Organizational Culture

“The book Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, by Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy. points out that every company has a culture – and that “culture” was shorthand for “the way we do things at our company.” And that an organization’s culture has four ingredients:

• Values/beliefs – these set the philosophy for everything a company does, essentially what it stands for

• Stories/myths – are stories about how founders/employees get over obstacles, win new orders…

• Heroes – who gets rewarded and celebrated, how do you become a hero in the organization?

• Rituals – what and how does a company celebrate?

As a complement to the book, I suggest considering the concepts of espoused theory and theory in use identified by Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective.

An organization’s espoused theory will describe its values in its published materials and public speeches.

The espoused theory will be couched in ideal terms e.g. quality is job one!

An organizations’ theory in use is the unofficial version of corporate life that is usually passed on when new employees are being “shown the ropes” by a veteran employee, e.g. forget the quality is job one crap, we ship to meet deadlines regardless of defects.

Note to Readers: In my experience the greater the gap between the espoused theory and theory in use the greater is organizational dysfunction.

One way to keep your enterprise on track is to periodically compare your espoused theory with your actual theory in use-does how you talk the talk match how you walk the walk?

TIP: Building a positive. productive, social enterprise culture is part of developing your business model.

Suggest you review Module 8 of the Practitioner Guide for more details on developing enterprise culture.