Archive for Culture

Why do people not create or innovate?

April 11, 2008 / / No comments

The key quesiton isn’t “what fosters creativity?”  But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? but why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything. — Abraham Maslow

Maslow observes that creativity and innovation are natural endowments — we only need to watch young children and remember our own childhoods to know that this is so.  So, why do we, as adults, commonly think of creativity and innovation as qualities that primarily describe the relatively small group of professional creatives? And, why do organizations struggle with the question of how to become more innovative?

Almost 40 years ago, futurist Alvin Toffler observed that our education system was designed to develop citizens who could take up their positions in the industrializing world, as cogs in the great machine (Future Shock, 1970).  Beyond the content of the coursework itself,  schools teach children how to show up on time, follow directions, work within an incentive system that emphasizes external rewards and punishments and to conform to a social program.  Creativity and innovation are generally channeled into art (where classes in art are still offered).  “Play” is considered childish.  Speaking personally, it wasn’t until graduate school that I felt encouraged to think for myself and to create new ideas and knowledge …

Then, as Alfonoso Montuori describes, our organizations are still dominated by bureaucratic forms of leadership and organization designed for the industrial age, which values conformance, compliance, industry, and relies primarily on external reward systems.  Although, as leaders, we intellectually know that our organizations need to become substantially more innovative to survive and thrive, at an emotional level, most of us in this culture, have come to value control and compliance even more…

Maslow’s good news is to remind us that we are all naturally creative. Just as we learned how to suppress and narrowly channel our creativity, we can also begin to unlock our creative potential by removing  those learned barriers (both institutional and internal). 

In order to do this, we will need to circle around to a discussion of the concept of control or power-over, which seems to be creativity’s chief antagonist…

Category: All Posts, Creativity, Culture, Education, Innovation, Leadership, Organization, Rewards /

Communication problems in traditional organizations

March 29, 2008 / / No comments

The human body-mind can be imagined as a network which both consists of specialized parts and as a seamless whole. Our ability to act in an intelligent and appropriate way as a seamless whole is a function of a massive network of electro-chemical communications. When the environment changes in a meaningful way – for example, the temperature rises beyond a certain point — this information is communicated throughout the body leading to both conscious and unconscious physical adaptive responses, to ensure our ongoing health and wellbeing.

Similarly, in an organizational context, our ability to act in an intelligent and appropriate way as seamless whole is a function of a massive network of communications.  However, unlike our human organism, traditional organizations have a number of built-in impediments to healthy communication: 1) communications flow primarily from the top down; channels for bottom-up communications tend to be very narrow; 2) bureaucratic organizational structure often gives rise to the silo effect; and 3) socialization and organizational power dynamics can work to suppress open communications even at the same organizational level.

If our body-minds suffered from such substantial systemic communication problems, we would not be able to function and would probably not survive very long. For example, although our feet might notice that we are walking on glass, but not pass the message on to the brain. Of course, this is silly; but these kinds of dysfunctions happen in organizations all of the time.

We’ll continue to explore these dynamics in greater depth in upcoming posts, with the purpose of continuing to raise awareness of how unexamined dominator cultural assumptions have created our current set of problems. And, of course, the gift here, is that every problem holds the seeds to its own solution…

Category: All Posts, Communication, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Partnership /

Is there less stress in flat modern organizations?

March 9, 2008 / / No comments

Have you noticed how there can be tremendous value in a good question? And good questions come to us in many ways. Recently, in reviewing the search terms that bring people to this blog, I found two such excellent questions:

  • Can a bureaucratic organization have a strong culture?
  • Is there less stress in flat modern organizations?

Each of these questions raises the topic of culture. One way of thinking about culture, organizational processes and organization structure is to imagine culture as being analogous to our assumptions, beliefs, and feelings; processes as being analogous to our behavior; and organizational structure and other structures (such as the environment) as more solid aspects of that process, which direct energies and activities to flow in a particular way… So, just as our thoughts give rise to behaviors, we might say that organization culture gives rise to organizational behaviors and structures.

It’s often observed how action or structure follows thought. However, in my experience, it’s less often observed that process or structure also influences our thoughts and feelings. At the level of the individual, how we hold our bodies both  reflects how we think and feel, and can also cause us to think and feel in certain ways. For example, it’s difficult to really smile without feeling brighter and better…  Similarly, at the level of the organization, other kinds of structures help shape the kinds of culture we create. For example, a long narrow conference room table will tend to shape one kind of meeting and a round table another kind of meeting. The design of buildings (another area I hope to get to in this blog) and organization structure also make a difference. 

I personally find this latter insight to be pretty cool because it gives us more tools and options to work with to create the cultures and environments that will really serve us.

So, all this said, I think the answer to the first question is: Yes, many organizations using the traditional bureaucratic form of organization are well-known for having strong, distinctive cultures that have helped them (or, sometimes, hindered them).  Two organizations with identical organization structures may have very different cultures!  The organization structure is just one part of the picture.

And, with regard to the second question, is there less stress in flat organizations? Assuming that by “stress” we mean the stresses and dysfunctions inherent in a “dominator-type” culture (see my earlier post on Partnership for a definition of the word dominator as it is used in this blog), then flatter organizations can potentially reduce this kind of stress.  Of course, based on the above discussion, we can see that we would need to look at the whole picture or system (culture, process, structure … and probably some more factors) to really know.

In summary, yes, it’s definately useful to recognize that we are talking about more than a way of structuring our organizations, but the gestalt of the organization as a whole…

Category: All Posts, Culture, Design, Organization /

The Organization as Machine:Industrial-Age Strategies of Rational Control

February 23, 2008 / / No comments

I must say that it is a challenge to write about industrial-age models of leadership and organization, as I am so eager to move on to talk about emerging models, which are much more interesting and useful to those of us in the knowledge economy – which is practically everyone… 

Still, this philosophical, psychological and sociological review of the current situation is useful because it helps to show why modern organizations have the challenges they do, and why, emerging models can be so much more helpful to us in dealing with a very dynamic environment.

In my last post, I discussed the hierarchal organization as a control strategy, in that it allows one or a small number of people to control a broad scope of resources and activities. It’s also very rational in that rational (vs. creative) thought involves breaking the whole into different parts for individual study (and control).

The hierarchal organization was therefore a natural choice of 19th century industrial-age capitalists, seeking the market power and economies of mass production:

1)      It provided owners of capital with the necessary means of control;

2)      The specialization implied by rational forms of organization supported the operational efficiencies of mass production.

3)      The workforce at this time was largely uneducated; relevant knowledge and control were concentrated at the supervisory level.

4)      Culturally, it fit well with an orientation to hierarchy based on economic class and modern rational strategies of control.

This form of organization, as factory, was compared to a perfect machine, rational and efficient. In the next post, we’ll talk about the leadership styles appropriate to managing “the machine.”

Category: All Posts, Creativity, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Philosophy /

Origins of the Modern Bureaucratic Organization

February 16, 2008 / / No comments

If you were to choose the organizational form that maximizes the number of people and functions that can be controlled by a single leader, what style would you choose? (The correct answer can be found at the bottom of this post).

  1. Flat organization
  2. Bureaucratic organization
  3. Leader-full team
  4. Matrix organization

Since thousands of years before the dawn of the industrial revolution, “strong men,” wanting to maximize their control of people and resources have employed a pyramid-shaped, hierarchal form of organization: small societies based on “strong-man rule” evolved into kingships with their own militaries, which evolved into nation states …

Hierarchal societies are based on a hierarchal flow of power from the top down. Anthropologically, they tend to be male dominated (in that men dominate women). Human order is frequently understood to reflect divine order, and since early times, rulers have often claimed a special relationship to divinity, which justifies and endorses their power. They were sometimes understood to be incarnations or partners of the gods (as in Sumeria), or, more recently in Western cultures, to be chosen or annointed by God.  For example, in the late 19th century Germany, childrearing manuals emphasized disciplining the child in such a way as to exact unquestioning obedience to the father. This practice was thought to prepare the child to submit to governmental authority and thereby live a godly life (Alice Miller, For Your Own Good).

The values and ethics of a culture cannot be entirely separated from the power structure in that those in power shape the rules that define “goodness.” “Rules favor the rule makers and when they don’t, the rules are changed.” Therefore, “good citizens” conform to power; those who both are not powerful and do not conform are “bad citizens” and risk punishment. The culture of these organizations tends to be paternalistic. Loyalty is rewarded (for example, with position and lands — a share of the power) and disloyalty is punished.

More subtly, the worldview of the rulers, in which light the rules seem right and appropriate, is the correct view. Therefore, loyalty includes endorsing the worldview of those in power. Challenging this perspective, in a sense, also challenges the legitimacy and power of the ruler. For this reason, challenging this worldview entails some risk and is best done with diplomacy, in privacy behind closed doors. Diplomacy avoids the sense of direct challenge, and privacy allows the leader an opportunity to adapt the perspective as his or her own. The same conversation in public would be the equivalent of a frontal challenge to power. 

In this way, there will always be a link between power, knowledge and values, in any given culture: Power is about making rules that reflect and benefit a particular perspective, and propagating that perspective, and such knowledge and rules help shape the values and ethics of the culture.  

In an upcoming entry, we will talk about the emergence of the modern bureaucratic organization, including how it drew on the military/feudal model, and how it both fit and shaped the industrial age of the 20th century…

(The correct answer is 2. Bureaucratic Organization)

Category: All Posts, Culture, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Philosophy, Values /

The Gift of High-Commitment Leadership

December 22, 2007 / / No comments

One way that organization culture shapes results relates to employee (or team member) commitment. Research has shown that high levels of employee commitment, as measured by employee retention and whether the employee would recommend the company to a friend as a good place to work, are correlated with an increase in operating margins and net profits and that low levels of commitment are associated with a decrease in these indicators.

What factors impact team member engagement? These factors include:

1) Team members’ perceptions of the quality of leadership (the quality of the organizational vision and strategy, and the leader’s ability to inspire commitment to a larger worthy goal);

2) Opportunities for development;

3) Empowerment; and

4) People skills of the employee’s immediate supervisor.

This is consistent with the observation that, increasingly, people seek meaning and self-actualization in their work, and that that the quality of their interpersonal relations is important to their quality of work life.

Can we provide this kind of work environment for our team members? One of my coaching mentors likes to say that as coaches, we give to our clients most abundantly that which we hold for ourselves. Adapting this to the topic at hand, we might also observe that: As leaders, we give to our colleagues most abundantly, that which what we authentically give to ourselves.

1) Do you fully believe in the mission and vision of your organization? Do you feel you are making a contribution?

2) How self-actualizing are you within the context of our own role? Are you able to contribute to your fullest capability?

3) Are you very satisfied with the quality of our relationships and interactions with colleagues?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes: Fantastic! What are some of the ways you are shaping an environment in which your team members can be similarly inspired and engaged?

If the answer to any of these questions is no: What is missing and how can you add that missing piece or pieces into the equation for the benefit of both yourself and your organization?

The beauty of this approach is that it is a virtuous cycle. What you allow yourself, you can give to others; and what you give to others comes back in terms of increased satisfaction and higher quality of relationships.

In that spirit, may you enjoy and share these most important gifts of meaning, contribution and goodwill this holiday season and in the years to come!

Category: All Posts, Culture, Leadership /

Culture as Strategy

December 16, 2007 / / No comments

Usually, when we think about strategy, we don’t think about culture. Culture is a given – it’s just there.  In this post, I propose that culture is always an implicit aspect of strategy and that, by recognizing it as such, we can better position ourselves to achieve extra-ordinary results.

Theory

It can sometimes be helpful to review the assumptions we take for granted. In that spirit: culture is defined in various ways, but for our purposes, let’s tease it apart to reveal three dimensions:

1. First, it’s a complex of inter-related beliefs and assumptions, which give rise to values. These beliefs, assumptions and values are often expressed in stories, or metaphors.

2. These beliefs and assumptions give rise to patterns of behavior.

3. These patterns of behaviors give rise to institutions, such as organization structure, processes and reward systems.

For example, the retailer, Nordstrom believing that customer satisfaction is essential to its business success, famously oriented its associates to deliver exceptional customer service. Stories of truly exceptional customer service circulated both throughout the company and the community. And, you can bet that Nordstrom’s processes and reward system ensured that that behavior would continue to occur.

Cultures tend to be self sustaining, which is one of the reasons we take them for granted. They are like the air that we breathe, and they often seem impervious to change.  One of the reasons for this is that just as our beliefs shape our behavior and our institutions, our institutions also shape our behavior and our experience of what “works” (and therefore, to some extent, our beliefs and assumptions).  For this reason, changing culture is notoriously hard. 

Yet, as the Nordstrom example illustrates, an organizations culture makes a big difference in what it can achieve and how easily it can achieve it, in the same way that who-we-are as individuals shapes our possibilities and the energy we must invest to achieve our goals. 

Is it possible to change organization culture?  Well, given that an organization is comprised of people, its collective history, and its structures, processes, and reward systems, we might ask whether it is possible to change these elements. Certainly, we can change organizational structure, and reward systems. We can reframe and evolve our collective story….  But, can people change?  Is it possible to change ourselves?

I suggest that we can learn a lot about how to evolve our culture by learning how to evolve that bit of culture that we all carry with us: our beliefs, assumptions, and our habitual patterns of behavior.  This kind of change is at the heart of transformative leadership, a key focus of this blog!

Practice

1. What is your organizational culture?  What methodologies do you use to know?

2. How well does your culture support your objectives and explicit strategies for achieving them?  Are there gaps? How might you begin to close those gaps?

3. What has been your experience with successful change, at a personal level? What enabled you to be successful in making the change?

Category: All Posts, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Rewards /
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