7 ms·
A Typology of Organisational Cultures
- coderintherye 7y agoIf you liked this, you might enjoy reading up on Graham Allison's "Bureaucratic Process" model of government: https://cesran.org/the-bureaucratic-politics-approach-its-application-its-limitations-and-its-strengths.html https://cesran.org/the-bureaucratic-politics-approach-its-ap... (this is an intro though the original paper is available in JSTOR and/or can read his book "Essence of Decision")
- lnsru 7y agoI am just curious, what must happen to change pathological culture to a better one. New leader on top will fight against entrenched middle level managers backed by buddies of these in upper layers. Anybody bellow will be put in uncomfortable position and leave sooner or later. I would say, pathological culture is here to stay and eventually can be changed only by replacing large chunk of organization.
- simplesleeper 7y agoThat's what organisational transformations are for
- username90 7y agoBig company cultures seems to converge over time to a bureaucratic style so to me it seems like organisational transformations mostly just moves it in the conventional direction. For example, Google wanted to transforms its organisation to be more friendly to business contracts. Seems like a good idea, but said transformation is destroying the generative culture and makes it more bureaucratic like Oracle or Microsoft.
- lliamander 7y agoIt's the same general pattern that whether the change is good or bad: a new leader comes in who starts changing the organizational structure and communication pathways, and who removes/replaces individuals not on board with the new direction. It's just that most of the time the net result is negative. Fixing problems requires knowing what is actually wrong with the organization. If the problem is that your organization is overcome with bureaucracy, then the solution start with enabling a subdivision sufficient autonomy to pursue objectives without being disrupted by meddlers and busy-bodies.
- noahl 7y agoIf you adopt this article's three-category system (or any system with a finite number of ordered categories), then I think in the long run the number of positive and negative changes have to converge toward equality. If we hear more stories of negative changes, then maybe the negative ones are more memorable, or people are more likely to comment on them.
- MichaelMoser123 7y agoI guess its about creating incentives of one form of behavior over the other. If it pays off to hide information and knowledge rather than sharing it then that's what you get as predominant culture by means of selection (Now guess which strategy is more likely to get you a career in the average setting)
- Qworg 7y agoLook at what Satya did - he directed a broad effort at the entire organization (a book, etc), and simultaneously pushed the ELT to get in line, firing them one by one when they or their directs didn't comply. They're all in line now, as are their directs. The broader culture change takes more time, but the ship is definitely moving.
- asplake 7y agoGreat article. > The most critical issue for organisational safety is the flow of information Puts me in mind of management cybernetics, viable system model (VSM), requisite variety, etc. Would recommend a book by a friend of mine, Patrick Hoverstadt's The Fractal Organisation. Uses VSM to identify organisational antipatterns, rather like the article but much more fully developed.
- benjaminjosephw 7y ago> the kind of conditions that create good information flow tend to be those that favour cooperation, creativity, and safety. On the other side, conditions that interfere with information flow also tend to decrease creativity, create conflict, and make the organisation involved less safe. Although management and leadership do play an extremely important role in shaping culture, I wonder whether the kinds of tools and technology an organisation uses can also have a significant impact. My guess is that creating transparent data sharing capabilities within an organisation would undermine the political point scoring that some people achieve with information hording/hiding. Being able to comment on data and processes from any part of an organisation would also encourage a culture of empowerment and orient individuals and teams towards the mission of the organisation rather than each individual unit. Technology could achieve this kind of impact if it were broadly adopted across the organisation. What role do tools like Slack, Salesforce and Airtable have in shaping the culture of an organisation?
- unixhero 7y agoIn my profesdional experience, zero; in terms of changing the power structure of an organisation.
- Juliate 7y agoSame. Any tool/infra that threatens the culture/statu-quo from the power structure will be, at best, impactless, at worst, will trigger a real internal war that will resolve with layoffs (been there - it ended bad for everyone). It _has to_ come from the group culture, which is empowered by the good will of the power structure, that comes from the top (investors, board, executive managers). If it's not there, it will never be, change lanes. Edit to add: And if it _is_ there, it might go, because it's a fragile equilibrium (any change of course in the management/board can be a red flag).
- marcosdumay 7y agoI have seen much change coming from tools that instead of requiring a different way to do things, just allows both, but makes the different one more productive while not impacting the previous one. Of course, the tools must have some political support. But they do enable status-quo changes.
- bencollier49 7y agoSeems a bit simplistic. What's it doing in the BMJ?
- KineticLensman 7y agoBecause many of the the issues discussed have lessons that are relevant in a medical context; e.g. > Edmondson’s study provides a striking confirmation, in a medical context, of the value of this scheme It never hurts to remind practitioners of these issues, especially in organisations where safety has life-or-death consequences.
- andylynch 7y agoThis is their Quality & Safety journal, the paper is looking at organisational factors, in particular leadership and how they can affect effective clinical innovation and clinical safety.
- Timyjoe 7y agoThey had very different circumstances: Bill Gates was the son of made parents, his father was a partner within the firm Preston Gates & Ellis, his mother was on board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and therefore the United Way. Bill got a sweetheart deal from IBM, partially thanks to his mother serving on the United Way board with Jon Opel, chair of IBM. Steve Jobs was adopted by Paul Jobs, a mechanic and a carpenter, and Clara Jobs, who was a payroll clerk for Varian Associates. Neither of his adoptive parents had the chance to attend college. Jobs sold his minivan and Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator to initially fund development of the Apple I. If you've got the choice of being born to oldsters with extreme wealth and connections, I highly recommend it over fundraising.
- leoc 7y agoWrong comment section?
- Merrill 7y agoIn the study, the organizational performance metric was the safety of patients undergoing medical procedures. It's not clear whether the generative culture would be optimal if a different metric, such as return on investment, had been chosen.
- david_draco 7y agoRelated: http://cwsworkshop.org/PARC_site_B/dr-culture.html http://cwsworkshop.org/PARC_site_B/dr-culture.html Common aspects of workplace culture we could question.
- teddyh 7y agoRelated: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts Update for Apple: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update
- zeckalpha 7y ago(2004)
- netcan 7y agoThis kind of hypothesis would be so easy for aliens to test, but so hard for humans.
- Flenser 7y agoThis reminds me of the organizational paradigms[1] from Reinventing Organisations [2] I think they map quite easily as: Power oriented → Amber "command and control" Rule oriented → Orange "predict-and-control" (management by objectives) Performance oriented → Green "culture and empowerment" [1] See "Exhibit 1" table: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00344?gko=10921 https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00344?gko=10921 [2] https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/ https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/
- awinter-py 7y agoI really like the book 'the dictator's army' which is partially about how information practices affect battlefield effectiveness in militaries, and the reasons countries knowingly adopt bad practices. It introduced me to the word 'coup proofing'.
- davidivadavid 7y agoMy favorite read on the topic: Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Images_of_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Images_of_Organization