SESSION 5
F O S T E R I N G C U LT U R E C H A N G E
DR. PAULINE TURNER STRONG
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S AT AU ST I N
INNOVATIVE THINKING AND CULTURE CHANGE:
WHERE ARE WE?

Overview & Introductory Exercises (Dr. Art Markman & Rich
Gergasko)

Confronting & Reducing Change Apprehension (Dr. Robert
Abzug)

Idea Generation & Celebrating Failure (Dr. Art Markman)

Innovation Management & Leadership (Dr. Luis Martins)
⑤ Innovative Thinking & Fostering Culture Change
⑥ Strengthening the Innovation Evaluation Process
TAKING STOCK:
WHAT IS YOUR MAIN TAKE-AWAY THUS FAR?



reducing
change
apprehension
idea
generation &
celebrating
failure
innovation
management
& leadership
SETTING THE AGENDA:
WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRESSING QUESTION?



reducing
change
apprehension
idea
generation &
celebrating
failure
innovation
management
& leadership
AMBITIOUS GOALS FOR SESSION 5
Learning how to foster culture change through
① understanding the concept of organizational culture
② understanding how organizational culture relates to
organizational structure and behavior
③ understanding how to place structures and behaviors
in place that reward innovative thinking and
overcome resistance to cultural change.
• Organization as machine
• Organization as organism
• Organization as culture
• Organization as psychic prison
• Organization as political
system
• Organization as brain

Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization
THE ORGANIZATION AS MACHINE
Dates to work of Frederick Taylor (1865-1815)
The machine metaphor highlights:
 maximizing efficiency
 maximizing productivity
Premise:
 Organizations can be engineered to maximize contribution and
minimize costs to society.
 Employees treated like parts of a well-oiled machine.
Discourse:
 “design,” “control”
BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATION:
EPITOMIZES VALUES OF MECHANICAL ORGANIZATION
EMPHASIZES
NOTES FOR
Precision
Speed
Regularity
Reliability
Predictability
Efficiency
Measurable results
fixed division of labor
hierarchical supervision
set of rules and regulations
governing performance
technical qualifications
merit-based selection and
promotion
discipline & control
STRENGTHS & LIMITATIONS OF
MACHINE METAPHOR
MECHANISTIC
ORGANIZATION WORKS
WHEN:
 task is straightforward
 environment is stable
 consistency is desired
 precision is at a premium
 human “parts” are
compliant (“docile”)
B U T:
 taken for granted, hard to
think otherwise
 may result in mindless
conformity
 difficulties in adapting to
changing circumstances
 may lead to maintenance of
the bureaucracy for its own
sake
 dehumanization, apathy,
carelessness
THE ORGANIZATION AS ORGANISM
Dates to work of Charles Darwin (1809-82)
Treats organizations as adaptive organisms with structure of interrelated parts
Directs attention to:
 dynamics of competition
 dependence on resources provided by environment
 adaptation to changing environment
Makes use of general systems theory
 wholes consisting of interrelated parts that function together to create emergent
(higher order) properties; systems are nested within each other
Discourse: “survival,” “competition,” “environment,” “resources”
ORGANIZATIONS AS ORGANISMS (MORGAN)
Challenge to machine metaphor
 critique to its focus on efficiency, productivity
Living systems existing in a wider environment
Certain species of organization better adapted to specific environmental
conditions (contingency theory)
 bureaucratic organizations best adapted to stable, protected
environments
 tumultuous environments call for more flexible forms of
organization
Functional analysis: Organizations may be seen as
structures that fulfill individual needs
INDIVIDUAL NEEDS & ORGANIZATIONAL MEANS
NEEDS
O RG A N IZ AT IO N A L M E A N S
 self-actualization > > > > > >
 job a major expressive
dimension of employee’s life,
complete employee
commitment
 scope for achievement &
autonomy, enhancing personal
identity, recognition
 opportunities for satisfying &
spontaneous interactions
 pension, tenure, career paths
 salary, wages
 esteem (ego) > > > > > > > >
 belonging/love (social) > > >
 safety/security > > > > > > >
 physiological > > > > > > > >
STRENGTHS OF ORGANISM METAPHOR
 Emphasis on relationship between organism and environment
 Reorientation towards systematic attention to needs that must be
satisfied for organization to survive
 Attention to the balance of internal processes
 Attention to different “species” of organizations, hence range of
options
 Focus on “ecological” relationships among organizations
 Successful organizations “evolve” appropriate structures and
processes for dealing with the challenges of their external
environments
 Emphasis on innovation
LIMITATIONS OF ORGANISM METAPHOR
 Assumption of functional unity: may underestimate
dysfunction and conflict
 May overemphasize the role of organizationals in
leading fulfilling lives
 May naturalize and legitimate current organization of
society
THE ORGANIZATION AS CULTURE
 Application of work of Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) and others
 Derived from “cultivation,” signifying socialization into a
particular way of life
 Culture as a pattern of symbols, meanings, & values
 Culture as a way of creating identities & a sense of belonging
 Culture may be both overt and tacit (taken for granted)
 Culture as ideology, concealing domination and exploitation (Karl
Marx, 1820-95)
 Geertz
 “man is an animal suspended in webs of
meaning he himself has spun”
 Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture & Leadership
 pattern of basic assumptions
 that a given group has . . . developed
 in learning to cope with its problems of external
adaptation & internal integration
 and that have worked well enough to be considered valid
 & therefore to be taught to new members as the
correct way
 to perceive, think & feel in relation to these problems
 Edgar Schein:
 Assumptions are
manifest in values that
guide behavior
 In turn, culturally
influenced behavior
produces artifacts that
realize cultural values
and assumptions
Artifacts
Values
Assumptions
HOW LEADERS EMBED & TRANSMIT ASSUMPTIONS
(SCHEIN)
Embedding mechanisms:
Visible artifacts of the organizational culture
Create “climate” of organization
Part of everyday routines
Conflict within mechanisms can form basis of
subcultures & countercultures
PRIMARY EMBEDDING MECHANISMS
What leaders pay attention to, measure, and control
How leaders react to critical incidents & organizational crises
How leaders allocate resources
Deliberate role modeling, teaching, & coaching
How leaders allocate rewards and status
How leaders recruit, select, promote, & excommunicate
SECONDARY EMBEDDING MECHANISMS
Organizational design & structure
Organizational systems & procedures
Rites & rituals
Physical design/structure
Narratives
Formal statements or philosophy,
creeds, & charters
Work only when
consistent with
primary
embedding
mechanisms
When
institutionalized,
constrain future
leaders
THE ORGANIZATION AS PSYCHIC PRISON
Application of the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Michel Foucault
(1926-1984)
Organizations as scenes of unconscious processes:
 desire
 anxiety
 stress
 repression
Organizations as shared illusions
Helps understand emotional aspects of organizations, conflict & resistance
to change
Discourse: “irrational,” “resistance,” “stress”
ORGANIZATIONS AS SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY
Relationship among interests, conflict, and
power
MODES OF POLITICAL RULE IN ORGANIZATIONS:
SYSTEMS OF LEGITIMACY
autocracy
 absolute power held by
individual or small group
 “We’ll do it this way.”
bureaucracy
 rule of law based on formal
(“rational”) allocation of
responsibilities
 “We’re supposed to do it this
way.”
technocracy
 rule exercised through
expertise
 “It’s best to do it this way.”
codetermination
 joint management of
mutual interests
 “How shall we do it?”
representative
democracy
 rule by representatives of
stakeholders
 “How shall we do it?”
direct democracy
 communal decisionmaking
 How shall we do it?”
CULTURES, COUNTERCULTURES, CULTURAL
CHANGE
• The official culture is dominant or hegemonic
• Countercultures (counterhegemonic cultures) may develop overt
opposition to official organizational values
• Countercultures may counterbalance negative aspects of the
dominant culture
• The struggle between hegemonic and counterhegemonic forces
leads to cultural change (Antonio Gramsci, Italian neoMarxist theorist,1891-1937)
EVALUATING THE POLITICAL METAPHOR
STRENGTHS
LIM ITAT IO N S
Accepts reality and inevitability
of organizational politics
Recognizes its constructive role
Places power at the center of
organizational analysis
Questions the neutrality of
organizational reality
Overcomes limitations of idea
that organizations are
functionally integrated
systems (machines or
organisms)
May lead to increased
politicization of an
organization
Can breed cynicism and
distrust
May fail to take adequately
into account overarching
structures of domination
THE BRAIN METAPHOR
Images of the brain
 an elusive metaphor!
① Organizations as Information
Processing Systems
② Organizations as Complex
Systems
③ Organizations as Holographic
Systems with Centralized and
Decentralized Elements
Processing
Learning
ORGANIZATIONS AS COMPLEX LEARNING SYSTEMS
Cybernetics
 self-regulating behavior, negative feedback loops
 simple cybernetic systems
1. Systems must have capacity to sense and monitor significant aspects of
the environment
2. They must be able to relate this information to the operating norms that
guide system behavior.
3. They must be able to detect significant deviations from the norms
4. they must be able to initiate corrective action when discrepancies are
detected
 complex systems
 detect and correct errors in operating norms
 self-questioning ability, learning to learn
ORGANIZATIONS AS COMPLEX LEARNING SYSTEMS
How Can Organizations Learn to Learn?
 learning organizations (Chris Argyris
 action learning (Reg Revans)
Double-loop learning
 questioning whether operating norms are appropriate
 barriers
 bureaucratic fragmentation of information flow
 reward systems that reinforce single-loop learning
 systems of bureaucratic acountability
 “defensive routines”
ORGANIZATIONS AS COMPLEX LEARNING SYSTEMS
Guidelines for Learning Organizations
Develop a learning orientation, capacities that allow them to:
 scan and anticipate change in environment
 creation of insight and knowledge (e.g., of customers)
 develop ability to question, challenge, and change operating norms & assumptions
 framing and reframing (TQM, in theory)
 encouraging “emergent” organization
 Japanese ringi, collective decision-making process
 avoidance of undersirable system states: limits as well as intentions
WHAT MIGHT A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
LOOK LIKE? (SCHEIN)
① Proactivity
② Commitment to learning to learn
③ Positive assumptions about human nature
④ Belief that environment can be managed
⑤ Commitment to truth through pragmatism and inquiry
⑥ Positive orientation toward the future
⑦ Commitment to full and open task-relevant communication
⑧ Commitment to systematic thinking
⑨ Belief that cultural analysis is a valid set of lenses for understanding and
improving the world
⑩ Commitment to cultural diversity
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF BRAIN METAPHOR
STRENGTHS
LIM ITAT IO N S
Dovetails with
“knowledge economy”
Powerful way of thinking
about implications of
IT and its support for
developing learning
organizations
Allows us to rethink key
management
principles
No coherent image of
the brain
Resistance to
indeterminance
③ WHAT STRUCTURES & BEHAVIORS REWARD
INNOVATION AND OVERCOME RESISTANCE
TO CHANGE?
•
What ways of thinking about organizations structures and cultures best leads to
innovation? Does it help to use the organic metaphor? The brain metaphor?
•
What does it mean specifically to think outside of the box in your organization? In
your particular role in the organization?
•
What specific forms of resistance do innovations encounter?
•
How can employee diversity lead to innovation? What does it take for that to
happen?
•
To what extent is your organization a learning organization? How could it become
more of one?