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Title: Organizational Culture and Leadership by Edgar H. Schein ISBN: 0-7879-0362-0 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 05 December, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $36.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Practical Approach to Diagnosing Culture
Comment: Organizational Culture and Leadership is a classic work in the field of Organizational Culture Theory and as such it is a good reference to have. The frustration that many companies have, however, is putting theory into practice and unfortunately this book falls short of helping anyone (apart from O.D. PhD's) to do just that. A practical approach to the evaluation and transformation of culture would be more useful for the vast majority of companies.
For example an iterative approach to transformation and alignment using objective diagnostic tools (like the OCP Method developed by O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell) and the application of practical "bite-size" changes like leadership development/behvioral change; compensation system change, recruiting model change, organizational structure change, etc. is far more impactful and perhaps more importantly far more implementable. And, of course, as in any change effort, it is important to know whether you are making progress which is all the more reason to utilize an objective and validated measurment/diagnostic method or tool.
I really like Kaplan and Norton's work in tying Culture to Strategy in this area (check out their recent HBR article) and the work ThinkShed is doing based on O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell's OCP methodology...very practical, very measurable, very effective and being a web based tool, very very implementable.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Classic in the Functionalist Culture Managment Genre
Comment: I have to confess up front I'm a skeptic about the efficacy of "culture management." It's been a fad that, unfortunately, a lot of companies have wasted a lot of time and money on. As a graduate student in organizational sociology, I love studying organizational culture, but I haven't found much in the "applied" culture literature that persuades me that business firms ought to be nearly as transfixed by the allure of tweaking their culture as they have been. There's absolutely been a lot of hacks making money selling crackpot ideas to companies on the premise that strong culture=high profits. Oh well, consultants have to make a living too I guess. I just wish it wasn't giving organizational culture theory such a bad name. Anyhow, Schein is an exception to the rule. Certainly nobody could bad-mouth his academic credentials--having studied at University of Chicago, Stanford and Harvard--he's pretty much about as solid an organizational consultant as you're going to find. As for this book, it is indeed a classic of the functionalist approach to culture management.
Now, functionalism has gotten a bad name in sociology over the years. Critics call it an inherently conservative theory, focused only on what holds groups together, while at the same time entirely unable to account for conflict and other forces that pull groups apart. Some say functionalism is inherently tautological. I happen to like Durkheim myself and think we ought to cut him some slack for excessively functionalizing the world because he gave us the field of sociology as a gift. But somehow the disease of functionalism spread into psychology after the sociologists dropped it. Anyway, Schein has got the disease now, and man, he has it BAD! (He's trying to give Talcott Parsons a run for his money).
Anyway, on the good side, his "Clinical Approach" methodology to diagnosing culture problems is one of the better approaches out there. It's very systematic and tries hard to go deep into understanding more than just a few superficial aspects of organizational culture. Thankfully, Schein doesn't advocate any type of culture survey. As a rule, avoid culture surveys--they mean nothing, or next to nothing. So anyway, does this clinical approach really work? Hell, I don't know--I mean, do any of these approaches really work? In general, the evidence doesn't tend to support the idea that culture management accomplishes what it claims to. But, having said that, Schein certainly has a better methodology than most of his counterparts. I think if you had a professional come into your company and use his Clinical approach, you'd certainly learn alot about what your people believe. On the other hand, I have doubts that this would make a good do-it-yourself project. Schein's approach is a major research undertaking. I don't think your average manager could read this book and then go do the Clinical approach to diagnosing culture problems. It's pretty hard to operationalize some of his ideas.
In any event, if you're a grad student or a researcher studying culture, you certainly want to read this book. It is widely referenced in the org culture literature and Schein represents a high water mark for functionalist org behaviorists. If, on the other hand, you're trying to fix your screwed up organizational culture, you could certainly do worse than to read this book. You might get a useful nugget or two out of it. If you want the full treatment though, I suspect you're going to have to call the maestro himself and have him send in his team of consultants (or what ever he has).
Rating: 5
Summary: "Why do we need to understand culture?"
Comment: "Cultural analysis illuminates subcultural dynamics within organizations...Many problems that were once viewed simply as 'communication failures' or 'lack of teamwork' are now being more properly understood as a breakdown of intercultural communications...For example, most companies today are trying to speed up the process of designing, manufacturing, and delivering new products to customers. They are increasingly discovering that the coordination of the marketing, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, and sales groups will require more than goodwill, good intentions, and a few management incentives. To achieve the necessary integration requires understanding the subcultures of each of these functions and the design of intergroup processes that allow communication and collaboration across sometimes strong subcultural boundaries...Cultural analysis is necessary if we are to understand how new technologies influence and are influenced by organizations. A new technology is usually a reflection of an occupational culture that is built around new core scientific or engineering concepts and tools...Cultural analysis is necessary for management across national and ethnic boundaries...Organizational learning, development, and planned change cannot be understood without considering culture as a primary source of resistance to change...Given these and related issues, it seems obvious that we must increase our study of culture and put this research on a solid conceptual foundation. Superficial concepts of culture will not be useful; we must come to understand fully what culture is all about in human groups, organizations, and nations so that we can have a much deeper understanding of what goes on, why it goes on, and what, if anything, we can do about it" (from the Preface).
In this context, Edgar H. Schein organizes his book into six parts.
* Part One- In this section, after saying that cultural understanding is desirable for all of us, but it is essential to leaders if they are to lead, he defines the concept of culture and shows its relationship to leadership.
* Part Two- In this section he focuses more on the concept of culture and the less on the concept of leadership. He argues that the content of organizational cultures reflects the ultimate problems that every group faces: dealing with its external environment and managing its internal integration. According to him beyond these external and internal problems, cultural assumptions reflect deeper issues about the nature of truth, time, space, human nature, and human relationships.
* Part Three- In this section he deals with the practical issues of how one can decipher cultural assumptions. He says that the reader will note that the emphasis in this part is practical and oriented toward what leaders, researchers, and consultants can actually do about deciphering culture.
* Part Four- In this section he focuses on leadership, especially the role that leadership plays in creating and embedding culture in a group. He argues that leaders create culture and must manage and sometimes change culture.
* Part Five- The focus of Schein in this section, as well as those in the rest of the book, remains on the leader and how culture change appears from the leader's perspective.
* Part Six- In this section his focus shifts from analysis to normative speculation. He deals with the concept of learning and the implications for leadership and culture of the growing rate of change.
I highly recommend this business classic on organizational culture and leadership.
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Title: The Corporate Culture Survival Guide by Edgar H. Schein ISBN: 0787946990 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture : Based on the Competing Values Framework by Kim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn ISBN: 0201338718 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 10 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $38.60 |
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Title: Corporate Culture and Performance by John P. Kotter ISBN: 0029184673 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 07 April, 1992 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Reframing Organizations : Artistry, Choice, and Leadership by Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal ISBN: 0787964271 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 25 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.00 |
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Title: The Fifth Discipline by PETER M. SENGE ISBN: 0385260954 Publisher: Currency Pub. Date: 01 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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