Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BUILDING CULTURE
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Socialization from a Leadership Perspective
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Socialization from a Leadership Perspective
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HOW LEADERS CREATE
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
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HOW LEADERS CREATE
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
The process of culture formations is, in each case, first a process of creating a small
group. In the business organization, this process will usually involve some
version of the following steps:
1. A single person (founder) has an idea for a new enterprise.
2. The founder brings in one or more other people and creates a core group that
shares a common goal and vision with the founder. That is, they all believe that
the idea is a good one, is workable, is worth running some risks for, and is worth
the investment of time, money, and energy that will be required.
3. The founding group begins to act in concert to create an organization by raising
funds, obtaining patents, incorporating, locating work space, and so on.
4. Others are brought into the organization, and a common history begins to be
built. If the group remains fairly stable and has significant shared learning
experiences. It will gradually develop assumptions about itself, its environment,
and how to do things to survive and grow.
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HOW LEADERS CREATE
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
The Jones Food Company
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HOW LEADERS CREATE
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
Smithfield Enterprises
Action’s founder, Murphy, is a very dominant, strong personality who began with a
clear theory of how things should be. He and four others founded the company
believing they could build a particular new high-tech product which there would
eventually be a very large market. After some years they found that they did not
share a vision of how to build an organization, and all except Murphy left the
organization.
Murphy’s role in this process has been to reassert his basic beliefs in giving people
freedom to propose and sell ideas, and once approved, to hold them accountable.
He has steadfastly resisted formulating centralized top-down strategies, even though
the organization has increasingly needed them to maintain coordination among the
many business units it now has.
One of the things that frustrates him most is that he sees managers to whom he has
given the freedom to propose and be accountable taking that freedom away from
their own subordinates. However, according to his own logic, he cannot simply fire
them but must rely instead on persuasion and the clear articulation of his philosophy
in the hope that they will learn form their own experience that giving freedom works
better. 9
HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Primary Embedding Mechanisms
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Primary Embedding Mechanisms
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Primary Embedding Mechanisms
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Primary Embedding Mechanisms
If the founders or leaders are trying to ensure that their values and assumptions will
be learned, they must create a reward, promotion, and status system that is
consistent with those assumptions. Whereas the message initially gets across in the
daily behavior of the leader, it is judged in the long run by whether the important
rewards are allocated consistently with that daily behavior. If these levels of
message transmission are inconsistent, one will find a highly conflicted organization
without a clear culture or any culture at all at a total organization level.
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Primary Embedding Mechanisms
One of the most subtle yet most potent ways through which cultural
assumptions get embedded and perpetuated is the process of selecting
new members. If a founder assumes that the best way to build an
organization is to hire the very tough, independent people and then leave
them alone and he is successful in continuing to hire tough and
independent people, he will create the kind of culture he assumes will
work best. He may never realize that the success of the culture lies in
the success of the recruitment effort and that his beliefs about how to
organize might become disconfirmed if he could no longer hire the right
kinds of people to fit his assumptions.
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Secondary Articulation and Reinforcement Mechanisms
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Secondary Articulation and Reinforcement Mechanisms
Given that group members seek this kind of stability and anxiety reduction.
Founders and leaders have the opportunity to reinforce their assumptions by
building systems and routines around them. If founders or leaders do not
design systems and procedures as reinforcement mechanisms, they open the
door to historically evolved inconsistencies in the culture or weaken their own
message from the outset. 17
HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Secondary Articulation and Reinforcement Mechanisms
When the only salient data we have are the rites and rituals that have
survived over a period of time, we must, of course, use them as best
we can; as with structure and processes, however, if we have only
these data, it is difficult to decipher just what assumptions leaders have
held that have led to the creation of particular rites and rituals. On the
other hand, from the point of view of the leader, if one can ritualize
certain behaviors that one considers important, that becomes a
powerful reinforcer.
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Secondary Articulation and Reinforcement Mechanisms
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HOW LEADERS EMBED AND
TRANSMIT CULTURE
Secondary Articulation and Reinforcement Mechanisms