CTP Notes 18th October

Day Six

Organisational Culture

Think about where you worked last and where you now work: in what way do they differ?

Work ethic
Polish (swearing, etc.)
Size of organisation (1 site versus global brand)
Competitiveness of sales people
Drive (no reason to work hard at Tie Rack, whereas commission at cg…)
Rules and regulations (swiping in and out)
Cross-section of delegates (workshop, security, maintenance V retailers).




All the group wrote down one of our examples on the Smartboard.




External V Internal clients
Day to day contact with senior management V no contact with senior management
Innovation V Old School
Policies and procedures
External Training V Internal Training
Structure
Drive (mine)
Victims of 1 crime V victims of multiple crimes ie. nature of customers / clients
Working from home
Casual V Rigid (almost no boundaries set)
Process driven V no processes
Good V Bad Technology
Compassion V Commercialism

Punchline is – they are all to do with culture

Definition of culture

The culture of an organisation is:

The culture of relatively uniform and enduring values, beliefs, customs, traditions and practices that are shared by an organisation’s members and transmitted between generations of employees. Huczynski and Buchanan (2001)

or…

The way we do things around here Currie (2006)

It can also be said to be the personality of the organisation.


Artefacts
Values
Assumptions
Implicit expectations. Far more difficult to define. What employees automatically do without thinking about it. Conditioning? I.e. saying “hello” may be conditioned in or indeed out of an employee’s behaviour.
Explicitly stated aims and objectives, mission statement or vision statement, for profit, not for profit, etc.
Property, logos, livery, documents, website, etc.







Schein E (1985) cited in Hatch

Cultural Web (2 pages of the NHS Cultural Web handed out)

We were asked to enter our own organisation’s traits into the venn diagram provided in the handout. This is my interpretation of cargiant.


Routines and Rituals

Leaving drinks
Birthdays – he / she has to bring in cakes!
Initiation rituals
Paradigm

Commercial enterprise
Customer service
Innovation

Power

Centralised
Controls

Financial performance
Market forces
Govt acts?
Tax? Congestion charge? Social behaviour / beliefs?
Organisational structures

Flat – each dept. answers to board
Stories

Time-line
Legends of founder
“Big hitters”
Gossip
1,000 cars a week sold
Symbols

Logo
Uniforms
Slogan
Website
Advertisements


Dictionary - paradigm - 3 entries.
1. Noun - An example; a model; a pattern.
2. Noun - An example of a conjugation or declension, showing a word in all its different forms of inflection.
3. Noun - An illustration, as by a parable or fable.

Subcultures

· Organisations are made up of subcultures
· Subcultures either complement or clash Furnham and Gunter (1993)

Give examples of subcultures (not necessarily different departments) clashing at work: hometimes, volume of TV in canteen, foul language, etc.

Give examples of subcultures (not necessarily different departments) complementing each other at work:
Far more difficult to think of examples! HR and Training was the best example given. People Sessions recently enjoyed almost 100% buy-in from Sales Managers. This was awesome!


National Culture

· The culture of an organisation is partly the outcome of societal factors
Fonbrun (1984)

· The culture of a country is more powerful and stable than that of organisations
Laurent (1989)

Hofsted (1980) studies 116,000 employees at IBM in 40 countries. The culture varied enormously in the different countries, even though it was under the same umbrella organisation.




Mission and Objectives of Organisations

Vision Statement
· Desired future state of the organisation

Mission Statement
· An expression of the overall long-term purpose of the organisation
· The statement defines the behaviours and actions for the immediate and longer term
· Influenced by stakeholders Jackson & Scholes


The Vision statement is like a dream, whereas the Mission statement is more practical and literal. When an organisation has put the Mission Statement into effect successfully it should be nearer to achieving the goal of its Vision Statement.Vision statement of the Metropolitan Police.
· To make London the safest capital in the world

Mission statement of the Metropolitan Police.
· Working together for a safer London


Strategy
· A major plan of how to achieve the organisational objectives over the long term

Policy
· A guideline for organisational action and the implementation of objectives specific to the style and behaviour of the organisation

Procedure (Protocols?)
· Precise action which should be taken in line with policy – for example shadowing a sales person
Objective
· A quantified statement of what the organisation wishes to achieve over a specific time period


S
Specific
M
Measurable
A
Achievable
R
Debate!!! Jane’s favourite version has “Realistic” but I feel this is catered for within the “Achievable” criteria. Therefore I suggest “Results-based” as this determines that there will be a point specific to an improvement of performance that is linked to the organisational objectives most easily. But choose whichever you feel appropriate. See if I care.
T
Time-based


Why do we need to set SMART objectives? To manage our own and others’ expectations, “To keep it real” and to determine whether success has happened or not.