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Lesson#44
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The Behavioral Approach
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The Behavioral Approach
This method of diagnosis emphasizes the surface level of
organization culture—the pattern of behaviors
that produce business results. It is among the more practical
approaches to culture diagnosis because it
assesses key work behaviors that can be observed. The behavioral
approach provides specific descriptions
about how tasks are performed and how relationships are managed
in an organization. For example, Table
25 summarizes the organization culture of an international
banking division as perceived by its managers.
The data were obtained from a series of individual and group
interviews asking managers to describe "the
way the game is played,” as if they were coaching a new
organization member.
Managers were asked to give
their impressions in regard to four key
relationships—companywide, boss-subordinate, peer, and
interdepartmental—and in terms of six managerial
tasks—innovating, decision making, communicating,
organizing, monitoring, and appraising/rewarding. These
perceptions revealed a number of implicit norms
for how tasks are performed and relationships managed at the
division.
Cultural diagnosis derived from a behavioral approach can also
be used to assess the cultural risk of trying
to implement organizational changes needed to support a new
strategy. Significant cultural risks result when
changes that are highly important to implementing a new strategy
are incompatible with the existing
patterns of behavior. Knowledge of such risks can help managers
determine whether implementation plans
should be changed to manage around the existing culture, whether
the culture should be changed, or
whether the strategy itself should be modified or abandoned.
The Competing Values Approach
This perspective assesses an organization's culture in terms of
how it resolves a set of value dilemmas. The
approach suggests that an organization's culture can be
understood in terms of two important "value pairs";
each pair consists of contradictory values placed at opposite
ends of a continuum, as shown in Figure 59.
The two value pairs are (1) internal focus and integration
versus external focus and differentiation and (2)
flexibility and discretion versus stability and control.
Organizations continually struggle to satisfy the
conflicting demands placed on them by these competing values.
For example, when faced with the
competing values of internal versus external focus,
organizations must choose between attending to the
integration problems of internal operations or the competitive
issues in the external environment. Too
much emphasis on the environment can result in neglect of
internal efficiencies. Conversely, too much
attention to the internal aspects of organizations can result in
missing important changes in the competitive
environment.
The competing values approach commonly collects diagnostic data
about the competing values with a
survey designed specifically for that purpose. It provides
measures of where an organization's existing
values fall along each of the dimensions. When taken together,
these data identify an organization's culture
as falling into one of the four quadrants shown in Figure 59:
clan culture, adhocracy culture, hierarchical
culture, and market culture. For example, if an organization's
values are focused on internal integration
issues and emphasize innovation and flexibility, it manifests a
clan culture. On the other hand, a market
culture characterizes values that are externally focused and
emphasize stability and control.
Table 25
Figure 59
The Deep Assumptions Approach
This final diagnostic approach emphasizes the deepest levels of
organization culture—the generally
unexamined, but tacit and shared assumptions that guide member
behavior and that often have a powerful
impact on organization effectiveness. Diagnosing culture from
this perspective typically begins with the
most tangible level of awareness and then works down to the deep
assumptions.
Diagnosing organization culture at the deep assumptions level
poses at least three difficult problems for
collecting pertinent information. First, culture reflects shared
assumptions about what is important, how
things are done, and how people should behave in organizations.
People generally take cultural assumptions
for granted and rarely speak of them directly. Rather, the
company's culture is implied in concrete
behavioral examples, such as daily routines, stories, rituals,
and language. This means that considerable time
and effort must be spent observing, sifting through, and asking
people about these cultural outcroppings to
understand their deeper significance for organization members.
Second, some values and beliefs that
people espouse have little to do with the ones they really hold
and follow. People are reluctant to admit this
discrepancy, yet somehow the real assumptions underlying
idealized portrayals of culture must be
discovered. Third, large, diverse organizations are likely to
have several subcultures, including
countercultures going against the grain of the wider
organization culture. Assumptions may not be shared
widely and may differ across groups in the organization. This
means that focusing on limited parts of the
organization or on a few select individuals may provide a
distorted view of the organization's culture and
subcultures. All relevant groups in the organization must be
discovered and their cultural assumptions
sampled. Only then can practitioners judge the extent to which
assumptions are shared widely.
OD practitioners emphasizing the deep assumptions approach have
developed a number of useful
techniques for assessing organization culture. One method
involves an iterative interviewing process
involving both outsiders and insiders. Outsiders help members
uncover cultural elements through joint
exploration. The outsider enters the organization and
experiences surprises and puzzles that are different
from what was expected. The outsider shares these observations
with insiders, and the two parties jointly
explore their meaning. This process involves several iterations
of experiencing surprises, checking for
meaning, and formulating hypotheses about the culture. It
results in a formal written description of the
assumptions underlying an organizational culture.
A second method for identifying the organization's basic
assumptions brings together a group of people for
a culture workshop—for example, a senior management team or a
cross section of managers, old and new
members, labor leaders, and staff. The group first brainstorms a
large number of artifacts, such as behaviors,
symbols, language, and physical space arrangements. From this
list, the values and norms that would
produce such artifacts are deduced. In addition, the values
espoused in formal planning documents are
listed. Finally, the group attempts to identify the assumptions
that would explain the constellation of values,
norms, and artifacts. Because they generally are taken for
granted, they are difficult to articulate. A great
deal of process consultation skill is required to help
organization members see the underlying assumptions.
Application Stages
There is considerable debate over whether changing something as
deep-seated as organization culture is
possible. Those advocating culture change generally focus on the
more superficial elements of culture, such
as norms and artifacts. These elements are more changeable than
the deeper elements of values and basic
assumptions. They offer OD practitioners a more manageable set
of action levers for changing organizational
behaviors. Some would argue, however, that unless the deeper
values and assumptions are
changed, organizations have not really changed the culture.
Those arguing that implementing culture change is extremely
difficult, if not impossible, typically focus on
the deeper elements of culture (values and basic assumptions).
Because these deeper elements represent
assumptions about organizational life, members do not question
them and have a difficult time envisioning
anything else. Moreover, members may not want to change their
cultural assumptions. The culture provides
a strong defense against external uncertainties and threats. It
represents past solutions to difficult problems.
Members also may have vested interests in maintaining the
culture. They may have developed personal
stakes, pride, and power in the culture and may strongly resist
attempts to change it. Finally, cultures that
provide firms with a competitive advantage may be difficult to
imitate, thus making it hard for less
successful firms to change their cultures to approximate the
more successful ones.
Given the problems with cultural change, most practitioners in
this area suggest that changes in corporate
culture should be considered only after other, less difficult
and less costly solutions have been applied or
ruled out. Attempts to overcome cultural risks when strategic
changes are incompatible with culture might
include ways to manage around the existing culture. Consider,
for example, a single-product organization
with a functional focus and a history of centralized control
that is considering an ambitious productdiversification
strategy. The firm might manage around its existing culture by
using business teams to
coordinate functional specialists around each new product.
Another alternative to changing culture is to
modify strategy to bring it more in line with culture. The
single-product organization just mentioned might
decide to undertake a less ambitious strategy of product
diversification.
Despite problems in changing corporate culture, large-scale
cultural change may be necessary in certain
situations: if the firm's culture does not fit a changing
environment; if the industry is extremely competitive
and changes rapidly; if the company is mediocre or worse; if the
firm is about to become a very large
company; or if the company is smaller and growing rapidly.
Organizations facing these conditions need to
change their cultures to adapt to the situation or to operate at
higher levels of effectiveness. They may have
to supplement attempts at cultural change with other approaches,
such as managing around the existing
culture and modifying strategy.
Although knowledge about changing corporate culture is in a
formative stage, the following practical advice
can serve as guidelines for cultural change:
1. Formulate a clear strategic vision.
Effective cultural change should
start from a clear vision of the
firm's new strategy and of the shared values and behaviors
needed to make it work. This vision provides
the purpose and direction for cultural change. It serves as a
yardstick for defining the firm's existing culture
and for deciding whether proposed changes are consistent with
core values of the organization. A useful
approach to providing clear strategic vision is development of a
statement of corporate purpose, listing in
straightforward terms the firm's core values. For example,
Johnson & Johnson calls its guiding principles
"Our Credo." It describes several basic values that guide the
firm, including, "We believe our first
responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to
mothers and all others who use our products and
services"; "Our suppliers and distributors must have an
opportunity to make a fair profit"; "We must
respect [employees'] dignity and recognize their merit"; and "We
must maintain in good order the property
we are privileged to use, protecting the environment and natural
resources."
2. Display top-management commitment.
Cultural change must be managed
from the top of the
organization. Senior managers and administrators have to be
strongly committed to the new values and
need to create constant pressures for change. They must have the
staying power to see the changes
through. For example, Jack Welch, CEO at General Electric, has
enthusiastically pushed a policy of cost
cutting, improved productivity, customer focus, and bureaucracy
busting for more than ten years to every
plant, division, group, and sector in his organization. His
efforts were rewarded with a Fortune cover story
lauding his organization for creating more than $52 billion in
shareholder value during his tenure.
3. Model culture change at the highest levels.
Senior executives must communicate the new
culture
through their own actions. Their behaviors need to symbolize the
kinds of values and behaviors being
sought. In the few publicized cases of successful culture
change, corporate leaders have shown an almost
missionary zeal for the new values; their actions have
symbolized the values forcefully. For example, Jim
Treybig, CEO of Tandem, the computer manufacturer, decided not
to fire an employee whose
performance had slipped until he could investigate the reason
for the employee's poor performance. It
turned out that the employee was having family problems, and
therefore Treybig gave him another chance.
To the people at Tandem, the story symbolized the importance of
consideration in leading people.
4. Modify the organization to support organizational change.
Cultural change generally requires
supporting modifications in organizational structure, human
resources systems, information and control
systems, and management styles. These organizational features
can help to orient people's behaviors to the
new culture. They can make people aware of the behaviors
required to get things done in the new culture
and can encourage performance of those behaviors. For example,
Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher of
Boeing realized that more than culture change in the commercial
aircraft division was necessary to turn
around the organization's poor performance in 1997 and 1998. To
alter the "warm and fuzzy" culture of
the division radically, they initiated workforce reductions,
fired key executives, made changes in the
production standards, and initiated continuous improvement
processes in production. These changes reinforced
and symbolized the importance of financial performance,
accountability, and global leadership in the
industry.
5. Select and socialize newcomers and terminate deviants.
One of the most effective methods for
changing corporate culture is to change organizational
membership. People can be selected and terminated
in terms of their fit with the new culture. This is especially
important in key leadership positions, where
people's actions can significantly promote or hinder new values
and behaviors. For example, Gould, in
trying to change from an auto parts and battery company to a
leader in electronics, replaced about twothirds
of its senior executives with people more in tune with the new
strategy and culture. Jan Carlzon of
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) replaced thirteen out of fifteen top
executives in his turnaround of the airline.
Another approach is to socialize newly hired people into the new
culture. People are most open to
organizational influences during the entry stage, when they can
be effectively indoctrinated into the culture.
For example, companies with strong cultures like Samsung,
Procter & Gamble, and 3M attach great
importance to socializing new members into the company's values.
6. Develop ethical and legal sensitivity.
Cultural change can raise significant tensions
between
organization and individual interests, resulting in ethical and
legal problems for practitioners. This is
particularly pertinent when organizations are trying to
implement cultural values promoting employee
integrity, control, equitable treatment, and job security—values
often included in cultural change efforts.
Statements about such values provide employees with certain
expectations about their rights and about
how they will be treated in the organization. If the
organization does not follow through with behaviors
and procedures supporting and protecting these implied rights,
it may breach ethical principles and, in
some cases, legal employment contracts. Recommendations for
reducing the chances of such ethical and
legal problems include setting realistic values for culture
change and not promising what the organization
cannot deliver; encouraging input from throughout the
organization in setting cultural values; providing
mechanisms for member dissent and diversity, such as internal
review procedures; and educating managers
about the legal and ethical pitfalls inherent in cultural change
and helping them develop guidelines for
resolving such issues.
Self-Designing Organizations
A growing number of researchers and practitioners have called
for self-designing organizations that have
the built-in capacity to transform themselves to achieve high
performance in today's competitive and
changing environment. Mohrman and Cummings have developed a
self-design change strategy that
involves an ongoing series of designing and implementing
activities carried out by managers and employees
at all levels of the firm. The approach helps members translate
corporate values and general prescriptions
for change into specific structures, processes, and behaviors
suited to their situations. It enables them to
tailor changes to fit the organization and helps them
continually to adjust the organization to changing
conditions.
The Demands of Transformational Change
Mohrman and Cummings developed the self-design strategy in
response to a number of demands facing
organizations engaged in transformational change. These demands
strongly suggest the need for self-design,
in contrast to more traditional approaches to organization
change that emphasize ready-made programs
and quick fixes. Although organizations prefer the control and
certainty inherent in programmed change,
the five requirements for organizational transformation reviewed
below argue against this strategy:
1. Transformational change generally involves altering most
features of the organization and achieving a
fit among them and with the firm's strategy. This suggests the
need for a systemic change process that
accounts for these multiple features and relationships.
2. Transformational change generally occurs in situations
experiencing heavy change and uncertainty. This
means that changing is never totally finished, as new structures
and processes will continually have to be
modified to fit changing conditions. Thus, the change process
needs to be dynamic and iterative, with
organizations continually changing themselves.
3. Current knowledge about transforming organizations provides
only general prescriptions for change.
Organizations need to learn how to translate that information
into specific structures, processes, and
behaviors appropriate to their situations. This generally
requires considerable on-site innovation and
learning as members learn by doing—trying out new structures and
behaviors, assessing their effectiveness,
and modifying them if necessary. Transformational change needs
to facilitate this organizational learning.
4. Transformational change invariably affects many organization
stakeholders, including owners,
managers, employees, and customers. These different stakeholders
are likely to have different goals and
interests related to the change process. Unless the differences
are revealed and reconciled, enthusiastic
support for change may be difficult to achieve. Consequently,
the change process must attend to the
interests of multiple stakeholders.
5. Transformational change needs to occur at multiple levels of
the organization if new strategies are to
result in changed behaviors throughout the firm. Top executives
must formulate a corporate strategy and
clarify a vision of what the organization needs to look like to
support it. Middle and lower levels of the
organization need to put those broad parameters into operation
by creating structures, procedures, and
behaviors to implement the strategy.
Application Stages
The self-design strategy accounts for these demands of
organization transformation. It focuses on all
features of the organization (for example, structure, human
resources practices, and technology) and
designs them to support the business strategy mutually. It is a
dynamic and an iterative process aimed at
providing organizations with the built-in capacity to change and
redesign themselves continually as the
circumstances demand. The approach promotes organizational
learning among multiple stakeholders- at all
levels of the firm, providing them with the knowledge and skills
needed to transform the organization and
continually to improve it.
Figure 60 outlines the self-design approach. Although the
process is described in three stages, in practice
the stages merge and interact iteratively over time. Each stage
is described below:
Figure 60. The Self-Design Strategy
1. Laying the foundation.
This initial stage provides organization members
with the basic knowledge and
information needed to get started with organization
transformation. It involves three kinds of activities.
The first is acquiring knowledge about how organizations
function, about organizing principles for achieving
high performance, and about the self-design process. This
information is generally gained through
reading relevant material, attending in-house workshops, and
visiting other organizations that successfully
have transformed themselves. This learning typically starts with
senior executives or with those managing
the transformation process and cascades to lower organizational
levels if a decision is made to proceed with
self-design. The second activity in laying the foundation
involves valuing—determining the corporate
values that will guide the transformation process. These values
represent those performance outcomes and
organizational conditions that will be needed to implement the
corporate strategy. They are typically written
in a values statement that is discussed and negotiated among
multiple stakeholders at all levels of the
organization. The third activity is diagnosing the current
organization to determine what needs to be
changed to enact the corporate strategy and values. Organization
members generally assess the different
features of the organization, including its performance. They
look for incongruities between its functioning
and its valued performances and conditions. In the case of an
entirely new organization, members diagnose
constraints and contingencies in the situation that need to be
taken into account in designing the
organization.
2. Designing.
In this
second stage of self-design, organization designs and innovations are generated
to
support corporate strategy and values. Only the broad parameters
of a new organization are specified; the
details are left to be tailored to the levels and groupings
within the organization. Referred to as minimum
specification design, this process recognizes that designs need
to be refined and modified as they are
implemented throughout the firm.
3. Implementing and assessing.
This last stage involves implementing the
designed organization
changes. It includes an ongoing cycle of action research:
changing structures and behaviors, assessing
progress, and making necessary modifications. Information about
how well implementation is progressing
and how well the new organizational design is working is
collected and used to clarify design and
implementation issues and to make necessary adjustments. This
learning process continues not only during
implementation but indefinitely as members periodically assess
and improve the design and alter it to fit
changing conditions. The feedback loops shown in Figure 20.3
suggest that the implementing and assessing
activities may lead back to affect subsequent designing,
diagnosing, valuing, and acquiring knowledge
activities. This iterative sequence of activities provides
organizations with the capacity to transform and
improve themselves continually.
The self-design strategy is applicable to existing organizations
needing to transform themselves, as well as
to new organizations just starting out. It is also applicable to
changing the total organization or subunits.
The way self-design is managed and unfolds can also differ. In
some cases, it follows the existing
organization structure, starting with the senior executive team
and cascading downward across organizational
levels. In other cases, the process is managed by special design
teams that are sanctioned to set
broad parameters for valuing and designing for the rest of the
organization. The outputs of these teams
then are implemented across departments and work units, with
considerable local refinement and
modification.
The Learning Organization
Organization Learning interventions address how organizations
can be designed to promote effective
learning processes and how those learning processes themselves
can be improved.
The learning organization builds on a number of ideas. It has
its roots in OD and uses the ideas and
philosophies of action research, systems approach,
organizational culture, continuous problem-solving, selfmanaged
work teams, collaboration, participative leadership, and
interpersonal relations. The learning
organization is a system-wide change program that emphasizes the
reduction of organizational layers and
the involvement of every body in the organization in continuous
self-directing learning that will lead toward
positive change and growth in the individual, team, and
organization.
According to Peter Senge, “Leaders in learning organizations are
responsible for building organizations
where individuals continually expand their capabilities to shape
their future. Leaders are responsible for
fostering learning and are themselves learners.” Learning in
organizations means the continuous testing of
experience and the transformation of that experience into
knowledge accessible to the whole organization
and relevant to its core purpose.
Learning organizations emphasize creating “knowledge for action”
and not “knowledge for its own sake.”
They focus on acquiring knowledge, sharing it across the
organization, and using it to achieve
organizational goals. Participants must liberate themselves from
such mental traps as blaming the
competition, the economy, or other factors beyond their control.
Learning organization realize that they are
part of a larger system over which they have little or no
control. Instead of complaining, they seek out
opportunities and “ride the wave.”
Core Values
A strong set of core values is normally present in learning
organizations:
• Value different kinds of
knowledge and learning styles.
• Encourage communication
between people with different perspectives and ideas.
• Develop creative
thinking.
• Remain nonjudgmental of
others and their ideas.
• Break down traditional
barriers in the organization.
• Develop leadership
throughout organization. Everyone is a leader.
• Reduce distinctions
between organization members. (Management vs. non-management, line vs.
staff, doers vs. thinkers, professional vs. nonprofessional, &
so on.)
• Believe that every
member of the organization has untapped human potential.
Becoming a learning organization increases the size of the
organization’s “brain.” The employees
throughout the organization participate in all thinking
activities. The boundaries between the parts of the
organization are broken down.
Characteristics of a Learning Organization
Four characteristics define a learning organization:
1.
Constant
Readiness
: The organization exists in
constant readiness for change. By staying in tune
with its environment, the organization is ready to take
advantage of new opportunities.
2.
Continuous
Planning
: Instead of a few top
executives formulating fixed plans, the learning
organization creates flexible plans that are fully known and
accepted by the entire organization.
The plans are constantly reexamined by those involved with their
implementation – not just top
management. The old adage that “the top thinks and the bottom
acts” has given way to the need
for “integrated thinking and acting at all levels.”
3.
Improvised
Implementation
. The learning
organization improvises. Instead of rigidly
implementing plans, it encourages experimentation. Coordination
and collaboration of everyone
involved is required in the implementation. Successes are
identified and institutionalized within the
organization.
4.
Action Learning
.
Change is reevaluated continually and not just at annual planning sessions.
Instead the learning organization is constantly taking action,
reflecting, and making adjustments.
In short, learning organizations do not wait for problems to
arise. They are constantly undergoing a
reexamination that questions and tests assumptions.
Organization Learning Processes
These processes consist of four interrelated activities:
1. Discovery
: Learning
starts with discovery when errors or gaps between desired and actual conditions
are
detected. For example, sales managers may discover that sales
are falling below projected levels and set out
to solve the problem.
2. Invention
is aimed
at devising solutions to close the gap between desired and current conditions,
and
includes diagnosing the causes of the gap and creating
appropriate solutions to reduce it. The sales
managers may learn that poor advertising is contributing to the
sales problem and may devise a new sales
campaign to improve sales.
3. Production
processes involve implementing solutions. For instance, the new advertising
program would
be implemented.
4. Generalization
includes drawing conclusions about the effects of the solutions, if successful,
and
extending that knowledge, to other relevant situations. The
managers might use variations of it with other
product lines. Thus, these four learning processes enable
members to generate the knowledge necessary to
change and improve the organization.
Levels of Learning
Inferring from the learning processes, we can identify two
levels of learning.
The lowest level is called single-loop learning or adaptive
learning and is focused on learning how to
improve the status quo. This is the most prevalent form of
learning in organizations and enables members
to reduce errors or gaps between desired and existing
conditions. It can produce incremental change in
how organizations function. The sales managers described above
engaged in single-loop learning when they
looked for ways to reduce the difference between current and
desired levels of sales.
Single-loop learning is like a thermostat that learns when it is
too hot or too cold and turns the heat on or
off. The thermostat can perform this task because it can receive
information (the temperature of the room)
and take corrective action.
Double-loop learning or generative learning is aimed at changing
the status quo. It operates at a more
abstract level than does single-loop learning because members
learn how to change the existing
assumptions and conditions within which single-loop learning
operates. This level of learning can lead to
transformational change, where the status quo itself is
radically altered. For example, the sales managers
may learn that sales projections are based on faulty assumptions
and models about future market
conditions. This knowledge may result in an entirely new
conception of future markets with corresponding
changes in sales projections and product development plans. It
may lead the managers to drop some
products that had previously appeared promising, develop new
ones that were not considered before, and
alter advertising and promotional campaigns to fit the new
conditions.
Figure 61
In Single-loop learning the emphasis is on “techniques and
making techniques more efficient”.
Double-loop learning is more creative and reflexive. Reflection
here is more fundamental: the basic
assumptions behind ideas or policies are confronted. Hypotheses
are publicly tested.
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