ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

The most important thing about culture is that it’s the only sustainable point of difference for any
organization. Anyone can copy a company’s strategy, but nobody can copy their culture. But what
is organizational culture?

Culture is driven by leadership. How leaders behave, what they say, and what they value drives
culture
-Culture is how organizations do things
-The values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of
an organization
-Organizational culture defines a jointly shared description of an organization from within
-Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as “glue” to integrate the
members of the organization
-Organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how
people behave in organizations
-Organizational culture is civilization in the workplace
-Organizational culture refers to the philosophies, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and practices that
define an organization
-Culture is the organization’s immune system
-It over simplifies the situation in large organizations to assume there is only one culture … and
it’s risky for new leaders to ignore the sub-cultures

Understanding Organizational Culture

Would you act the same way at a rock concert as you would while watching a symphony orchestra
perform? Although there are no written rules that dictate the acceptable way to act at either type
of performance, the concert audience will try to make it very clear to you if your behavior does not
conform to what they consider to be appropriate.
Would you dress the same way to attend a golf tournament as you would to attend a football
game? Although both are sporting events, there are a set of unwritten rules that dictate what is
considered to be the acceptable way to dress for each type of event, and the people in attendance
will send you signals as to whether or not they think you are dressed appropriately.
At concerts, sporting events, and just about everywhere that people get together, group members
convey social expectations by how they dress and act. Newcomers to the group are expected to
learn what is acceptable to the group by observing the behavior and dress code of the group
members and adapting to the situation accordingly.

Defining Organizational Culture

Organizational culture works a lot like this. Every company has its own unique personality, just like
people do. The unique personality of an organization is referred to as its culture. In groups of
people who work together, organizational culture is an invisible but powerful force that influences
the behavior of the members of that group. So, how do we define organizational culture?
Organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs
how people behave in organizations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in
the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Every organization
develops and maintains a unique culture, which provides guidelines and boundaries for the
behavior of the members of the organization. Let's explore what elements make up an
organization's culture.
Organizational culture is composed of seven characteristics that range in priority from high to low.
Every organization has a distinct value for each of these characteristics, which, when combined,
defines the organization's unique culture. Members of organizations make judgments on the value
their organization places on these characteristics and then adjust their behavior to match this
perceived set of values. Let's examine each of these seven characteristics.
Elements of Organizational Culture
Organizations (e.g., project/programmed purpose organizations) develop their own culture. The
culture of an organization consists of elements that are valued and practiced. The emerging
challenges for communicating and organizing in a global/local operational environment (think
globally, act locally) are based on understanding the interrelationships among cultural differences,
communication behaviors, and organizational relationships both within and outside of the
organization. The challenges for a manager is to examine the current culture and style of
communication operating within an organization and to develop communication skills that will
allow for the insight, sensitivity, vision, versatility, focus, patience, and global-localism called for in
today’s complex work environment.

The following list outlines some of the key elements of organizational culture:
Values
The goals, views, and philosophies that an organization shares. Example: The organization’s
mission statement.
Programmed purpose environment
See the projected organization
Rites and Rituals
Celebrations, performances, and activities that foster and reinforce teamwork, esprit de corps, and
a sense of inclusion. They are what make employees feel part of something bigger than
themselves, that that something is worth being a part of. These can include annual parties, sales
meetings, organizational retreats, or any other group activities
Heroes
Members of the organization who personify its values and highlight its vision.
Communication Networks
Informal channels that relay both work and social messages. These networks not only convey
information necessary to get the job done, but also provide for necessary social interaction among
employees. Even though the primary task in any organization is to do our jobs, the organization is
also a social outlet. It is important to acknowledge and even nurture the social interaction that is
part of any organizational or organizational culture. Communication networks also indoctrinate
new members into the culture, and reinforce the cultural messages in the organization.
Norms
The ways of doing things in an organization; the rules, tasks and standards of the organization.
Examples: Dress codes or ways of addressing superiors/subordinates, leading ethics, etc.
Stories, Myths, and Legends
The organizational history and other stories that embody the organizational culture and emphasize
what the organization values.
Organizational/Communication Climate
The atmosphere of either supportiveness or defensiveness that people feel within the organization
itself. Do they feel safe? Protected? Appreciated? Are they confidant that their opinions count? Do
they know that when they have something to say, they have a way to say it so that it will be
heard, and that people will listen and take their ideas or comments seriously? The overall
organizational climate also includes the organization’s communication climate—how free people
feel to communicate at work, especially about bad news or negative information. When people
feel they cannot communicate bad news for fear of reprisal, the organization loses valuable
information about how it operates.

Elements of Organizational Culture:

There are many possible elements of organizational culture. The above definition includes three of
the elements of organizational culture.
Organizational Values. Values reflect what we feel is important. Organizations may have core
values that reflect what is important in the organization. These values may be guiding principles
of behavior for all members in the organization. The core values may be stated on the
organization's website. For example, an organization could state that their core values are
creativity, humor, integrity, dedication, mutual respect, kindness, and contribution to society.

Organizational Beliefs. Beliefs that are part of an organization's culture may include beliefs
about the best ways to achieve certain goals such as increasing productivity and job motivation.
For example, an organization may convey the belief that the expression of humor in the workplace
is an effective way to increase productivity and job motivation.

Organizational Norms. Norms reflect the typical and accepted behaviors in an organization.
They may reflect the values and beliefs of the organization. They may reflect how certain tasks
are generally expected to be accomplished, the attributes of the work environment, the typical
ways that people communicate in the organization, and the typical leadership styles in the
organization. For example, the work environment of a company may be described as relaxed,
cheerful, and pleasant. Moreover, the organization may have a participative decision making
process in which many people in the organization are able to express their views concerning
important decisions. Also, an organization may have many meetings to discuss ideas.

The Importance of the Organizational Culture Concept

Organizational culture may be an important concept for a few reasons.
First, understanding the culture of an organization may be helpful for applicants. They may have a
better idea about whether they would like to work for a company. Second, understanding the
culture of an organization may help in training new employees. Third, understanding
organizational culture may help leaders to identify possible sources of problems in the
organization.

Organizational Culture and Leadership

There may be at least three ways in which leadership is important with respect to organizational
culture. First, a leader of an organization may play an important role in identifying the elements of
the organization's culture. The leader could make a list of the organization's current values,
beliefs, and norms. Second, after identifying the current elements of the organization's culture,
the leader can make evaluations of the elements of organizational culture that may be negative.
The leader could make a list of the specific values, beliefs, and norms that may contribute to major
problems in the organization (e.g., a lack of job motivation). Third, after identifying the possible
negative elements, the leader could develop strategies to foster a positive organizational culture
change. The leader could make a list of the elements of a more ideal culture, develop specific
ways to communicate the changes, and develop techniques to motivate people to adopt the new
culture.

Organizational Culture Change

There may be many reasons why the culture of an organization needs to be changed. These
reasons may include lack of morale, lack of job motivation, lack of job meaning, and changes in the
business (e.g., the development of a new product) that would require a change in the way things
are done in the organization. For example, there may be too much micromanagement in a
company. It may be better if employees had more autonomy. This may increase morale. Sherman
(1989) found that unit morale was positively correlated with autonomy. Because this finding is
correlational, we cannot make causal conclusions. This process of culture change should involve all
members of the organization. This process of culture change could involve surveys in which
members describe specific elements of the organizational culture that members view as negative.
Culture vs. Organizational Culture
Although the concept of organizational culture is similar to the concept of culture (e.g., the
elements of culture may be similar to the elements of organizational culture), it is important to
make a distinction between the two concepts. There may be a few ways in which these concepts
may be different. First, organizational culture may be more formal than culture. Some
organizations may have a significant part of their culture in written form. For example, they may
have the core values stated on the website, and the values, beliefs, and norms of the organization
may be indicated in employee manuals. In contrast, much of the values, beliefs, and norms that
are a reflection of a culture may be unwritten. Second, there may be less consistency between
elements of organizational culture than elements of culture. Some of the elements of
organizational culture that are in written form may be inconsistent with certain norms observed in
the organization. In contrast, many of the norms of a culture may simply reflect the values of the
culture.

What is culture?
Culture is the way we do things around here'. This means the sum total of the belief, knowledge,
attitudes, norms and customs that prevail in an organization.
-Organizations have distinctive cultures, and behavior acceptable in one organizational culture
may be inappropriate in another - think about the different cultures in the different accountancy
firms, for example.
-Also cultures develop over time or can change instantly as a result of a single major event, e.g.
death of company founder, threatened takeover, etc.
Components of culture
The key elements of organizational culture are:

Norms. guide people's behavior, suggesting what is or is

not appropriate (the 'done thing'.) - E.g. informal dress
codes.
Symbols or symbolic action. e.g. rituals such as
buying the office a cake on your birthday.
Beliefs. underlie the culture by identifying what is
important, e.g. a belief in the importance of people as
individuals.

The factors that shape the culture of the organization

The six major influences on the culture of an organization are as follows:
1. Size - How large is the organization - in terms of turnover, physical size, and employee
numbers.
2. Technology - How technologically advanced is the organization - either in terms of its
product, or its productive processes?
3. Diversity - How diverse is the company - either in terms of product range, geographical
spread or cultural make-up of its stakeholders?
4. Age - How old is the business or the managers of the business - do its strategic level
decision makers have experience to draw upon?
 5. History - What worked in the past? Do decision makers have past successes to draw upon;
are they willing to learn from their mistakes?
6. Ownership - Is the organization owned by a sole trader? Are there a small number of
institutional shareholders or are there large numbers of small shareholders?

Other influences on culture

1. There are other, more subtle influences:
2. The degree of individual initiative - is it encouraged or are decisions always referred
upwards.
3. The degree of risk tolerance - are managers only allowed to follow low-risk strategies
4. Clarity of direction - is there a clear focus; are these clear objectives and performance
expectations.
5. The degree of integration between groups - are different units encouraged to work
together. Are management aloof or approachable; is communication clear to lower level
staff.
6. The reward system - are individuals rewarded for succeeding, i.e. are rewards based on
performance criteria.
7. Conflict tolerance - are employees encouraged to air grievances.
8. Communication patterns - is there a formal hierarchy or an informal network.
9. Formalization of clothing and office layout - are there strict rules over this.
10. The kind of people employed (graduates, young, old, etc.).

What Are Organizational Subcultures?

When Becky Wilcox was growing up, her favorite thing to do was to make apple pies with her
grandma. Grandma Wilcox grew apples on her farm in North Carolina and was known throughout
the county for her delicious apple pies. Grandma's secret for making great pies was the amazing
attention to detail that she put into each pie, adding just the right amount of sugar and spices to
make each one perfect. When Becky got older, she convinced her grandma to start selling her
apple pies, and a business was born.

Today, Grandma's Apple Pies is a multi-million dollar company with over one thousand employees
who all believe in the culture that was established by their founder: that paying attention to detail
makes the best pies.

Dominant Culture vs. Subculture

Every organization has a dominant culture, which is unique to that organization and provides its
members with boundaries and guidelines that shape their behavior. Most large organizations also
have numerous subcultures, which consist of the core values of the dominant culture and
additional values unique to the subculture. Subcultures form when a group of people within an
organization share a situation, problem, or experience that is unique to them. Areas of
differentiation that can cause subcultures to form in organizations include geographical separation,
departmental designations, functional specialty, tenure, and identity.

How Do Subcultures Form?

Many different types of workers are responsible for the success of Grandma's Apple Pies. In order
to make as many apple pies as their customers demand, Grandma's Apple Pies needs a diverse
group of skilled workers, which include pie bakers, office staff, salespeople, and upper
management.

Although everyone who works at Grandma's Apple Pies follows the guidelines of the dominant
culture established by Grandma Wilcox many years ago, many subcultures exist within this
organization that share values that are unique to only their subculture. Let's find out how these
subcultures formed and how they established their unique set of values.

Subcultures Based on Job Designation

One factor that contributes to the formation of subcultures in organizations is geographical
separation. When a group of people within an organization operate in a location that is physically
apart from the rest of the organization, a subculture often forms among members of the detached
group. The members of this subculture establish unique values that provide them with a sense of
identity and help them perform their jobs correctly.

The pie bakers at Grandma's Pies are geographically separated from the rest of the organization.
Although the bakers who work at Grandma's Pies work at the same location as the rest of the
organization, they work in a separate building, and they have very little interaction with any other
members of the organization. This physical separation reinforces a subculture among the bakers
that emphasizes teamwork. The pie bakers work as a team to create apple pies and depend on
each other's efforts to make sure the pies are made correctly and cooked just right.

Another factor that contributes to the formation of subcultures in organizations is departmental

designation. People who work in the same department often form a subculture based on a unique
set of values, which help them perform their jobs and are exclusive to their subculture.

Although the rest of the employees at Grandma's Pies work in the same office building, there are
still many subcultures present within this group of people. Upper management, which includes the
chief executive officer, chief financial officer, treasurer, and several vice presidents, share a
subculture that was formed due to departmental designation and values maintaining the financial
health of the organization. Members of the upper management subculture have their own offices
and usually have meetings that include only members of their subculture and not the other office
workers.

The remainder of the office workers at Grandma's Apple Pies consists of the accounting
department, the sales and marketing department, executive assistants, and receptionists. The
office workers have formed their own subculture due to departmental designation, which is
focused on following the rules and policies of the organization. Every member of this subculture
works at a cubicle instead of their own office, and they do not consider the members of upper
management to be members of their group. The office workers are clearly the largest subculture
that exists at Grandma's Pies, and although together they form an exclusive subculture, this
subculture can be divided into many more subcultures.

Another factor that contributes to the formation of subcultures in organizations is functional

specialty, or area of expertise. People who perform the same type of job often form a subculture
based on unique values, which help them perform their jobs and are exclusive to their subculture.

The sales and marketing staff are members of the office worker subculture, but the salespeople
within this subculture have formed their own subculture based on functional specialty, which is
goal-oriented and values meeting sales quotas. The sales force spends a majority of their time
outside of the office meeting with customers, which gives them experiences that are unique to
only their subculture.

Impact/ Effects of organizational Culture

Organizational culture provides a framework with respect to the behavior of employees in their
workplace. Depending on the type of culture that is created in an organization, it can have a
positive or negative effect on employee performance. Let’s look at a few organizational situations
that result in either positive or negative employee performance.

An organizational culture where employees are considered an integral part of the growth process
of the organization fosters employee commitment towards the organization. They align their goals
and objectives with those of the organization and feel responsible for the overall well-being of the
organization. As their efforts are in turn appreciated by the management and suitably rewarded,
they have immense job satisfaction. In such organizational cultures, the employees are committed
to achieving their goals and thus have a positive effect on the overall performance of the
organization.
In organizations where managers are not facilitators but taskmasters, employees live with fear and
distrust and work is nothing but a dreary chore. Since they are not involved in the overall
organizational goals, they do not understand the implications of their tasks and hence may not be
committed to achieving them. An organization where there is no cooperation between different
departments ends up having employees working in silos or working towards undermining the
efforts of the other departments which is detrimental to the overall health of the organization.

Organizational culture to a large extent determines the performance of the employees. Therefore,
it is in the interest of organizations to eliminate negative factors that slow down employee
performance in order to foster a positive workplace environment or a positive organizational
culture.

The effects of organizational culture are many and varied. Obviously the effect of organizational
culture varies depending on whether the company has a strong culture or a weak culture, but
there are some generalities that apply. This article is going to focus on the positive effects that
occur when a company makes a concerted effort to establish a strong positive organizational
culture at the work place.
Many workers are spending more and more time at work. Depending on the job or company, many
workers would put in 50, 60, or even more hours a week. The old axiom goes that a happy worker
is a productive worker, and this is one of the effects of organizational culture.
Workers want to enjoy work. They want to be interested in whatever is going on that day, or long
term goals. Being part of something meaningful that the worker enjoys makes the whole
experience of work better, which will make them more productive. The effects of organizational
culture should help provide this setting.
A strong organization will focus on the environment it creates for its workers because that will help
encourage a more efficient and productive company. Focusing on building and sustaining
organizational culture shows employees that they are considered an important part of the
company. This type of company generally has among the best response from its employees and
thus will also have a much better chance of achieving its goals.
There are five major reasons for wanting to create an appropriate and positive organizational
culture for your company:
1) A strong organizational culture will attract high level talent. The high level talent entering
corporations want to go to the companies that offer opportunities for advancement and to show off
their talents. The best people can be choosy and they will strongly consider the companies where
the organizational culture appears effective and positive and the workers get along with each other
and are united in their goals of making the company better.
2) A strong organizational culture will help to keep your top level talent. If workers love the job
they are at, and feel like valuable members of a team, then they’re not likely to want to go to
another company. A top notch culture will not only attract the best new talent, but help retain
them afterwards.
3) A strong culture creates energy and momentum. Once a strong organizational culture is built, it
will gain a momentum of its own and will help to allow people to feel valued and express
themselves freely. The excitement and energy this will cause will end up being a positive influence
that affects every part of the organization.
4) A strong and successful organizational culture should alter the employee’s view of work. Most
people think of work as boring, aggravating, stressful, etc. Instead of thinking of work as a place
you have to go, a solid culture can make employees look forward to work. If the workers love
coming into the job, they are going to work harder, and put more effort into any job. Everyone
wants a job that they enjoy, and most people are willing to work: but it’s easier to work hard in a
job you enjoy than in one you hate. Same principle applies to everyone else, too.
5) A strong and positive organizational culture will help make everyone more efficient and
successful. From the lowest mail room worker to the highest CEO, a strong culture helps everyone.
You often hear this type of description made with a professional football team.
One of the best teams for years is the New England Patriots are known for having a team players
and a team system and their success has been amazing despite giant turnover. A strong
organizational culture can breed success, and its importance should not be discounted.
Sample of Organizational Culture
For anyone who has any doubts about how important organizational culture is, all they have to do
is find two sample organizational cultures, one that was healthy, one that was not, and take a look
at the difference between the two companies.
One of the great all time examples of this is actually between two of the best known companies in
the world: IBM and Microsoft. In this example, IBM didn't even necessarily have a terrible
organizational culture, but they did fall into several of the traps that caused them to become
stagnant.
This example is from the late 1980s. Microsoft was a fairly good company, with revenues in the
tens of millions--but a long way from what they are now. At the time, IBM had the largest market
share by far with over 80% of the mainframe market. Although long forgotten history by most
people, at that time IBM spent a large amount of time and money investing in a software system
that was supposed to "take over everything."
It was called OS/2, and at the time many people complained that there would be no more
experimentation because obviously OS/2 would be with every IBM which would put a strangle hold
on the industry. Obviously that didn’t happen . . . but why? With 80% of the market cornered, an
international market, and their own new software, how did IBM not take over?
One of the obvious reasons is Microsoft. Microsoft has done what everyone thought IBM was going
to do in the late 1980s. What ended up happening was the OS/2 was really memory heavy and not
nearly as functional as it could have been. Bill Gates and Microsoft took advantage of IBM's
blunders to take over the market. IBM stopped analyzing its own corporate culture because they
were so dominate the thought became "everything we're doing is right," and in retrospect, the
higher ups at IBM were completely concerned with internal measures, internal goals, and proving
production.
They were so obsessed with keeping track of how many lines of programming were getting done
that many programmers did not write the best of most efficient programming--because it wasn't
enough lines!
Meanwhile, Microsoft's entire organizational culture was not focused on bureaucracy, but on
getting things done. The bottom line was a better product, followed by an even better product, and
so on. While IBM became so entangled with bulkier and bulkier programming and bureaucracy
(they even had a class on how to order document manuals from the main company--just to get
help).
Microsoft took advantage by making a product aimed at the customers, not at internal specs.
Because of this they absolutely dominated the computer market. IBM had a series of setbacks that
resulted in the stock tumbling and the need to hire a complete outsider to re-invent the company.
This is an example where becoming overconfident, falling into dangers of bureaucracy, and
internal numbers and goals caused a company that never should have lost its near monopoly on
the market to almost bust, while an upstart company who "had no business competing with IBM"
according to most sources, had an outstanding organizational culture based on customers’ needs
and getting things done (as opposed to how they were done and measured--IBM's downfall).
Microsoft is a sample organizational culture that showed how a company could work, and how
important that culture was. While IBM has recovered into a great company, the late eighties to
early nineties shows the cost of falling into the trap of weak organizational culture.

Case Study
1. From Innovating Lean Six Sigma by Kimberly Watson-Hemphill.
A plastics manufacturer that was trying to come out of bankruptcy acknowledged that it had a
culture of command-and-control management. The unstated mantra was. Do as I say.” The
company was turning to Lean Six Sigma to help it improve operationally, and the leaders realized
that if the deployment was to work, they needed to create a new culture. They needed to
emphasize inquiry and teamwork. They wanted to have managers ask, “What do you think? More
often and behave in ways that demonstrated. We are in this together.
The employees wanted to believe that the new management team was serious about this, but they
were not easily convinced. The starting point was to create better alignment from top to bottom.
Everyone was educated about the new vision for the company’s future and why the old way of
doing business was unsustainable given current market conditions.
More important, though, this message was backed up with leadership behaviors that demonstrated
support every single day.

For example:
The general manager attended every shift change meeting every day, and would ask what he
could do to help that shift achieve its goals and become more effective?? When behaviors didn’t
match values, the leaders took action to change those behaviors, up to and including termination
for repeated violations.
Other changes were made as well. For example, to improve teamwork and collaboration, the
production and maintenance departments created combined teams that were given more and
more responsibility for production. These teams were trained not only on the tools of Lean Six
Sigma, but also on the business and how the work of each team affected the business. Eventually,
line maintenance and production associates could explain how their preventive maintenance
procedures affected EBIDTA not just parroting back what they’d been told, but explaining it in their
own words.
With these kinds of changes, slowly the dictatorial you do as I say culture was replaced with high-
performance work teams that understood how what they did on a day-to-day basis affected the
company. And these cultural changes led to business results.
Over a three-year period, the company went from bankruptcy to having customers ask. What have
you done? Your quality is so good now and can you come show us how to improve that much? If
you’ve ever worked in an organization that was trying to change its values, you’ll know that it’s not
easy.
Getting people to value the improvement process and tools is difficult, and if there aren’t simple
steps they can take, they won’t do it. Even in this manufacturing
company, where the future was bleak at the outset, there were a number of things about the new
culture that some people didn’t like. As just one example, maintenance personnel had established
the norm of taking their work breaks even if they were in the middle of fixing a production line that
was down which led to a lot of lost production hours. In the new mentality, getting the production
line back up and running was the priority. Other people were uncomfortable with the new reliance
on data, and still others with the emphasis on teamwork. In the end, some people opted out and
chose to work somewhere else rather than change. However, on the whole, the cultural changes
led to greater employee engagement, and the company experienced significant improvement.

2. The Issue:
TFC’s leadership team saw the need for fundamental change. Fragmented business processes
were creating errors and losses; groups weren’t working well together; the workforce was
disconnected from the business strategy and customers were highly dissatisfied. Employees felt
they were getting “beaten up” by ongoing reengineering, outsourcing, and resource shortages,
and were also being squeezed by new information technology initiatives.

Management could see that the group was not prepared for the tremendous challenges it was
facing. Something needed to be done quickly, and a top-down change initiative clearly wasn’t the
answer.

What we did:
The leadership team wanted to accelerate the change process, build commitment to the
organization, turn morale around and create a flexible, smooth-running business. OTM proposed an
organization redesign process that would engage the entire organization, provide a platform for
team building, gain commitment and rekindle the spirit of its workforce. OTM led the team through
an organizational design project that rebuilt the structure based on the team’s own definitions of
what was required. Going through a comprehensive process facilitated by OTM consultants meant
that no details or consequences were left unnoticed or unresolved.

The Result:
Employees Become Leaders
TFC’s new design eliminated functional silos and highlighted the interdependence of the various
groups. It increased collective and individual morale and employee investment while reducing
defensiveness and increasing receptivity to change. Unlike many such initiatives, the process OTM
brought to TFC focused not just on deficiencies but also on positive performance and what had
been successful, enabling TFC to respond quickly to their fast-changing business environment.

Organizational culture
Organizational culture encompasses values and behaviors that "contribute to the unique social and
psychological environment of an organization". Organizational culture represents the collective
values, beliefs and principles of organizational members and is a product of such factors as history,
product, market, technology, strategy, type of employees, management style, and national
culture; culture includes the organization's vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language,
assumptions, environment, location, beliefs, and habits.
Business executive Bernard L. Rosauer (2013) developed what he refers to as an actionable
definition of organizational culture: "Organizational culture is an emergence – an extremely
complex incalculable state that results from the combination of a few simple ingredients.
In "Three Bell Curves: Business Culture Decoded". Rosauer outlines the three manageable
ingredients he says guides the culture of any business.
#1 – Employee (focus on engagement)
#2 The Work (focus on eliminating waste increasing value) waste
#3 The Customer (focus on likelihood of referral).
The purpose of the Three Bell Curves methodology is to bring leadership, their employees, the
work and the customer together for focus without distraction, leading to an improvement in culture
and brand. Reliance of the research and findings of Sirota Survey Intelligence, who has been
gathering employee data worldwide since 1972, the Lean Enterprise Institute, Cambridge, MA, and
Fred Reichheld/Bain/Satmetrix research relating to NetPromoterScore.
Ravasi and Schultz (2006) wrote that organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions that
guide what happens in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. It is
also the pattern of such collective behaviors and assumptions that are taught to new
organizational members as a way of perceiving and, even, thinking and feeling. Thus,
organizational culture affects the way people and groups interact with each other, with clients, and
with stakeholders. In addition, organizational culture may affect how much employees identify with
an organization. Schein (1992), Deal and Kennedy (2000), and Kotter (1992) advanced the idea
that organizations often have very differing cultures as well as subcultures. Although a company
may have its "own unique culture", in larger organizations there are sometimes co-existing or
conflicting subcultures because each subculture is linked to a different management team.

Organizational culture refers to culture in any type of organization including that of schools,
universities, not-for-profit groups, government agencies, or business entities. In business, terms
such as corporate culture and company culture are often used to refer to a similar concept. The
term corporate culture became widely known in the business world in the late 1980s and early
1990s. Corporate culture was already used by managers, sociologists, and organizational theorists
by the beginning of the 80s. The related idea of organizational climate emerged in the 1960s and
70s, and the terms are now somewhat overlapping.
If organizational culture is seen as something that characterizes an organization, it can be
manipulated and altered depending on leadership and members. Culture as root metaphor sees
the organization as its culture, created through communication and symbols, or competing
metaphors. Culture is basic, with personal experience producing a variety of perspectives.

The organizational communication perspective on culture views culture in three different ways:
Traditionalism: views culture through objective things such as stories, rituals, and symbols
Interpretivism: views culture through a network of shared meanings (organization members
sharing subjective meanings)
Critical-interpretivism: views culture through a network of shared meanings as well as the power
struggles created by a similar network of competing meanings

Strong and weak

Strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to
organizational values. In such environments, strong cultures help firms operate like well-oiled
machines, engaging in outstanding execution with only minor adjustments to existing procedures
as needed.
Conversely, there is weak culture where there is little alignment with organizational values, and
control must be exercised through extensive procedures and bureaucracy.
Research shows that organizations that foster strong cultures have clear values that give
employees a reason to embrace the culture. A "strong" culture may be especially beneficial to
firms operating in the service sector since members of these organizations are responsible for
delivering the service and for evaluations important constituents make about firms. Organizations
may derive the following benefits from developing strong and productive cultures:
Better aligning the company towards achieving its vision, mission, and goals
High employee motivation and loyalty
Increased team cohesiveness among the company's various departments and divisions
Promoting consistency and encouraging coordination and control within the company
Shaping employee behavior at work, enabling the organization to be more efficient
Where culture is strong, people do things because they believe it is the right thing to do, and there
is a risk of another phenomenon, groupthink. "Groupthink" was described by Irving Janis. He
defined it as "a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage when they
are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override
their motivation to realistically appraise alternatives of action." This is a state in which even if they
have different ideas, they do not challenge organizational thinking, and therefore there is a
reduced capacity for innovative thoughts. This could occur, for example, where there is heavy
reliance on a central charismatic figure in the organization, or where there is an evangelical belief
in the organization's values, or also in groups where a friendly climate is at the base of their
identity (avoidance of conflict). In fact, groupthink is very common and happens all the time, in
almost every group. Members that are defiant are often turned down or seen as a negative
influence by the rest of the group because they bring conflict.

Healthy
Organizations should strive for what is considered a "healthy" organizational culture in order to
increase productivity, growth, efficiency and reduce counterproductive behavior and turnover of
employees. A variety of characteristics describe a healthy culture, including:
 1. Acceptance and appreciation for diversity
2. Regard for and fair treatment of each employee as well as respect for each employee's
contribution to the company
3. Employee pride and enthusiasm for the organization and the work performed
4. Equal opportunity for each employee to realize their full potential within the company
5. Strong communication with all employees regarding policies and company issues
6. Strong company leaders with a strong sense of direction and purpose
7. Ability to compete in industry innovation and customer service, as well as price
8. Lower than average turnover rates (perpetuated by a healthy culture)
9. Investment in learning, training, and employee knowledge

Additionally, performance oriented cultures have been shown to possess statistically better
financial growth. Such cultures possess high employee involvement, strong internal
communications and an acceptance and encouragement of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to
achieve innovation. Additionally, organizational cultures that explicitly emphasize factors related to
the demands placed on them by industry technology and growth will be better performers in their
industries.
According to Kotter and Heskett (1992), organizations with adaptive cultures perform much better
than organizations with unadaptive cultures. An adaptive culture translates into organizational
success; it is characterized by managers paying close attention to all of their constituencies,
especially customers, initiating change when needed, and taking risks. An unadaptive culture can
significantly reduce a firm's effectiveness, disabling the firm from pursuing all its
competitive/operational options.
Healthy companies are able to deal with employees' concerns about the well-being of the
organization internally, before the employees would even feel they needed to raise the issues
externally. It is for this reason that whistleblowing, particularly when it results in serious damage to
a company's reputation, is considered to be often a sign of a chronically dysfunctional corporate
culture.