s thought that they could get away with
anything, and the core beliefs of their culture convinced them that what they were
doing was right. It took them far away from logic, humanity and reality.

c. Strategy misaligned with Culture will always fail: In other words, we could say that
a good strategy is only one which is ‘born of the Culture’. When the culture is not
understood, the leadership might develop a strategy which looks good but is totally
delinked from the culture and bound to fail. To take an example, a profit driven
organisation has core values of maximizing profits, taking advantage of clients,
breaking trust and being unscrupulous where possible. These core paradigms have
 worked for them in a growing market. But now the market is stagnant and they
decide to go back to the old clients (whom they have been ripping off) for more
business. The strategy is bound to fail. Firstly, they would not get the trust of the
clients. If they do get the trust of the clients, they would naturally resort to their old
habit of ‘skimming off the cream’, thus further alienating them.

Now having acceped our ‘core beliefs’ of Organisational Culture, lets understand what are
the elements constituting Culture and how does it get formed.
Culture: Organisations, Groups, Families

“Culture is the name for what people

are interested in, their thoughts, their
models, the books they like to read
and the speeches they hear” – Walter
Lippman
A few questions for you:
a. How do you spend time with your family on weekends?
b. How do you decide what to eat for dinner as a family?
c. What is the accepted dress code in your organisation?
d. How do you greet each other in the morning at work?
e. How loudly do people speak to each other?
f. How easy is it to take approval for sudden leave?

I would invite you to do an exercise. In your mind, just shift into a third person mode, so
that you are seeing yourself from a distance. Watch yourself patiently and closely as you
remember yourself in the past few weeks. How have you been living your life? What do you
do when you get up in the morning? What do you have for breakfast? What do you wear?
How do you interact with family members? How do you interact with strangers in the lift?
Do you greet the guard at the entrance of the building? How do you socialize with friends?
What rituals do you follow? How have you laid out your living space? Is it crowded with stuff
or sparse?

Now think of yourself five years back. How were you then? What was different? Maybe you
were less convivial with strangers? Less polite with the staff that cleans the building? You
were not as careful of what you eat? You were socializing more?

Let’s now go back a decade or more. What was your behavior in those times? How were you
engaging with your family? Were you more rushed at work? Busy building a career and less
concerned of personal relationships? Partying hard on the weekends?

As we see ourselves, a lot of what would emerge would be from our habitual patterns, of
which we are not very conscious. In the rush of life, while our conscious mind is taking
decisions related to work or urgent issues, a lot of activity is done by sheer habit. These
have been ingrained in us over the years, building layer upon layer, being reinforced as we
repeat them every day. And yet, there may be a subtle shift in some of these behaviors,
triggered either by external forces or internal forces.
In India, an elderly person elicits respect. It’s deeply ingrained in our psyche. A more
traditional person (Indian Hindu) would touch the feet of an elder, while a modern thinking
person would just fold his hands in greeting. Yet the deeply ingrained belief that “elders
need to be respected” would creep up on us when we see a respectable, elderly person.

Thousands of such beliefs, attitudes and habits lurk just under the conscious mind, helping
us navigate through the day without having to take decisions.

Over the years, these behavior would have shifted, as we modified beliefs, changed
attitudes or rewired new habits into our minds. Other than in rare cases, there are no
dramatic changes. Just a consistent imperceptible shift in the short term, which looks
significant if we measure it over a large period of time.

Culture building is a slow process, whether for the individual, group, society or organization.
It comprises of deeply embedded beliefs, habits and attitude which decide how we
approach a situation and how we behave.

Culture is not a ‘in your face’ which is being seen or heard by us. It is subliminal and most of
the time driven by sheer habit. So an awareness of our culture is a skill that may require to
be developed. This is the first step towards driving culture change in our organization.

Reason to have a culture: When people come together towards a common objective, they
need a culture to stay together. This is an amalgamation of beliefs, intent, engagement
processes and emotions. The primary purpose of a cultural structure is to ensure
predictability and alignment. It reduces anxiety and provides an ‘emotional protection’ to
the members in its familiarity and predictability.

Elements of Culture: The culture of a family, group or organization has some key elements
which drive and sustain it. The same elements can help us assess how powerful, positive
and result oriented is the culture. Whether it will help the group members move forward
towards success or waylay them from their objectives. There are families which succeed
while there are some which carry conflicted cultures and do not allow the members to
develop in the right direction. The elements will be discussed later in this chapter.

How does Culture get formed?

The need to survive and sustain a group/organisation: Every group that is formed has a
primary purpose to survive. The first fundamental beliefs which are formed in the group are
those that would ensure survival and sustanability of the group. The members who come to
gether to form the group have their own beliefs of what will ensure survival and these
beliefs of the group get aligned over time. Once they are aligned, the group has it’s own set
of beliefs which are the fundamental truths which will keep the group alive.
When a family is formed, the husband and wife have the fundamental beliefs about what
will keep the family together. This would include the need to trust each other, empathize,
contribute fairly towards each other, and manage expenses as per the earnings of the family
members. These are the ‘truths’ which will sustain the group. They would also have some
conflict in terms of which beliefs they feel are more important. The husband may feel that
managing expenses is most important and family members need to ensure that they spend
within means. The wife might feel that maintaining relationships with other groups
(relatives, friends, social circle) is most important and any spend towards that ( in terms of
gifts or socializing parties) cannot be compromised. This conflict is managed by them
considering the need to be together and they compromise with each other. But, as they are
both committed to keeping the family together, they ensure that such conflicts are sorted
out.
The same would be for an organisation, where the deepest beliefs (as mostly driven by the
leadership) are to ensure survival of the company. Thus, if an employee is not working
properly, he/she should be sacked immediately. If cash flow is constrained, all unnecessary
expenses should be reduced or removed. If there is a need to shout at someone or be
disrespectful, so be it as that would keep the organization safe. Community welfare spend
should be kept at a reasonable level as cash would be required for more important work to
sustain the organisation. Thus, the beliefs/principles which drive decisions and actions are
essentially to ensure survival of the company.
As the group/organisation stabilizes and learns to manage the environment, some of the
beliefs may be modifed, depending on how the changes are seen by the group members.
It’s important to understand that here ‘survival’ is a relative term. It is to maintain the
present ‘level of living’.
In case of a family it would be to maintain the present standard of living. If the family has a
car, house, golf membership and a vacation every three months then maintaining that
‘standard’ is basic survival. If they are forced to give away some of these comforts, it is seen
as a high stress situation and a threat to survival of the family. This is true of most families
and this urge to ‘showcase’ sustained level of living is so strong that families sometimes get
into debt to maintain the comforts that they have and show the world that everything is
fine.

• Influences the
‘Paradigms’ of
the group.
• Objective is to
Need to maintain The need
maintain
present level
present level
of
conflict: Survival
of living advancement. vs Growth

• Influences the
‘aspirations’ of the Need to grow
group. beyond the
• Objective is to grow present level
beyond the present of living
level
• Self improvement,
empathy

But what is the direction in which these beliefs are modified? That is decided by the
‘aspirations’ or spoken values of the leadership and the team which are as follows:

The need to evolve/grow the group/organisation into the next level: While the
organisation/ group is ensuring survival and sustainabilitiy, it is also aspiring to be much
better, bigger and stronger. The group learns from the environment and seeks to develop
qualities/characterstics which are stronger, nobler, more impactful. This is the other driving
force for groups/organizations.
To take the example of a family, while they have their beliefs and understanding of survival,
the couple are also aspiring to be healthier, richer, more socially acceptable as a family. This
could include developing personal traits like physical health, self disciplined, mental peace,
acquiring more knowledge, buying a property or a car, improving their standard of living.

Thus, while the husband and wife are watching their spending to ensure they do not get
into debt (survival) they would also aspire to put the savings in good investments, educate
themselves on financial planning, find alternate means to increase cash flow etc. These are
the aspirational values that are driving the growth of the family.

To take an example from the corporate world, In an organisation the leadership has been
driving growth in an autocratic manner with centralized decisionmaking and a disciplined
approach to delivering outcomes. But as they grow, the leadership also realizes that they
would have to decentralize the decision making and have a more teamwork approach to
work. They know that these values will make the organisation stronger and better. So they
project these values as part of the Mission, Vision and Values of the organisation. These
values are spoken about in all communications and money and time are invested to bring
about this change.

Survival and Growth are the two powerful drivers which

form the Culture of an organisation. The signifcant part of
Culture is how people think, take decisions, behave with
each other, proritize work and measure success and
failure.

As we can see in the below Culture Map, there is an overlap between the Pradigms (beliefs
for survival) and Aspirations (Values which would drive growth) and all the Cultural
engagement is happening around that overlap. The overall energy of this dynamics is
sustained by the Emotional Fabric of the group’s Culture.

Let’s look at these elements in more detail.

The Culture Map:

Emotional Fabric

Paradigms Engagement Aspirations External

Forces

Internal Forces

Environment

The five elements of a Culture are intertwined and reinforce each other. It’s a harmonious
play of forces which keeps the Culture vibrant and sustained. They are very similar to the
five elements found in a human body. Let’s look at each of these elements and how they
impact each other.
 Part 1

The Anatomy of Culture

The ‘Earth’ Element: Paradigms:

“The system is not working. That

starts a paradigm shift. The present
way of looking at the world does not
work any more” – Matthew Fox
Question: What is your idea of success in life? Have you ever questioned it’s
credibility and what was the answer?

For a few moments, imagine a horrific scene. You have been informed that in the next few
days, your beloved daughter, aged 10 years will be taken away from you and kept with a set
of strangers who will take care of her. She will not have any more contact with you or your
family. After about one year, they will kill her in an elaborate ceremony. You cannot do any
thing about this as this command has come from the highest authority and your only choice
is to follow the command obediently. How would you feel about this situation?

Now imagine yourself going back in time approximately 500 years, somewhere in South
America. You are the head of an Inca family in the city of Cuzco in the year 1470. You are
also a regional chief in the Chinchasuyu region (extending across present Eucador and
Colombia) and control a large group of villages which pay you taxes and enjoy your
protection. Life is very good for you and your extended family with decent comforts, food
and influence over people.

A week back, the Sapa Inca (Emperor) has been blessed with a son and a Capachocha
(solemn sacrifice) has been announced to please the God Viracocha (God of the Inca Gods).

You and your family have offered your ten year old daugher for the prestigious sacrifice.

If she is chosen for the sacrifice, it will be a tremendous benefit for her, as she would have
been ‘chosen’ by Viracocha (God of Gods) himself and few can imagine all the benefits she
would get in the afterlife. Further, she would be deified as an oracle and you would be a
proud parent when her name is mentioned for all important predictions. Your family would
get lot of gifts and concessions from the Sapa Inca (Emperor) and the Villac Umu (Chief
Priest) who are direct descendants of the Gods.
Your daughter is ‘competing’ with hundreds of other children to win the attention of the
priests and through them, Viracocha. If selected, she would be taken by the High priest and
his close entourage to groom her for the next one year, where she will be living in luxury,
fed corn and llama meat, cocoa leaves and plenty of best quality maize alcohol. Finally, she
will be taken to the Andean mountains and sacrificed in the eternal ‘lap of Viracocha’.

Today morning, a messenger from the Villac Umu (Chief Priest) visited your home and gave
you the news that your daughter has been selected to be sacrificed at the Capachocha
(royal sacrifice). How would you be feeling?

A paradigm is essentially a ‘way of looking at a situation or person’. In the above story, the
situation is the same, but the paradigm shifts dramatically with the context and time in
history.
At the peak of the horrific genocide of jews during world war 2, the Nazi’s used the gas
chamber as it seemed the most convenient and also, least painful way for people to die. It
was in a convoluted sense of compassion that the whole process was created to kill
thousands of people quickly and with minimum pain. Imagine the huge shift in paradigm for
them, which allowed them to justify the killing and even think ‘compassionately’ for those
who had been condemned to die. It was as if ‘these people have to die. Can we kill them
more compassionately?”

Paradigms are like these powerful colored lenses through which we are looking at the
world. At some point, they become a part of us and we see them as the absolute ‘truth’.
They are a double edged sword, which can protect us and also tear us apart.

A popular definition of a Paradigm is that it is “A system of beliefs, ideas, values, and habits
that is a way of thinking about the real world”. They are a perspective of the world and what
is the ‘right way’ of doing things. These are either already embedded in an
organization/society or are brought in by new members. These also signify what is required
to ‘thrive and survive’ in that group. All the behavior are eventually influenced by the
paradigms of that culture. They are a perspective and can be changed but that is easier said
than done. AS these are beliefs they are deeply embedded in the psyche of the group
members and very difficult to uproot.

For example, I was working with an organization where one perspective of the Founder was
that ‘everyone deserves a second chance’. This was a noble belief and would surely have
enhanced the positivity of the workplace, allowing people to commit honest mistakes and
learn from them. But, this idea was seemingly rooted in the deeper paradigm that ‘holding
on to people is good for the organization’. So, there were instances when some employees
would demonstrate inefficiency and lack of accountability or commit mistakes repeatedly,
deserving to be sacked. But the Founder would find some or the other reason to keep them
in the organization, either just reprimanding them, reducing their salary or shifting them to
another role.
As we can see from above example, Paradigms are very powerful and provide a strong sense
of security. Modifying or shifting them can require deep introspection or guidance by a
coach.

Paradigms have the following attributes about them:

• They are deeply embedded and are the condition of survival

• They are accepted truths and any difference of opinion by others gets a strong reaction
• In the raw form, every action is influenced by the paradigms.
• They may be selfish, restriced or intending harm to others

Paradigms are important as they build the foundation of the culture. In the context of a
family, usually the paradigms would include the belief that the parent has to take care of
the children, protect them and ‘teach’ them how to live their lives successfully. These
paradigms ensure that the vulnerable child is protected and allowed to grow safely into an
adult, who eventually is capable of protecting and taking care of oneself.

An important aspect of paradigms are that, they are only one view of the situation. They
may work very well at a certain point in time, but later might be counter effective. Let’s take
the same example of a family, where the paradigm is that the parents will protect and teach
the child. As the children grow up into teens, the situation changes. But some parents take
time to shift this paradigm and allow the children to take care of themselves or learn from
experience. They continue to keep ‘protecting’ or fussing over them and giving instructions.

The group or team naturally revisits paradigms when it sees a threat to its existence. When
the paradigm is questioned, it can be shaped to manage the internal or external forces
threatening the group.

In the above family example, the children growing into teens would start rebelling against
the ‘protection’ or instructions coming from the parents. This would be an ‘internal force’
threatening to breakup the family. The parents would be forced to revisit their paradigm
(that children need to be protected and instructed) and shape them so as to allow the
children some ‘freedom’ to take risks and think and learn on their own.

Learnings from the enviornment also play a very large role in the re shaping of paradigms.
Parents learn from other friends that it would be smarter to leave their growing children
alone, also learning from others experience and gaining confidence that it would work.

Organisations bring in consultants, who have learned from the experience of other
organisations and tell the leaders to re shape paradigms and resolve their challenges.

Reshaping paradigms is difficult, as they are entrenched as beliefs or ‘accepted truths’ in the
group. It’s accepted that following these beliefs will keep us safe and this allievates a lot of
anxiety, while making it easy to take decisions.

The biggest challenge to culture change is to reshape the

paradigms that are driving it.
This change first happens at the level of the leaders, who have to go back to their
fundamental truths and accept that they may not now work for them. So why is this so
challenging?

The need to be consistent: One of the key needs for all humans is to be consistent. To be
able to maintain what has been said, decreed or concluded by us in the past. Each time we
change what we have been saying on a topic, we feel the need to justify the same. This basic
need is a key reason for holding on to paradigms and beliefs.

Validation of Past experience: We have seen that beliefs worked for us in the past. The
parents know that if they had not consciously protected and instructed their children when
they were small, they would have been hurt or at great risk to their desired. There is a
strong sense of achievement and pride to the belief and reshaping it would be a challenge.

Immunity to change: There is a feeling that our beliefs, which we have been espousing for a
long time (Consistency) and proving beneficial (Validation) are good for us. Beliefs are
something which we have not contested for a very long time. They have sunk deep inside
our subconsious as the ‘right way to do things’. They were planted in our minds when we
were young, and watched our elders, and peer group follow them, allowing our
impressionable minds to accept them as an ‘unalterable truth’. At that depth of acceptance,
there is a primal fear of ‘letting go’ these anchors or foundations of our thinking. We tend to
go back to them again and again.

No experience of the new paradigm: When a new paradigm has to be embraced, one fears
the worst because it is new, and we have not seen the positive impact of this new approach
to a situation. I live in a fast growing suburb of New Delhi, the capital of India. The metro
train service in Delhi is a very convenient, comfortable and quick way to travel across the
large metropolis. New lines are continually getting added and now one can reach almost any
corner of the city in the air conditioned and comfortable environs of the train. Most
importantly, one is not constrained by the unpredictability of the traffic jams. Lastly, it is at a
fraction of the cost of travelling by car.
Yet, I could not bring myself to travel by the metro. Having driven my own car or in the last
few years, hiring an Uber taxi was the norm for me. Each time I would decide to use the
Metro train, my mind would find some excuse by ‘seeing’ benefits in driving down.
It was only about six months back, when my car had to go for repairs, that I started using
the metro train. Slowly, my paradigm (albeit a small one) of travelling in Delhi changed and I
am now close to championing the metro train for any travel in the city.

I worked with a Founder/CEO who had a fundamental paradigm that people need to be
‘horse whipped’ to get them to work. He had a very clear distinction in his mind of
Employers (who are truly industrious, innovating, risk taking and can be empowered) and
Employees ( who do not want to work, make a fool of the employers, and try and give
minimum effort at their job). It would be rare to find an employee who showed the traits of
an ‘employer/entrepreneur’).

This paradigm had worked for him in his years as a consultant who was getting work from
people on a part time basis. But when he expanded operations to bring in highly
experienced and mature employees, it went against him and the organisation. He would
bully, fire and demean his employees who would leave him after short stints. As the fear of
change was very high, he did not change his behaviour though he was clearly seeing a
dysfunctional impact.

Why is it related to the Earth? The Earth is the most solid of the five elements in the
universe. It holds the structure of every form in which the other four elements play their
roles. The earth is the base in which seeds germinate and grow deep roots which cannot be
seen, while the tree towers above. Similarly, the paradigms (though they cannot be seen)
are the most solid aspect of the culture. They are the foundation on which all the
behaviours, engagements and aspirations are built. They are most difficult to change and
are deeply embedded in the psyche of the group, giving a strong ‘structure’ to the cultural
behaviour driven in the group.
The irony is that paradigms ( Earth element) are the most ‘elusive’ to the group members,
and yet the most strong and powerful element of the Culture.

The Earth element is supposed to encompass all the other elements and they in turn give it
more solidity. In a similar fashion, the Paradigms are the origin of the other dimensions
(Engagement, Emotions and Aspirations) of the Culture. Everything starts from the
Paradigms as they lay the foundation of beliefs (accepted truths) which will drive the rest of
the dimensions.

Lets say that an organisation is running on the following paradigm:

Product quality is most important, and will ensure the survival and growth of the
organisation. A good quality product does not require too much marketing or sales. Making
a good quality product requires hard work, innovation and sound technical knowledge.

This one paradigm will drive all the engagements, aspirations and emotions of the
organisation. The engagements (people interactions) will largely be related to ensuring that
product quality is maintained, conflicts (which are large and difficult to resolve) will be
mostly around differing ideas about improving product quality. Celebrations, rewards and
punishment, performance reviews, exits, new inductions will be influenced by this one
single paradigm.

The power centers will be created around the competencies of hardwork, innovation and
technical knowledge. The rituals, appearances, work layout and work timings will also pay
heed to this paradigm.

Thus the paradigm will ‘bring forth’ all the other dimensions.

As the organisation succeeds and grows, the paradigm will be strengthened ( grow deeper
roots) as employees will be convinced that this is the ‘right way to do things’.
 At the family level, lets say that the parents are working on the following paradigm:

A good family spends less on appearances and ‘objects of desire’ and more on having
experiences together. Further, a smart family spends less than what it earns, and invests the
surplus for the future.

This one Paradigm will drive behaviour, which might show up as a family which lives simply,
uses the public transport, avoids expensive branded stuff, does not take too many loans
(unless it is for an investment), shops smartly for groceries and clothes, and takes well
planned family vacations at minimal expense. Children will be appreciated for living frugally,
the parents will role model austerity or self discipline.

As the children grow up, they might get influenced by their peer group and start questioning
this paradigm. This would raise conflicts and the family might start reshaping its culture,
looking differently at ‘spending on clothes etc’ and the importance of ‘family experiences’.

These changes will happen over a period of time, as the members who believe more deeply
in those paradigms (parents), will strongly resist and the new members will form their own
paradigms, which are a variant of the old one.

Exercise: Understanding my paradigms

You could ask the following questions to yourself: (in the family, social or organisational
context, which would be called the ‘Culture Group’)

a. How to we treat each other in the Culture Group? :

b. What do we talk about most of the time?
c. What do we believe is the ‘right’ way to do things? List out the first few things that
come to your mind.
d. What do we believe are the ‘wrong’ way of doing things, which should be avoided at
any cost.
e. How do we manage conflicts?
f. What are our common goals?

As you answer the above questions, think about the underlying ‘assumed truths’ which are
making the group members behave in that way.