The Managers

Pocket Guide to

Corporate
Culture Change
Organizational
Performance

Workgroup
Technology

Virtual
Work

Richard Bellingham, Ed.D.

HRD Press, Inc. Amherst Massachusetts

 2001 by HRD Press, Inc.

All rights reserved. Any reproduction in any media of
the materials that appear in this book without written
permission from HRD Press is a violation of copyright law.

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Cover design by Donna Thibault-Wong

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Table of Contents
This book is aimed at the intersection of organizational
performance, workgroup technologies and virtual teams.
This book explores the challenges of change in a
virtual environment. It also discusses how workgroup
technologies can enable successful change in that
environment.
Introduction and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Impact of Business Drivers on
Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Implications of Strategy on Structure . . .
New Strategies and Structures Impose
New Demands on Staff and Teams . . . . .
The Need for Robust Systems to Support
the Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Systems Require New Skills and
Different Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Need for Renewal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Renewal Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8
10
11

Task I:

12

Maximizing Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill 1: Mobilize people behind the shared
values, strategy and structure . . . .
Step A. Define the core values
and vision. . . . . . . . . . . .
Step B. Align the structure with
the strategy . . . . . . . . . .
Step C. Engage people in the
change . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill 2:

Empower people. . . . . . . . . .
Step A. Define job direction
and boundaries. . . .
Step B. Provide autonomy. .
Step C. Support people as
needed . . . . . . . . . .

1
2
4
4
6

16
18
23
26

....

31

....
....

34
37

....

41
iii

Table of Contents

Skill 3:

Task I:
Task I:

Recognize individual and team

contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step A. Define requirements
and expectations . . .
Step B. Define motivating
factors . . . . . . . . . . .
Step C. Align reward system .

...

45

...

47

...
...

51
54

Commitment Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58
59

Task II: Build Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Skill 4: Develop people. . . . . . . . . . . .
Step A. Attend to physical
health . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step B. Attend to emotional
health . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step C. Attend to intellectual
health . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step D. Attend to spiritual
health . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill 5:

Create a
Step A.
Step B.
Step C.

learning organization
Think systems . . . . .
Seek input . . . . . . . .
Make knowledge
happen . . . . . . . . . . .
Step D. Form partnerships . .

...
...

61
63

...

70

...

74

...

78

...

81

...
...
...

85
89
93

. . . 98
. . . 102

Task II: Capacity Exercise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Task II: Building Capacity Summary . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Task III: Aligning the Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Skill 6: Articulate the cultural
requirements for success . . . . . . . 111
Step A. Review stated values and
operating principles . . . . 113
Step B. Translate into norms
and behaviors. . . . . . . . . 116
iv

Introduction and Overview

Skill 7:

Create a cultural revolution . . . .

Step A. Diagnose your current
culture . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step B. Develop programs . . .
Step C. Deliver skills and
support . . . . . . . . . . . .
Step D. Determine progress . .

. . 119
. . 121
. . 127
. . 130
. . 133

Task III: Alignment Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Task III: Aligning the Culture Summary . . . . . . . . . 137
Task IV: Managing Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Change Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Score Your Change Assessment . . . . . . . .
Skill 8: Promote understanding . . . . . . . . .
Step A. Describe the event . . . . .
Step B. Identify feelings . . . . . . .
Skill 9:

139
142
144
146
147
151

Facilitate acceptance . . . . . . . . . . 155

Step A. Moving to
commitment . . . . . . . . . . 157
Step B. Putting the past
behind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Skill 10: Enable change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Step A. Making the

transition . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Step B. Beginning again . . . . . . 171
Task IV: Managing Change Exercise . . . . . . . . . . 174
Task IV: Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Introduction and Overview

Introduction and Overview

Changing corporate culture cannot be a random activity.
Leaders must take a logical and systematic approach to
change in order to achieve desired results. While much
has been written about the Seven Ss (shared values,
strategy, structure, staff, systems, skill, style) depicted in
the graphic below, we have found that most organizations
do not follow a prescribed order. Some organizations
attempt to renew their organizations through restructuring
efforts. Others try to renew themselves through intensive
skill training programs or educational seminars on style
preferences and differences.
From our experience, we have found that the most
successful change programs start with a statement of
shared values. Starting with values ensures that the entire
organization puts purpose before action. Then, effective
organizations articulate well-developed strategies to
accomplish the purpose. With well-defined values and a
clearly articulated strategy, it is possible to make intelligent
decisions about structure, staff, systems, skills, and style
requirements, and to create a high purpose, high
performance organization.
As you have seen from the Table of Contents, the first skill
of changing corporate culture is to mobilize people behind
Values
Shared
Stru

cture

ff
Sta
Skill

Shared Values
Strategy

Strateg

ems

Syst

Style

Before

Structure
Staff
Systems
Skill
Style

After
1

Corporate Culture Change

the shared values, strategy and structure. While it is

beyond the scope of this book to develop strategy or
decide upon new organizational structures, we would be
remiss not to discuss the critical importance of these key
ingredients to renewal. Thus, this introduction will frame
the Seven Ss in relation to changing corporate culture
and then put the skills of this book in their proper context.

The Impact of
Business Drivers on Strategy
We hear about it on TV, read about it in newspapers
and magazines and talk about it formally and informally.
By now, most people are aware that massive changes
are taking place in the business world. The industrial age
continues to give way to the information and electronic
age. The factors creating these changes include:
The global villageBusinesses are being forced to
compete in a global economy where competition for
quality goods at competitive prices is coming from all
corners of the world. The emerging economies are
placing competitive pressure on companies as never
before. As trade barriers crumble, opportunities and
challenges are created. The global village is also
creating a more culturally diverse work force. Through
this diversity comes creative opportunity as well as
challenge.
Customer-focused relationshipsThe consumers
increasing demand for better quality means companies
that are flexible and able to respond quickly to market
changes will remain competitive. Today, the new challenge is to develop interdependent relationships with
customers to provide tailored solutions for their specific
problems and opportunities. This shift in relationship
(from order taker to partner) has imposed enormous
new demands on organizations. We can no longer be
content when our customer satisfaction ratings are high;
we have to respond, personalize and initiate solutions
that result in customer growth.
2

Introduction and Overview

Faster paceThe increasing development and

availability of electronic communications technology,
such as fax, telephone, modem, satellite transmission,
Internet communication and computer software, are
creating a faster-paced workflow with greater flexibility
and less dependence on the traditional office concept.
Product development and redesign cycles have become
increasingly compressed. Faster has become the
corporate mantra. We are the fastest generation on
record. Anything that makes things happen faster is
readily adopted and admired. Speed has become a
major competitive factor.
Strategic collaborationCompanies who were
once bitter adversaries are shifting attitudes to a more
cooperative existence when combining their strengths
builds a better mousetrap than either could build
separately.
All of these business drivers have a profound impact
on strategy. In addition to all the other factors influencing
strategy, these must also be taken into account when
leaders develop their strategies for the future.

Cultural Diversity

Customer Relationships

Johanson

Faster Pace

Technology
Marketplace

Strategic Collaboration

Corporate Culture Change

The Implications of
Strategy on Structure
Organizations most likely to succeed during this storm
of change are those willing to take a new look at the way
they do business, particularly their work-force structure.
Traditional hierarchical corporate structure is permanent,
structured and rigid. A new, more effective model is the
Fishnet model created by Robert Johanson of the Institute
for the Future. The Fishnet organization is flexibleable
to form and reform various patterns of relationship among
managers and workers. Events either external or internal
that create challenges or opportunities are known as
spikes in the Fishnet model. Companies respond to the
spikes by building teams of diverse workers to reach the
organizations immediate goals, then dismantle the team
to create new teams. The Fishnet model allows for fluid
redefining of roles and leadership, while retaining its
strength and interconnections. This new model is
gaining increasing acceptance because it is:

Business driven rather than organizationally driven

Dynamic and flexible
Worldwide and cross-cultural
Cross-functional
Inter-enterprise

New Strategies and Structures Impose

New Demands on Staff and Teams
Clearly, these changes in strategy and structure create
new requirements on staff. People and teams must be
able to relate to diverse cultures and style, to think
interdependently and to plan for ever increasing timeto-market demands as they seek out opportunities to
collaborate. In addition, new structures put demands
on people and teams to manage multiple bosses, to
communicate electronically with people all over the
globe and to be flexible and adaptive.
4

Introduction and Overview

The challenges of teams today are different from those

of the recent past. Today, many teams are geographically
dispersed. They may also come from different disciplines,
departments or even different organizations. We call this
type of team a Virtual Team.
The advantage of virtual teams is that there are no geographic or organizational boundaries. By using modern
communication technology, virtual teams can bring the
best and brightest individuals together without the cost
and trouble of travel or relocation.
Teams today need to develop trust and collaborate in a
virtual world. But trust and collaboration are difficult when
people are physically separated for long periods of time.
The essential elements of high performing teams need
to be developed among people all over the world, who
may not know each other and who may work together
on a team for only a few months. Creating high performing
teams, therefore, not only requires a solid foundation on
the basics of teamwork, but also requires enabling
technologies to accelerate and sustain progress.

Corporate Culture Change

The Need for Robust Systems to

Support the Structure
New strategies, structures, and staffing requirements
create the need for adequate systems to support them.
Many organizations now have Chief Information Officers
(ClOs) to address the Information Systems (IS) requirements to enable all these changes. While this book
cannot possibly overview all the IS changes taking place
in organizations today, it will address the ways in which
workgroup technology can enable changing corporate
culture efforts.
Working without boundaries. Workgroup technology is
a collection of computer software applications developed
to allow individual team members to work together on
projects regardless of geographic location. Workgroup
technology generally works in tandem with the latest
communication technologies, such as fax, modem,
satellite transmission, laptop computers, E-Mail, etc.
These technologies particularly enhance communication
and interpersonal group activities. They cannot perform
the tasks of a project, but they enhance and support the
individuals working on a project from disparate locations.
Work anytime, anywhere. There are four basic
time/space configurations for groups to work together
using workgroup and communication technology.
Same Time/Same Placethe traditional concept of
meetings in which each member of the team comes
together at a specific location and time.
Same Time/Different Placemembers meet together
at the same time, but may be in different locations aided
by technology such as telephone conference calling or
video teleconferencing. Workgroup technology enhances
this process by allowing more than one person to work
on the same file at the same time from different
locations.

Introduction and Overview

Same Place/Different Timemembers work on the

project within the same location but come and go at
different times.
Different Time/Different Placemembers work on
projects at different times and different locations using
both workgroup and communication technology.
In the future the concept of any time/any place teamwork
will increasingly provide flexibility and speed for bringing
new products and services to the demanding marketplace
at an ever increasing pace.
The new team technologies help virtual teams function,
but a high performing team still requires strong team
development skills to maximize the usefulness of the
technology.
Additionally, the management of the communication
continuum needs to be fluid and flexible. That is, knowing
when to use a specific time/space configuration is key to
managing team performance. Different points in the team
process require different structures. The successful leader
will be attuned to the needs of the team at each stage
of development and adjust the communication model
accordingly.
Voice mail
Computer conferencing

Pl

ac
e

Same Time/Same Place

Same Time/Different Place
Same Place/Different Time
Different Time/Different Place

Stations for shift work

Team rooms

Workstation networks
PC projectors

IFIF

Sa

Pl
ac

Sa

Two-way video
Screen sharing

Ti
m

Sa

D
if
Pl fere
ac n
e t

Sa

Ti
m

D
iff
Ti ere
m n
e t

D
if
Pl fere
ac n
e t

D
iff
Ti ere
m n
e t

Corporate Culture Change

New Systems Require New Skills

and Different Styles
As the changes inherent in the first five Ss cascade
through the organization, people are compelled to learn
new skills and to modify their styles. Many organizations
are attempting to compare their current skill profiles
with anticipated requirements for the future. Unfortunately,
most skill profiling efforts do not take into account all the
demands imposed by changes in shared values, strategy,
structure, staffing and systems.
In addition to new skill requirements, changes in the
way we do business have translated into new rules for
interactions with associates, customers, competitors and
partners. For example, workgroup and team technologies
are designed to promote collaboration. Working together in
collaboration can not only be a rewarding experience, but
has traditionally facilitated some of the greatest human
creations.
Although our society often rewards competition, it is
through collaboration that some of the greatest scientific
discoveries have been made. In fact, it has been said that
competition chokes the creative process.
We define collaboration as two or more individuals with
complementary skills working together to create a shared
understanding that none had previously possessed or
could have come to on their own (Schrage, 1990).
Where would Elton John have been without lyricist Bernie
Taupin? Or Rodgers without Hammerstein?
Organizations that support and reward collaboration
will meet the emerging challenges of change, taking
advantage of the global economy, new technology
and cultural diversity to bring better quality products
and services to ever demanding customers.

Introduction and Overview

The demands on leaders in the 21st century are ever

increasing as they try to steer their organization through
the turbulence of change happening in todays economic
climate. How can we achieve business goals, keep our
employees motivated and inspired and utilize emerging
technologies all while were navigating through continuous
whitewater? The Seven Ss hold the key to helping leaders
steer through the turbulence to achieve their goals.
We have found there are three key success factors in
changing corporate culture efforts: commitment, capacity
and culture. For any change to be successful, leaders
need to have a simultaneous focus on all three factors.
Renewing the organization through changes in values,
strategy, structure, etc., requires broad commitment
throughout the organization. Developing capacity
accelerates the process, and aligning the culture
sustains whatever changes are achieved.

Commitment

Capacity

Culture

Shared Values
Strategy
Structure
Staff
Skill
Style
Systems

Corporate Culture Change

The Need for Renewal

Well-established organizations may have particular
difficulty recognizing and identifying the effects of the
pressures of change and the need for renewal. The
difficulties causing decline can take place slowly, go
undetected, or be denied for years. If the organization
is lucky, a crisis may happen to shake things up enough
to motivate change. For unlucky organizations the gravitational downward spiral may continue until the point of no
returnorders are given: Do Not Resuscitate.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) was an organization suffering from years of
decline masked by denial. The result of this denial was
tragic. Seventy-three seconds into what had become
a common launching of the space shuttle Challenger,
a horrible explosion killing all seven crew members
(including a public school teacher) was witnessed around
the world. This event shocked the nation and severely
damaged the publics confidence in the NASA space
program. Twenty-five years after the first manned space
flight, this crisis of monumental proportions shook the
agency to its knees, forcing it to reflect and change, or
cease to exist. NASA had once been considered an
exemplary organization. But upon internal investigation
it became clear that this exemplary organization was
as vulnerable to human failure, misinterpretation of data,
rigid adherence to routines that werent working, poor
communication, denial and stress as any organization
large or small. Unfortunately it took a tragedy to get their
attention.
NASAs story is a great example of an organization that,
by drifting away from its primary focus, had fallen into
decline and was badly in need of changing corporate
culture efforts (Guy, 1989). Leaders, by necessity, must
recognize, identify and discuss crises and opportunities
before, during, and after they occur so that the organization believes there is sufficient urgency to change.
Unless a large majority of people are truly convinced
10

Introduction and Overview

that the current raft will sink during the next whitewater,
and unless radical changes are made, the end result will
be denial . . . until doom strikes.

Renewal Begins
Once people accept the fact that business as usual is
unacceptable, they begin to mobilize behind the changes.
The question is how to mobilize people in a systematic
way so that renewal efforts result in competitive
advantage.
Leadership provides the substance of renewal. While all
of these renewal tasks, discussed above, are requirements
for growth, the leadership issue is central to success. John
Kotter, Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business
School, asserts that forming a powerful guiding coalition
a team with enough power to lead the renewal effort is
an often ignored step in organizational transformation.
This book explores the challenges of change in a
virtual environment. It also discusses how workgroup
technologies can enable successful change in that
environment.
This book is organized around four key tasks for renewal:
1. Maximizing Commitment
2. Building Capacity
3. Aligning the Culture
4. Managing Change

Leadership Behaviors
for Facilitating, Accelerating and Sustaining High Performance
Mobilize

Maximize
Commitment

Empower
Recognize

Build
Capacity

Develop
Learn

Align
Culture

Articulate
Create

Manage Change
Understand Accept Enable

11

Corporate Culture Change

Task I.
Maximizing Commitment
Key Ingredients:
Interdependent contract
Inspiring visions
Critical Skills:
1. Mobilize people behind the values and vision
2. Empower people to control their work and life
3. Recognize individual and team contributions
We often hear organizations talk about people as the most
valuable and valued asset, but we rarely see a consistent
set of actions and initiatives that support those statements.
In most organizations, that phrase is simply an empty
slogan that causes more cynicism than commitment.
The unspoken contract between organizations and
employees that once existed has been irrevocably
breached. Downsizing, delayering, and restructuring
within companies coupled with mergers and acquisitions
between companies have profoundly changed the
relationship between employee and employer.
In the book Ethical Leadership (Bellingham and Cohen,
1990), a series of five-point rating scales lets employers
and employees assess their current relationship and
identify possibilities for maximizing commitment. The
scale for employee development is as follows:
1.0 Employees are given only the facts they need to
know to do their jobs. They are largely ignored.
2.0 Employees are offered programs that give them
a conceptual overview of their job, its function, the
skills required to perform the job and how those skills
contribute to the organization. They are informed.
12

Task I. Maximizing Commitment

3.0 Employees are equipped with an educational core

set of skills designed to help them think better, relate
more constructively and plan systematically. These
skills empower employees to contribute to the organization. Employees are involved appropriately in
decisions that affect them. They have access to and
support to use discussion databases.
4.0 The generic skills of employees are reinforced
with opportunities to learn and practice functional
applications (for example: coaching, delegating and
conducting performance reviews.) These are the
skills required for success as a manager in any
organization. The employees are incorporated
into the business. The culture values the use of
technology.
5.0 The organization educates its employees so that their
street value meets or exceeds their compensation
in their current job. By so doing, the organization
reduces employees fears about instability, insecurity
and reductions in force because the employees know
they can leave whenever the gap between their personal values and their job requirements is too large.
What employees may lose in job security, they will
gain in career security. At the same time, this type
of psychological contract eliminates the pressure of
employers to make lifetime employment guarantees.
At level 5.0, the ethical organization is freed to
achieve a realistic balance between satisfying worker
values and meeting stockholder recommendations.
Both the organization and the individual win through
improved education. Employees are inspired to rally
behind the vision and mission. The organization
makes sure people have the skills and knowledge
needed to use available technologies.

13

Corporate Culture Change

In the traditional organization, there was a dependent

relationship in which security was rewarded for loyalty.
In the 1980s that implicit contract became null and void.
This resulted in an independent relationship in which
each partys position was, You take what you can get,
and Ill take what I can get. The new emerging contract
links developmental opportunities with organizational
commitment. Developmental opportunities include training
and support to utilize available technologies. It is an
interdependent relationship in which both parties actively
seek ways to help the other succeed, regardless of the
length of the relationship. In making the transition from
dependent loyalty to interdependent commitment, leaders
need to acknowledge old expectations and articulate the
new ones. Employees, on the other hand, need to take
more responsibility for enhancing their own careers.
Finally, both parties need to engage in open, honest
discussions regarding organizational and individual
expectations and how each can help the other achieve
their goals.
Just as the contract has changed, the context has
changed as well. While long tenure used to be viewed
positively, in the 1990s a job history with a variety of
companies was more valued. Given all these changes,
what can a manager do to maximize commitment in
the organization? Maximizing commitment is an absolute
must for any organization to succeed in its renewal effort.
Without it, valuable energy will be wasted. In his book,
Inspiring Commitment (1995), Dr. Anthony Mendes
discusses how to win loyalty in chaotic times. His book
summarizes the literature on commitment and provides
specific guidelines and principles for increasing it.
This section condenses some of the findings from his book
into three key skills.

14

Task I. Maximizing Commitment

Skill 1. Mobilize people behind the shared values,

strategy and structure.
Skill 2. Empower people to control their work and their
life.
Skill 3. Recognize individual and team contributions.

Scale of
Employee Development
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Ignore
Inform
Involve
Incorporate
Inspire

Changes in Psychological Contract

From Traditional to New Emerging
Employee
Loyalty

Take What
I can Get
Commitment

Employer
Dependent

Independent

Interdependent

Security

Take What
I Can Get
Development

15

Corporate Culture Change

SKILL 1:
MOBILIZE PEOPLE BEHIND THE
SHARED VALUES, STRATEGY AND
STRUCTURE
Definition: Creating positive energy for change
Benefits:
Higher productivity
Improved focus
Steps:
A. Define the core values and vision
B. Align the structure with the strategy
C. Engage people in the change

Introduction
Mobilizing people and teams behind the values, strategy
and structure creates positive energy for change. When
there is positive energy, people are able to produce more
with less effort. When there is positive energy, people and
teams use available technologies to communicate and
participate. They are more focused on the possibilities and
have an excitement about the renewal effort. Instead of
wasting energy on complaints and negativity, there is an
infectious vitality that enables people to focus on achieving
business results.
There are three steps to mobilizing people behind the
values, strategy and structure:
Step A. Define the core values and vision.
Step B. Align the structure with the strategy.
Step C. Engage people in the change.
16

Skill 1. Mobilize People

The shift to a virtual environment has had a penetrating

impact on how people are mobilized. Looking at the
world as an amalgam of potential partnerships versus
hostile competitors influences decisions about shared
values, strategy and structure.
In a virtual environment, maximizing commitment
poses a considerable challenge. How does a leader
inspire people and create a sense of interdependence
when members of the team are spread across the
globe.
The Haelan Group, an Integrated Health
Management Systems company headquartered
in Indianapolis, exemplifies how a virtual company
can deal with the commitment issue.
Haelan has affiliate partners who run independent
businesses in several major cities around the world.
In order to heighten commitment among the affiliate
partners, Haelan held a worldwide conference in its
early stages that involved all the partners in forming
the shared values, strategy and structure.
Based upon input from all partners at that meeting,
Haelan developed an affiliate partner agreement that
specified expectations of all members. All the partners
had ample opportunity to shape the agreement to meet
their needs. Upon that base of involvement and clarity,
Haelan is now able to communicate through a variety of
modes to maintain high commitment among the
partners.

17

Corporate Culture Change

Step A.
Define the core values and vision

What it means:
Clarifying the ideal end state and what is most
important for getting there.
How it works:
Define three to five core values
Create an inspiring vision
The Idea
Values and vision inform strategy and structure. They
establish purpose before action. Values and vision are
different.
Values indicate what is important to the organization and
guide how the organization conducts itself. Shared values
are primarily directed toward process.
Core values should be shared by as many people as
possible throughout the organization and among partners.
Similarly, everyone in the organization should feel that
their primary role is to contribute to the vision.
Implanting a set of core values into the organization
helps the leadership and employees measure their
decisions against well-defined criteria. The values
become benchmarks for assessing success and a
guidepost in the decision-making process.
Values should not be confused with operating principles.
Generally they are limited to no more than five key values.
Core values communicate whats important to the
organization.

18

Skill 1. Mobilize People

Much has been written about vision statements and

mission statements. Essentially, a vision represents the
ideal end state or the furthest implications of your work.
A mission, on the other hand, simply describes the nature
of your business. For example, a vision statement for a
telecommunications firm might be connecting civilizations, while its mission statement might be to be the
leading manufacturer of digital switching equipment.
A vision statement should be passionate, short and
powerful. At NASA, the early vision was to put a man
on the moon before the Soviets. Every person in the
organization was mobilized around that vision. This vision
was so ingrained, that if an outsider were to ask the janitor
what his or her job was, the reply would be, To put a man
on the moon before the Soviets.
We believe, incidentally, that defining the core values
should precede the creation of a vision statement
because the values represent who you want to be
as an organization, while the vision statement defines
what you want to become.
Beyond the values and vision, it is also critical to define
the mission, goals, objectives, and strategies so that
people share a clear understanding about the direction
the organization is headed. While this exercise focuses
on the first two essentials (values and vision), it may be
useful for you to focus also on the more specific variables,
depending on what you believe requires more clarity in
your organization.
Including the use of technology within the values and
vision statement of the organization sends a powerful
message to employees about the commitment to and
support of technology. It also provides a benchmark
to ensure that the day-to-day operating functions are
aligned with the values of technology.

19

Corporate Culture Change

Example
NASAs vision statement in 1986 was the same as it had
been in 1958: to surpass the Soviets in space exploration,
to impress the world with its feats, and trust that its work
will enhance the lives of all Americans.
The changes in economic conditions and loss of public
interest following the moon landings had resulted in
serious budgetary restraints. Over time, NASA leaders
were affected by these pressures and began changing
the agency focus from safety and quality to maintaining
funding.
Agency leadership allowed safety requirements to slide
in order to meet budgetary constraints imposed by
Congress. At the same time, the need to impress the
public (to maintain funding) had manifested itself as an
unrealistic launch schedule of 24 missions per year. This
also compromised safety by not allowing enough time to
correct problems when they were seen.
Many signals of safety problems were reported, but they
were ignored in order to meet the schedule. Somehow the
agencys personnel believed the values of the organization
were quantity at low cost. The organization had lost its
alignment with the values, vision, mission, goals, and
objectives from the earlier years.
Today, NASA seems to have incorporated the budgetary
constraints into their vision and mission. Engineers at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are
being encouraged to find new technologies to bring the
costs of missions down. Instead of trying to maintain the
status quo by cutting corners, now they are using their
considerable capabilities to find innovative ways to make
the budget work.

20

Skill 1. Mobilize People

Their mission now is to develop plans for small spacecraft

that test new technologies to bring costs down. This
change of values, strategies and vision has taken quite a
bit of effort. But the scientists and engineers have had to
change their thinking, or risk losing the space exploration
program all together.
In the past, each mission was comprehensive and carried
every conceivable instrumentation and every possible
scientific experiment. The new projects are being scaled
down. For example, a few years ago, engineers presented
a new project based on the previous Jupiter explorer
Galileo and Saturn explorer Cassini spacecraft model.
The project would have cost $4 billion dollars. They were
sent back to the drawing boards several times to come up
with a way to bring the costs down. NASA officials call it
a deep cultural change.

21

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
Use the space below to list the core values in your
organization.

How have value statements changed in the past years?

What new words are appearing?

Are they the right values for a virtual environment?

22

Skill 1. Mobilize People

Step B.
Align the structure with the strategy
What it means:
Align company around several core processes
How it works:
Assess the level of strategic and tactical clarity
Decide on the best engagement strategy
The Idea
In the past, companies organized themselves in vertical
structures to take advantage of functional expertise. In
vertical, hierarchical structures, everyone understands
where they fit in the organization and what their role is.
Direction is clear because decision-making power resides
at the top. Unfortunately, in this type of organizational
structure, clarity is achieved at the expense of collaboration. In vertical organizations, most people dont
understand the overall company objectives and strategies
and how their work contributes to company and customer
success.
In a horizontal structure the company is organized around
several core processes with specific performance goals
and ownership of each process. While organizations shift
to this new structure, it is important not to make any
significant structural changes until the strategy is well
developed. The structure needs to support the strategy.
After the strategy is well-defined, then structural decisions
need to be made around the hierarchy, processes, teams
and customer goals. One option is to build the company
more around processes than around functions or departments. Another option is to reduce layers of management
and eliminate the work that fails to add value. A third
option is to build the organization based on teams and let
them manage themselves.
23

Corporate Culture Change

Examples
Eastman Chemical Co. replaced several functional
vice presidents with self-directed work teams. Its organizational chart is called the pizza chart because it looks
like a pizza with a lot of pepperoni sitting on it. It is
represented in circular form so that everyone is equal
in the organization.
McKinsey and Co. conceptualized the horizontal organization with a drawing of three boxes floating above a
series of core processes. The circles represent the crossfunctional nature of the teams in charge of the processes.
AT&T Network Systems Division has assigned owners
and champions to 13 core processes. The owners are
responsible for the day-to-day operations of a process,
and the champions make sure that the process remains
linked with overall business strategies and goals.
In this book we have highlighted the Fishnet model
developed by the Institute for the Future. This model
has advantages in todays world because it suggests
that teams can mobilize nicely around changes in internal
and external factors: customer needs, competitive threats,
technological or economic trends, and changing values
within the organization. The Fishnet model also recognizes
a fundamental reality of todays global economy: on a
moments notice, companies may have to shift direction
180 degrees based upon new information in the
marketplace.

Creating a Horizontal Corporation

Identify
strategic
objectives.

Define
Eliminate
core
unnecessary
processes.
activities.
Organize
around
processes.
Cut

Analyze
key competitive
advantages.

24

Develop
Appoint
Set
training,
a manager as
specific
appraisal, pay
the owner of
performance
and budget
each core
objectives.
to support the
process.
Create
new structure.
multifunctional teams
functions to a
Empower
minimum, preserve to run each
employees.
process.
key expertise.

Skill 1. Mobilize People

YOUR
TURN
How has your organizational structure changed in the past
several years? Is it now more vertical, more horizontal, or
a hybrid?

What changes do you need to make in your organizational

structure to ensure that it supports the strategy instead of
encumbering the strategy?

25

Corporate Culture Change

Step C.
Engage people in the change
What it means:
Linking individual vision to organizational vision
How it works:
Encourage employees to create a meaningful
mental picture
Describe the short-term and long-term goals
and objectives for the organization
Align individual goals with organizational vision
Clarify responsibilities
The Idea
No matter how many times people and teams are told
about the values, vision, strategy and structure, the words
will have little meaning until each person has a chance to
discuss their personal and organizational significance and
implications. To be meaningful, organizational vision must
be linked to individual vision. Without individual vision,
commitment cannot take wing and elevate people to
greater heights. People need to engage in discussion
before they can understand, own, or internalize the
intended message. Getting alignment behind the vision
is the foundation for creating commitment.
Example
In the early years of NASA, safety was a primary value
a benchmark that was used in the decision-making process. Safety was often the cause for delays in scheduled
missions. Somehow over the years, NASA was no longer
communicating its vision and values to employees; in
fact it appears that a set of unwritten values had taken
their place. On the morning of the Challenger launch,
temperature readings on the solid rocket booster were
below allowable safety standards. Launch personnel
ignored this because of the pressure to maintain the flight
26

Skill 1. Mobilize People

schedule, and the now infamous explosion shortly after

take off of Challenger resulted.
After this disaster, NASA was challenged to engage key
leaders in a new discussion of the values and vision of
safety and quality because of the decentralized nature of
the organization. NASA has several centers around the
country and many contractors. An effective communication
plan to inoculate key leaders with the values of safety and
quality might include all the key leaders from each division,
the contractors, and even leaders of Congress. This task
could be enhanced by using videoconferencing technologies that would facilitate discussion among many
people in different locations.

A challenge of leadership in a virtual environment is

to bring together disperse organizations with different
targets under a common vision. Providing visible
leadership in a virtual environment can be technically
supported, but it also requires face-to-face meetings.
In todays environment, some executives dont operate
out of a corporate headquarters, so the new task is to
create a virtual Open Door.
There are a number of strategies for communicating
the values and vision (or mission, goals, objectives,
strategies as the case may be) including teleconferences, open meetings, retreats, etc. Using these
available technologies can help engage key leaders
to participate, especially in a virtual environment.
For example, creating an on-line question & answer
database, using E-Mail and participatory log-on routines
can be used to involve people in the process.

27

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
Which items on the following list are still unclear to people
in your organization? In the space below please develop
your program for engaging key leaders in a discussion of
the items you checked and how they impact the future
direction of your organization.
Values
Vision
Mission
Goals
Objectives
Initiatives
Strategies

28

Skill 1. Mobilize People

Your Program:

If you manage someone remotely, what is that persons

perspective?

Develop an action plan for engagement. How will you

determine how engaged people currently feelparticularly,
those in the field? What options can you use to improve
visibility?

29

Skill 2. Empower People

SKILL 2:
EMPOWER PEOPLE TO CONTROL THEIR
WORK AND THEIR LIFE
Definition: Sharing power and authorizing people to
think and make decisions
Benefits:
Encourages productive thinking
Frees initiative
E=DAS
Improves quality
Steps:
A. Define job direction and boundaries
B. Provide Autonomy to initiate within boundaries
C. Support people as needed
Introduction
Empowering means sharing power and authorizing people
to think and make decisions (Carkhuff, 1989). Empowering
requires that people have the skills they need to meet their
responsibilities. In this Age of Information, empowering
skills should emphasize processing information. Economists indicate that human and information capital have
become the critical sources of economic growth.
Empowering is a term used in almost every corporation.
Unfortunately for many, using the term has not translated
into real behavior changes. For some, empowerment is
cynically defined as, I can do whatever I choose as long
as it agrees with what my boss thinks. This misses the
point in two critical ways. Empowerment does not mean
anarchy or freedom to operate without limits, but it does
mean thinking outside the box. Reconciliation of these
two points is what causes tension around empowerment
initiatives.
31

Corporate Culture Change

Empowerment is a process of balancing freedom with

control so that all managers and associates accept
responsibility and accountability. In addition, they
are authorized, supported and recognized for their
contributions.
Empowerment means that:
Employees have the authority to make decisions that
improve the quality of their work.
Employees can make some improvements at work
without first checking with their supervisor.
Employees have significant control in their jobs.
Empowerment might include using technology to allow
people or teams to work productively at home and
providing them with flexible time. It might also include
opening up information and giving people data, tools and
the authority to use them to increase customer growth.
Thus, effective empowerment initiatives improve quality
and commitment, free initiative, and give employees a
greater sense of control. Leaders who want to make
empowerment more than an empty slogan and want to
avoid a cynical backlash think of this concept in terms
of direction, autonomy and support. This skill will help
you process those three dimensions of empowerment
by taking three steps:
Step A. Define job direction and boundaries.
Step B. Give people autonomy to initiate within the
boundaries.
Step C. Support people as needed.

32

Skill 2. Empower People

Being able to process information more effectively

requires constant access to information on which to
base decisions. Portable technology enables easy and
constant access to information as well as personal
freedom and virtual participation. With this new technology, the boundaries between work and personal life
have blurred. Just as employees can have access to
information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, bosses may
also have access to employees 24 hours a day,
7 days a week.
Clearly, these technologies have positive and
negative aspects. For example, with increasing freedom
and distance from headquarter environments, the
notion of trust takes on new meaning. Who has access
to what information? How often do we need to check
in? Do we manage by results or manage by tasks?

33

Corporate Culture Change

Step A.
Define job direction and boundaries

What it means:
Setting achievable goals and clarifying limits of
authority
Steps:
Establish agreed-upon stretch targets.
Communicate clear metrics and standards
Establish boundaries and transfer authority
The Idea
People and teams need to be clear about the limits of
their authority, the problems they are trying to solve,
and the goal they are trying to achieve. Without that
understanding, empowerment results in random shots
in the dark. For empowerment to work, people need to:

Understand the company vision and direction;

Know where they fit;
Understand their roles and responsibilities;
Understand the boundaries they operate within
(e.g., service levels, fiscal constraints, decisionmaking authority);
Accept accountability;
Make decisions at the appropriate level;
Feel free to speak up.

34

Skill 2. Empower People

Some of the most useful steps leaders can take to define

direction and boundaries are:
1. Establish agreed-upon stretch targets that align with
the organizational vision.
2. Communicate clear measurements and standards
for accountability, accomplishment and progress.
Employees should, of course, participate in
developing these measurements and standards.
3. Establish boundaries and transfer authority to
accomplish the objectives.
The most useful boundaries are those that provide people
and teams with general guidelines that they can use to
make specific decisions.

Since teams are cross-functional, rapidly changing

and more quickly disbanding, roles may not equal job
descriptions. A person may have multiple roles and
multiple bosses at the same time. The person someone
reports to may not be the person who manages the
actual task. The question then becomes, who defines
the boundaries?
In a virtual environment, there are issues around
individual boundaries and group boundaries. A team
may have significant decision-making authority, but an
individual within the team may not. With the movement
toward shared responsibilities and accountabilities, the
concept of boundaries is changing.

35

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
In the spirit of empowerment, what could you do to define
the direction and boundaries for your employees?

36

Skill 2. Empower People

Step B.
Provide autonomy
What it means:
Enabling people to take control of their work
and their life
How it works:
Offer flexible work option
Provide opportunities for learning and
development
Involve people in decisions that affect them
Challenge associates with meaningful work
The Idea
In an empowered organization, the leader may decide
what needs to be accomplished and the associates
decide how to get it done.
Providing people with clear boundaries is accomplished
by what we talked about in the earlier sections. It means
that employees have clear understanding of the values,
vision, mission, goals, objectives and strategies that
frame the work to be done. They are then given the
autonomy to operate within those boundaries. With a
clear understanding of the organizational values, theyll
be able to make decisions that maintain consistency with
the framework.
If we are going to take the notion of empowerment
seriously, we need to consider the full context of the persons life. The goal is to empower people to take control
of their life inside and outside of work. Implied in this goal
is the recognition that people may have special needs at
home, work, school, and in the community. Therefore,
leaders who empower should:
37

Corporate Culture Change

Provide employees with flexible home/work/school

options made practical by the use of laptops, E-Mail
and workgroup technology.
Offer opportunities for learning and career enhancement,
including technology training.
Involve people in the goal-setting and decision-making
processes, and give access to decision-making
databases.
Provide access to virtual meetings in which decisions
are made.
Challenge associates with interesting work.
Example
Nordstrom Department Store is a good example of an
organization that has taken away hierarchical controls,
shifted power to the employees and facilitated customer
service in the process. Their policy and procedures
manual is a single page, containing a single paragraph
that simply tells employees to use their own judgment to
help the customer in whatever way they can. Employees
are empowered to use the resources of the store to solve
customer problems.
NASAs communication structure did allow lower level
staffers the autonomy to solve problems. It was structured
so that if the lower level staffers couldnt solve a problem,
it went up to the next level. If the higher levels didnt hear
about it, it was assumed that the problem had been solved
at the lower levels. Although this structure does empower
staff members closest to the problem to get things done
and have autonomy, it appears that the higher level
managers had released too much control. When lower
levels failed to pass the warning up the chain, the higher
levels never got the signals of trouble and assumed that
all was well. NASAs renewal strategy needs to include
a checks and balances system where the upper level
managers still have communication lines to the lower
levels, while maintaining the autonomy of the lower levels.
38

Skill 2. Empower People

YOUR
TURN
What ways could you free initiative within your
organization in the following areas:
Flexibility:

Learning and development:

Involvement in decisions:

Meaningful work:

39

Corporate Culture Change

How do you make autonomy not look like neglect in a

virtual environment?

How do you as a leader give up seeing what people are

doing and still feel good about that?

What can you do to demonstrate that you are managing by

results rather than by tasks or time?

40

Skill 2. Empower People

Step C.
Support people as needed
What it means:
Making discriminations regarding the amount
of coaching, consultation, direction, and collaboration is required for each individual to
succeed
How it works:
Inform
Equip
Communicate
Resource
The Idea
Getting clear agreement on what needs to be accomplished and freeing people and teams to figure out how
to get it done are two essential steps for empowerment.
The third step is to provide whatever support is needed
to ensure they succeed with flying colors. This support
includes the training and support for using technology.
Managers who are not comfortable with the notion of
empowerment can undermine success by not being clear
about objectives and withholding support. In effect, they
set people up to fail.
Effective leaders make discriminations about how much
support is needed. For some, delegation of the task is
sufficient. Others may require significant coaching,
consultation, specific direction or collaboration.
Another form of support involves providing the necessary
resources. Does the team have the information, tools,
technology, training and staff to accomplish the goal?
41

Corporate Culture Change

Clearly, from a leaders point of view, empowerment does

not mean total withdrawal of involvement. On the contrary,
empowerment requires clear directions and appropriate
support, and it requires a clear definition of authority.
Authority should be defined in terms of the power to
enforce, decide and spend.
Example
One of the main problems facing many organizations,
including NASA, is budget constraints. NASA would
propose a program; Congress would cut the funding
by one-third. This placed tremendous pressure on NASA
leaders to provide the product (to receive favorable public
opinion), but with fewer staff and resources.
With slashed budgets, NASA was struggling to maintain
essential resources. It was reported that technicians
pirated parts from one shuttle to fix another because
they lacked a proper spare parts inventory. NASA leaders
needed to ensure that the necessary resources were
available. If budgets were cut by Congress, then the
scope of the missions needed to be downsized as well.
Today, this is happening at NASA. NASA now openly
acknowledges tough budgetary times. They know they
cant fly missions at a billion dollars a pop. By reducing
spacecraft weights, NASA is able to use less expensive
rockets to launch new missions.
For example, instead of a traditional comprehensive
mission to explore the planet Pluto at an estimated
cost of $4 billion, NASA engineers came up with the
Pluto Express to the tune of just $400 million. The Pluto
Express is made up of two lightweight modules, incorporating microelectronic technologies. Additionally, they have
reduced the amount of scientific instrumentation in each
module. An increased amount of on-board automation will
help reduce the costs of ground support.

42

Skill 2. Empower People

Support Continuum
Ill tell you
everything
you need
to know

Here are the tools,

training, resources,
and authority to
figure out what
information you
need to get results

YOUR
TURN
What are some of the ways you can support
empowerment in your organization?

Communication:
Information:
Tools:
Staff:
Training:
Authorities:
Other:

43

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

SKILL 3:
RECOGNIZE INDIVIDUAL
CONTRIBUTIONS

AND

TEAM

Definition: Reinforcing valuable contributions

Benefits:
Sustains positive behavior
Motivates high performance
Steps:
A. Define requirements and expectations
B. Define the motivating factors for different groups
C. Design a reward system
Introduction
Recognition is a way to reinforce valuable contributions.
Stated objectives or new initiatives are unlikely to become
a reality without reinforcement or incentive. Maximizing
commitment is no exception to this. Like a car without
gasoline, no matter how great it looks, its not going
anywhere. It is basic human nature to initiate and sustain
behavior either to achieve a positive result or to avoid a
negative one (Mendes, 1995). Also, as the unspoken
contract between employer and employee changes from
security to development, the fear of job loss or disciplinary
action loses its power as a motivational tool.
Motivation is a primary concern of all organizations.
Managers are constantly asking how they can get an
employee and/or a team to want to do what needs to
be done.
Motivation arises from peoples beliefs about the
consequences of their actions. If people or teams believe
that the consequence of an action is favorable to them,
then they will be motivated to perform.
45

Corporate Culture Change

Recognizing individual and team contributions is a key

element of maximizing commitment and motivation.
Successful reward and recognition programs must be:
Tied to performance,
Tied to employee values, and
Based on achievable performance expectations
(Bellingham and Cohen, 1989).
In this skill you will work through three steps for
recognizing individual and team contributions:
Step A. Define requirements and expectations.
Step B. Define the motivating factors for different groups.
Step C. Design a reward system that is aligned with
organizational and individual values.

We have always understood the importance of

individual incentives. Now we must put as much brain
power into the creation of appropriate team incentives
as we have for individual incentives. Unfortunately,
traditional models have reinforced the wrong behaviors
for todays environment. For example, the traditional
models reward individual accomplishment more than
team accomplishment, and reward competitive
behaviors more than collaborative behaviors.
In addition to shifting our emphasis from individual to
team, we also need to focus on what types of incentives
are useful in a virtual environment. While we still have
to motivate individual behaviors, our incentives should
be directed toward those behaviors that contribute to
team effectiveness.
46

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

Step A.
Define requirements and
expectations
What it means:
Clarifying the criteria on which rewards and
recognitions are based
How it works:
Maintain an open system
Continually elicit input and feedback
Specify requirements before recognition and
reasons after recognition
The Idea
People and teams need to be clear about the criteria on
which they are being evaluated, rewarded, or recognized.
If people know how a recognition system works prior to the
giving of an award, they will be:
More likely to perform at higher levels and
Less likely to feel resentment or cheated if the reward
goes to someone else.
Therefore, the first step in providing recognition is to define
the requirements and expectations.
A productive organization tries to gain employee
commitment to the requirements and expectations of
the organization. This can be done by keeping an open
system that continually asks for input and feedback in
forming the corporate mission, goals, and objectives. That
way, people may recognize their ideas represented in the
mission and feel more invested in its success (Carkhuff,
1984).

47

Corporate Culture Change

Employees should always have access to these

expectations and to past information regarding
performance.
Example
NASAs expectations and requirements of staffers became
severely skewed over a period of time. Where once safety
and quality had been expected, now cost cutting, short
cuts, and keeping schedules were the rewarded expectations. Part of this may have been caused by a shift in
its primary mission of research and development for
increasingly sophisticated space exploration to a mission
of operating routine flights of commercial payloads. The
requirements and expectations of an operating program
of routine flights would by nature be different from those
for research and development.
NASA needed to redefine its mission and align the
requirements and expectations with that new mission.
Involving all staff members in the development will help
them commit to and understand the importance of these
expectations.
Today, NASA has changed its definition of success.
NASAs new proposed set of missions will still have
scientific objectives, but its success will be judged primarily
by how well the new lightweight, less costly technologies
succeed.
These new technologies demonstrate that NASA has a
different focus of getting costs down and increasing the
frequency of space flight. These new missions are aligned
with the need to have a publically visible program, but
within the available funding constraints.

48

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

This step becomes more complex in a virtual environment, because it is sometimes unclear who is defining
the requirements and expectations and how they fit with
different organizational missions.
For virtual companies, when there are multiple
bosses and a matrix organization, systematic planning
models are imperative so that everyone is clear about
how many days a month they are assigned to each
individual.
With systematic planning, each person has a set of
task cards that specify expectations with estimated time
requirements per month. Therefore, if one of several
bosses requests a person to perform additional tasks,
the person can show the boss the set of cards and ask
which one(s) the boss wants to eliminate. This process
facilitates negotiation among bosses and between
bosses and employees.
From an organizational perspective, we also need to
define requirements and expectations with partners. In
the Haelan Group, for example, a statement of work is
outlined with each partner so that there is no confusion
about conditions, terms, and stipulations.

49

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
How could you make the requirements and expectations of
your organization more clearly defined and more widely
understood?

How can you apply this step to motivation of team

behaviors?

50

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

Step B.
Define the motivating factors for
different groups
What it means:
Differentially rewarding according to respective
frames of reference
Steps:
Define levels of performance within your group
Define levels of motivation
Explore the types of reinforcement that may be
appropriate for the people in your group

The Idea
There are differences in values and levels of performance
among individuals and groups. Reinforcement plans will
be more effective if they recognize these differences and
target specific employees frame of reference. What
motivates one type of performer may not motivate another.
These strategies can be summarized in the chart on the
next page.
According to this chart, detractors require close supervision and immediate dispensation of rewards. While
observers may be able to respond to delayed incentives,
they are motivated best by external rewards. Participants
are best motivated to higher performance by understanding what their internal incentives are. Contributors
are usually motivated by opportunities to pursue new
learning that they can transform into working productively.
Finally, exemplars are motivated by freedom and
resources to pursue missions beyond management
mandates (Carkhuff, 1984).

51

Corporate Culture Change

Team leaders can use this scale to improve levels

of functioning within the team. By diagnosing where
each member is on the scale, leaders can develop
individual improvement plans and elevate each
persons performance. It is especially important to
focus on those behaviors that lead to high team
performance, e.g., collaboration, cooperation, support,
respect, communication, etc.
This model can also be applied to how well people adopt
the use of technologies. Exemplars encourage, promote
and help others with the use of technology. Detractors
may promote negativity, sabotage, and hinder the use
of technology.

Levels of Performance

Levels of Motivation

Levels of Reinforcement

Exemplar

Mission fulfillment

Resources and responsibilities

Contributor

Self-actualization

Time and opportunity

Participant

Goal achievement

Internal incentives

Observer

Incentive

External incentives

Detractor

Non-incentive

Differential reinforcements
Carkhuff

52

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

YOUR
TURN
Use the space below to list the different individuals and
groups within your organization. Identify the key motivating
factors for each of those groups.

53

Corporate Culture Change

Step C.
Design a reward system that is
aligned with organizational and
individual values
What it means:
Tailoring reward conditions to what we say is
important
Steps:
Assess the gap between stated organizational
values and what the reward system actually
recognizes
Change the reward system in a way that
reflects more congruence between
organizational and individual values
The Idea
In most organizations, leaders talk the talk, but dont
walk the walk. This is because rewards are based
primarily on short-term financial performance. While it
is in vogue to talk about empowerment, involvement, open
communications, trust, respect, fairness, balance, etc., the
reward system rarely includes these aspects of leadership
in any meaningful way. With the availability of 360-degree
feedback systems where performance input comes from
all levels surrounding an individual, it is now possible to
measure these behaviors in a fair and accurate way. The
question still remains, however, how much weight is given
to the results of these feedback tools in recognizing
individual and organizational performance?

54

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

Designing a reward system that is in harmony with

organizational and individual values means tailoring our
reward conditions to what we say is important. By doing
so, it is possible to narrow the gap between stated values
and principles and what people actually do (and get
recognized for) in the organization.
Specifically, leaders need to reinforce team results as
much as individual results. Leaders also need to reward
innovation, collaboration and risk taking. In order to do
this, leaders need to be open to systems that reward
behaviors that may not pan out immediately. Expectations
and norms that drive short-term thinking present barriers
to implementing these types of systems.
Example
In a large research organization in the telecommunications
industry, competitive pressures have forced dramatic
changes in what gets rewarded. In the past, employees
within this organization were rewarded for individual
thinking and for conducting basic research. The reward
system reflected a long-term investment strategy that
tolerated years of research with no guarantees for results.
The system, although costly and inefficient, produced a
wide variety of patents that generated enormous revenues
over a long period of time.
Changes in the marketplace have caused this organization
to redesign its reward system so that it now reinforces
interdependent relating and applied development with
clear expectations for short-term product delivery. These
changes have rocked the organizational culture and
created individual and organizational turmoil. It is still
unclear what impact these changes will have on the longterm health of this company.

55

Corporate Culture Change

In NASAs early days, if an employee had an accident

resulting in damage, it was pardoned as long as the staffer
fully reported the incident. This norm allowed problems to
be brought into the open so corrective measures could be
made. As pressures mounted to launch more and more
missions, accidents resulting in a delay of the schedule
were punished. Tension mounted as employees feared
for their jobs. They responded by not communicating
accidents or damage, and by sweeping problems under
the rug. Secrecy and denial were being rewarded in this
system.
In the renewal effort, the agency needed to reinstate the
policy of pardoning those who admit to mistakes. They
also need to reward those who discover problems. If they
rewarded personnel who blew the whistle on problems,
it would send a clear message to all about the commitment
to safety and quality assurance.

56

Skill 3. Recognize Contributions

YOUR
TURN
Use the space below to record what you can do to alter
the reward system in your organization to make it more
in agreement with organizational and individual values?

How can you reward innovation in the use of technology

within your organization?

57

ING CHA
AG
NG
N
A
P
CA

Customer
Growth

Align the structure

ITY
AC

CU
LT
UR
E

Corporate Culture Change

COMMITMENT

Mobilize people

Engage the people

Task I. Commitment Exercise

In our task to maximize commitment, we have discussed
three skills:
Mobilize people behind the shared values, strategy and
structure.
Empower people
Recognize individual and team contributions
Review these three skills and decide what actions you can
take in your organization to maximize commitment.

58

Task I. Summary

Task I. Summary
To maximize employee commitment behind efforts to
renew an organization, managers must first rally people
around the new values and vision for the future. By
defining the core values and vision, then engaging key
leaders in the process, organizations can begin the
process of making renewal efforts move forward in
a positive way.
In the new organization, people need to be empowered
to make decisions with autonomy, yet within clearly
defined boundaries created by the vision, mission, goals,
objectives and values. It is imperative at this stage of
development that the organization provide people with
the technical and human support necessary to get the
job done.
Finally, in the goal of maximizing commitment, we cannot
forget motivation and reward. Giving people specific
expectations so that they know the basis for evaluation is
a key part of a sound reward system. Understanding what
motivates individuals within the organization and creating
reward systems that are in tune with those motivators
will ensure that employees are properly rewarded and
motivated to work with the organization toward renewal.
59

Corporate Culture Change

All of these skills need to be performed in the context

of a virtual environment. That means leaders need to
consider the challenges of maximizing commitment in
a dispersed organization in which trust, empowerment
and balance take on entirely new meaning. The leader
must also ensure that the reward system is sending the
right messages around what behaviors are required in
todays world. Specifically, the reward system must stop
reinforcing too much individual competitiveness that
undermines team performance and start reinforcing
interdependent thinking, innovation and collaboration.

60

Task II. Building Capacity

Task II.
Building Capacity
Key Ingredients:
Customer focus
People, products, processes, and technologies
Critical Skills:
4. Develop people
5. Create a learning organization
An organization may have the most committed people in
the world, but capacity is still required to be successful.
Building capacity means developing the people, products,
processes and technologies to achieve customer growth.
Capacity development must be customer focused.
Capacity-building efforts should ensure that processes
are efficient and effective; that products meet customer
requirements in timely ways; and that people have the
skills, technology, and personal energy they need to do
their jobs in the most effective ways. It is important to
identify the technology appropriate for the task and
provide proper training.
Capacity can be built on several levels. For mechanical
capacity, an organization needs to have the hardware,
equipment and tools to produce its product and provide
services efficiently and effectively.
To build information capacity, organizations need the
systems and software to process data in timely and
meaningful ways.
An organization also requires sufficient financial capital to
fund its investment and operating expenses.

61

Corporate Culture Change

At a generic level, another critical way to build capacity

is to focus on human and organizational areas. This
means developing highly energized, skilled, and enthusiastic people. Through continuous learning and active
partnering your people will help the customer and each
other succeed.
Developing the right products, engineering the right processes and selecting the right technologies is dependent
upon our ability to learn from every transaction and from
multiple sources. Therefore, this section will not attempt
to be a primer for total quality, product development,
re-engineering or technology selection. It will focus
on people and organizational learning.
If an organization builds the capacity to learn from
everything, quality products and processes will happen
as a natural outcome. As a result, people will apply the
information and technologies that are available to them.
The failure of the past has been due to our thinking that
an independent program, whether vertical or horizontal,
could have an impact without interdependent thinking or
leadership modeling.
This section will cover two skills:
Skill 4. Develop people.
Skill 5. Create a learning organization.

62

Skill 4. Develop People

SKILL 4:
DEVELOP PEOPLE
Definition: Creating an environment where there is a
high level of satisfaction, empowerment
and the optimal amount of stress
Benefits:
Generates new sources of gain
Makes re-engineered processes successful
Creates the knowledge required to provide
customer solutions
Gets people excited to come to work and
reduces stress
Steps: Attend to
A. Physical health
B. Emotional health
C. Intellectual health
C. Spiritual health
We want to develop people so that we can generate
customer growth. Developing people has practical
applications internally: develop quality products,
engineer fine-tuned processes and leverage stateof-the-art technology. The question is How does an
organization build that capacity?
Re-engineering business processes to achieve competitive
advantage and organizational efficiency is sweeping
through corporations worldwide. Equally important, but
far less visible, is the need to revitalize the people and
organizations that make re-engineered processes
successful or not. Developing people represents the
knowledge, skill, and capability of employees to provide
solutions to customers. It is what people must know, do,
and feel to be able to serve customers most effectively.
63

Corporate Culture Change

Senior managers should be leaders in developing

and supporting policies and direction for all human
and organizational wealth-building initiatives. People
development integrates all of the programs and activities
related to the generation of human and organizational
wealth.
According to James Quinn of the Tuck School of Business
at Dartmouth, even in manufacturing, three-fourths of
value-added work derives from knowledge. The challenge
is to learn how to operate and evaluate a business when
knowledge is its chief resource and result.
And yet knowledge is just one dimension of developing
people. Equally important are the physical, emotional,
intellectual and spiritual (PEIS) processing skills that
can continuously generate new sources of gain.
There are several programs available that are geared
to each of these areas, but they usually operate in
random, inductive and overlapping ways. If all of these
initiatives were integrated and coordinated under a People
Development strategy, the potential to create enormous
organizational wealth would be greatly enhanced. Here
are some examples of how current initiatives could be part
of a comprehensive and systematic People Development
strategy:
Physical Capital:
Benefits
Safety and Environment
Health Promotion
64

Skill 4. Develop People

Emotional Capital:
Diversity
Work/Life Balance
Empowerment
Intellectual Capital:
Education and Training
Executive Development
Spiritual Capital:
Sense of Community
Volunteers for Service
Assuming that high performance and customer growth
are the desired end states for a People Development
strategy, leaders must address the key variables involved
in creating high performing teams and organizations.
According to the World Confederation of Productivity
Science, the three most critical variables of high
performance are:
Satisfaction
Control/Empowerment
Stress/Challenge

In a virtual world, it is more important to ask about

satisfaction factors or survey people about them
because the leader has fewer direct cues to indicate
levels of satisfaction, control and stress. Leaders need
to find explicit ways to keep a finger on the pulse of
these critical factors.

65

Corporate Culture Change

Satisfaction

Control

Stress

Productivity Domain

High

High

High

Excited

High

Low

Low

Protected

High

High

Low

Relaxed

High

Low

High

Wonderment

Low

High

Low

Disdainful

Low

High

High

Angry/Used

Low

Low

Low

Depressed

Low

Low

High

Troubled

Generally, a person or team experiences job satisfaction

when the activity of performing the work satisfies important
values, e.g., variety, challenge, respect. Job satisfaction,
when coupled with stress and control, is one of the best
predictors of longevity and overall productivity. While very
few people are perfectly content with their jobs, there are
several statements that people who have the highest
levels of job satisfaction usually make.
People with high levels of satisfaction say:
I make full use of my talents.
I feel good about what I am doing.
I am satisfied with my pay and benefits.
The pace and activity level is just right.
I feel involved in decisions that affect me.
I have the right amount of autonomy.
I am able to use my imagination.
I have opportunities for growth.
I am adequately recognized for good work.
My supervisor cares about me.
I have clearly defined goals.
My pay is linked to my performance.
I like the people I work with.
I am treated as a whole person with unique needs.
66

Skill 4. Develop People

Similarly, the extent to which persons feel empowered

to do their job determines their level of control. The most
stressful jobs are those that have high demands but low
control.
Not only do people who work in high demand/low control
jobs experience more cardiovascular disease, but their
performance suffers even before they experience a heart
attack or disabling event.
When people feel empowered or experience control in
their jobs, they typically make statements similar to these:
I understand the vision, strategies, boundaries, and
expectations for my job.
I have the authority to carry out my responsibilities.
I am encouraged to take risks.
I am open to learning new technologies.
Mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn.
I am encouraged to think outside the box.
I am not micro-managed.
My manager trusts me.
My manager respects my opinion.
My manager shares power.
I am authorized to think and make decisions at the point of
need.
I have opportunities to learn the skills I need to function in
an empowered way.
I consider technology an enhancement to my work.
I experience more empowerment than control.
Matrix management has increased the resources available
to me.
My work counts.
Ninety percent of my time is spent on productive work.
A feeling of control means that individuals can manage
the demands on their time. In a virtual environment, this
has unique ramifications. For example, the Fishnet
organization means that multiple bosses may have
multiple demands on a persons time. To complicate
the matter further, in a technology-enabled, virtual
67

Corporate Culture Change

environment with laptops and pagers, work can follow a

person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the other hand,
some people, who prefer to work virtually, may appreciate
the autonomy and flexibility in the way they manage their
time.
The third variable is stress/challenge. Too much stress can
cause the following types of symptoms:
Physical Symptoms
Headaches
Ulcers
High blood pressure
Insomnia
Mental Symptoms
Confusion
Forgetfulness
Behavioral Symptoms
Irritability
Impatience
Shaking
On the other hand, insufficient stress can lead to boredom,
depression or poor performance. The key to effective
stress management is to match up demands with the
resources available in a way that optimizes performance.
From a positive point of view, stress can breed community.
People tend to increase their sense of connectedness
when they are all experiencing challenging conditions.
A person usually experiences peak performance when
they feel a high level of job satisfaction, a great sense of
control and high challenge without excessive stress. The
bulleted list above summarizes the effects on productivity
and attitude for persons with variable levels of satisfaction,
control and stress.

68

Skill 4. Develop People

Developing people means creating an environment in

which there is a high level of satisfaction, empowerment
and an optimal amount of stress so that associates are
excited about coming to work. In this skill you will create
that environment by attending to the four developmental
needs of employees:
Step
Step
Step
Step

A.
B.
C.
D.

Attend
Attend
Attend
Attend

to
to
to
to

physical health.
emotional health.
intellectual health.
spiritual health.

People who work in a virtual environment dont have

the same opportunities for community and support as
people who are co-located.
On the other hand, many people who work virtually
dont have to face the same day-to-day stressors of
their traditional counterparts. In many corporate settings
today, most people experience a relentless intensity that
may lead to stress overload.

69

Corporate Culture Change

Step A.
Attend to physical health
What it means:
Recognizing and responding to signs of stress
and needs for health
How it works:
Identify signals of stress overload
Provide healthy food alternatives
Encourage exercise and fitness
Make work stations ergonomically sound
The Idea
Attending to physical health means recognizing and
responding to signs of stress, providing healthy food
alternatives at meetings, encouraging exercise and fitness,
ensuring ergonomically sound work stations, and having
a smoke-free environment. By doing this, employees
generally experience higher levels of job satisfaction, feel
more control in their lives, and are better able to handle
stress.
Stress may even be created by having too much of a
good thing. People can feel overloaded and stressed
out when the technology outstrips their capability. For
example, a person who was always ahead of schedule
when the pace of work was done by hand, may now find
themselves always behind schedule. This can create an
image crisis where once the person was highly productive
and received excellent reviews, now has trouble and is
considered to be not as productive.

70

Skill 4. Develop People

Leaders can play a major role in supporting health by

setting a positive example and by supporting positive
health practice. Unstated norms also play a crucial role
in promoting physical health, For example, effective
leaders:
Dont schedule meetings at lunch if some participants
use that time to exercise,
Promote balance, and
Are attuned to signs of stress overload.
Examples
Employees at NASA were under tremendous stress from
knowing the level of safety risk being taken with each
launch. One engineer, fearing the results of faulty O-rings,
said he held his breath during every launch. Even if things
were going well, NASA employees would be in a high
stress environment just because the stakes are so high.
Return on Investment
A growing number of companies now understand that it
pays to keep workers healthy. Recent studies show that for
every dollar invested in preventive health care programs like
Tennecos, a company can save as much as six dollars in
insurance costs (Fortune, 1995). Johnson and Johnson,
for instance, which spends about $4.5 million a year on
preventive health care programs, estimates its medical
bills would be higher by $13 million a year (or 15 percent)
without its wellness program. According to Mercer Inc.
companies face a huge potential liability for high risk
workers who are likely to be tomorrows cardiac or cancer
victims. By changing now, companies can hold down those
future costs. Some examples are:
Dow Chemicals Backs in Action program has decreased
on-the-job problems by 90 percent.
DuPont budgets $20 million a year to furnish tests and
check-ups for employees.
Quaker grants bonuses of as much as $500 for families
who exercise, avoid smoking, and wear seat belts.
71

Corporate Culture Change

As a leader in a virtual environment, there are few

opportunities to attend to the cues, demonstrate positive
role modeling or establish healthy norms in the culture.
And a person working in a virtual environment has
fewer opportunities for supporta critical factor in any
lifestyle behavior change.
Promoting health in a virtual environment must also
include an awareness and concern for how the use of
technologies creates stress and affects health. Are
workstations ergonomically designed? Are workers
encouraged to use the workstation in an ergonomically
correct way? Is lighting adequate so as not to create
eye strain? Does the technology function reliably?
Being aware of the stressors created by technology and
virtual environments is as important as understanding
stressors from other factors.

Building Physical Wealth

72

Skill 4. Develop People

YOUR
TURN
What are the signs of stress you are seeing in your
organization?

What could you do to provide healthy food alternatives at

meetings?

How could you encourage exercise and fitness?

What challenges does the virtual environment present for

you?

73

Corporate Culture Change

Step B.
Attend to emotional health
What it means:
Responding to unique needs and taking the
initiative to support those needs
How it works:
Support work/family balance
Deal effectively with conflict
Provide flexible work options
Communicate openly, directly and honestly
Be harder on yourself than you are on others
The Idea
Attending to emotional health means supporting work/
family balance, dealing effectively with conflict, providing
flexible work options and communicating openly, directly
and honestly. Again, all of these behaviors directly affect
employee satisfaction, sense of control and stress.
In todays world, fewer and fewer families conform to the
traditional structure of father working and the mother
staying home to raise the children and attend to civic
duties. For example, in the United States less than
11 percent of families are traditional, and trends around
the world are following the same direction. Most families
today are either single-parent homes or dual-working
parents. This puts tremendous strain on the parents to
juggle home and work responsibilities while maintaining
energy to do both.
Working at home can be an opportunity to respond to this
dilemma. Leaders need to recognize, however, that people
need more freedom to work out suitable arrangements

74

Skill 4. Develop People

for their particular situations. Whatever norms that are

established in a given geography, leaders must take into
account how those norms will play in different locations.
For example the idea of balancing work and family in
Japan is very different than the idea of balance in Europe.
Organizations drain productive energy from their workers
by not dealing with conflict in a productive way or by
communicating in a dishonest or secretive way. Just as
employee theft drains an organization of financial capital,
negative feelings drain a company of emotional capital.
Conversely, of course, positive feelings toward work and
the organization are a significant source of organizational
wealth.
Examples
At AT&T, leaders responded to the needs of employees to
balance home and family responsibilities by instituting a
work/family program that provides time for employees to
find appropriate care for their children and aging parents.
This program was the result of union-management bargaining. It started with child care and then expanded to
elder care in 1989.
Lines of open communication had deteriorated at NASA.
Low level staffers were not passing bad news up the chain
of commandonly good news. And even when warnings
were communicated, they were ignored. This sent a general message to all employees that dissenting opinions
were not encouraged, particularly if it caused a delay in
schedule. After the Challenger explosion, information
and communications were completely clamped down
for several hours. Associates with any involvement were
ordered not to say anything. Even when information did
start to trickle out of the agency, it was dishonest, and full
of denial of any problems.

75

Corporate Culture Change

Conflicts and misunderstanding are more likely to build

in a virtual world because people are not visible and
they are left with assumptions. If people dont have
facts and cant directly observe whats going on, they
will rely on assumptions.

Building Emotional Wealth

76

Skill 4. Develop People

YOUR
TURN
What can you do in your organization to support
work/family balance?

How is conflict dealt with in your organization? What

could be done to improve conflict resolution in your
organization?

In what ways can communication in your organization be

improved?

What are some other ways you could improve emotional

health in your organization?

77

Corporate Culture Change

Step C.
Attend to intellectual health

What it means:
Providing learning and developmental
opportunities
How it works:
Increase individual skills
Provide career development programs
Expose employees to emerging technologies
The Idea
Attending to intellectual health means providing learning
and developmental opportunities, developing career plans,
and providing state-of-the art technology. Leaders who
are attentive to the intellectual needs of their employees
generate intellectual capital in the organization. This
intellectual capital consists of the knowledge, skills,
insights and perspectives of people within the
organization.
Organizations that actively promote intellectual health help
individual employees and benefit as an organization from
the increase in ideas and knowledge. The idea is to create
a healthy partnership between the organization and its
employees so that both seek ways to help the other.

78

Skill 4. Develop People

Example
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) began
investigating the subject of people development in the
late 1980s. CIBC is striving to make the management of
intellectual capital a business realityan effort that has
already changed the banks human resources strategy
and is beginning to reshape operations. At CIBC in
Toronto, intellectual capital is created from the interplay
of three elements:
Individual skills needed to meet customers needs,
Organizational capabilities demanded by the market,
and
The strength of its franchise (customer capital).
In CIBCs model of intellectual capital formation, each
of the three elements can be measured and targeted
for investment. CIBC found that by helping employees
develop their intellectual health, the company helped
itself as well.

Building Intellectual Wealth

SKILLS

WISDOM

KNOWLEDGE

INFORMED

DOCUMENT

UNDERSTAND

79

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
What could you do to increase access to learning options
in your organization?

How could you improve the career development programs

in your organization?

How could you expose your employees to emerging

technologies?

80

Skill 4. Develop People

Step D.
Attend to spiritual health
What it means:
Building community and purpose to develop
people to their full potential
How it works:
Bring people together
Create esprit de corps
Find a higher purpose
Share successes
The Idea
Attending to spiritual health means building community
within the organization. Just as it takes a village to raise
a child, so does it take an organizational community to
develop individuals to their full potential. Leaders who
are attentive to the spiritual needs of their employees
focus on the organizational purpose, encourage a sense
of connectedness and develop an esprit de corps within
teams.
Attending to spiritual health has nothing to do with religion
or any set of dogmatic beliefs. Instead, spiritual health is
seen as our ability to have a mission outside ourselves, to
awake to the possibilities that unfold in front of us in any
given moment, to experience the harmonious development
of disparate individual and organizational functions, and
to attempt to heal the wounds from conflict, downsizing,
delayering, restructuring, etc.
Example
In the early days, the men and women of NASA had
a very strong sense that their work was for a greater
purpose. This was nowhere more evident than the
statement heard round the world One small step for
81

Corporate Culture Change

man, one giant step for mankind. The esprit de corps

among the team members was very evident in the early
years. Anyone who watched a launch or landing would
see employees at mission control hoop, holler and clap
with excitement at their successes. The astronauts and
their families were a tightly knit group, providing a sense
of community and support in the best of times and worst
of times.

Communities are normally developed when people work

together and share experiences. Individuals are more
likely to feel closer to the people they see everyday
than the people they may work with everyday by phone,
fax, E-Mail or video conferencing. Thus, in a virtual
environment, building community or work spirit poses
new challenges. This challenge can be addressed by
sharing successes and learning experiences electronically, by deliberately getting to know each other on a
community level and by spending money to bring
people together.

Building Spiritual Wealth

COMMUNITY
CONNECTION

82

WORK
SPIRIT

PURPOSE
INTEGRITY

HARMONY

Skill 4. Develop People

YOUR
TURN
How could you build a sense of community and
connectedness in your organization?

How could you get your employees focused on a higher

purpose?

What could be done to increase the sense of esprit de

corps in your organization?

Where are there needs for healing in your organization?

What evidence do you see of community among your

various locations? What could you do to build a sense
of virtual community in your organization?

83

Skill 5. Create Learning

SKILL 5:
CREATE A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
Definition: Creating the underlying values, assumptions and processes that result in high
performance and competitive advantage
Benefits:
Results in new solutions to not-yet-understood
problems
Improves understanding of the work
Adds value to customers
Steps:
A. Think systems
B. Seek input
C. Make knowledge happen
D. Form partnerships

Introduction
We all learn. But do we learn fast enough to survive
and grow? That question is being raised more and more
in board rooms across the globe. Creating a learning
organization means going beyond the individual to a
system that supports learning from multiple dimensions.
There are a number of different perspectives regarding
the nature of organizational learning. In a recent article
appearing in the journal Training and Development
(May 1994, pp. S3647), a representative sample of
leading experts in the field presented their ideas about
learning. We have paraphrased their ideas.

85

Corporate Culture Change

Chris Argyris
Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior at
Harvard University
Learning can be defined in two ways: detection and
correction of any kind of error, or learning around routines;
and double-loop learning, or learning that changes the
underlying values, assumptions and programs that
produced the errors in the first place. People will have
to ask, what did I do wrong here? but theyll also
have to ask, is the way I frame reality and the way
the organization frames reality in need of change? The
concept of learning has at its basis what I call productive
or tough reasoning. For me that means that people make
their premises explicit. And when they reach a conclusion,
they craft it to be testable by logic other than their own.
Peter Block
Author and consultant
Learning and performing will become one and the same
thing. Everything you say about learning will be about
performance. And I dont think we will have to justify
investing in it. People will get the point that learning is
everything.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Professor of Business Administration at Harvard
Business School
Learning involves not only absorbing existing information,
but also creating new solutions to not-yet-understood
problems. The ultimate act of learning will be embedded in
the person and team as they do their work. Organizations
will also want to ensure that people can learn together
that is, that they share a common vocabulary, common
tools, communication channels, and commitment so they
can solve problems jointly.

86

Skill 5. Create Learning

Ed Lawler III
Director of the Center for Effective Organizations at
the School of Business Administration, University of
Southern California
If organizations are going to be effective, employees have
to act more like managers, and managers have to act
more like employees. Managers have to understand the
work better, because in many cases they will have to do
more of it. For management to be a shared responsibility,
employees have to understand the business and
understand management skills.
Tom Peters
Author and consultant
The essential point about learning in the workplace is that
the corporation is going to become a university that can
add more value than its competitors around the world.
Peter Senge
Author and Director of the Center for Organizational
Learning, at the Sloan School of Management, MIT
I have yet to experience any organization that comes
close to exhibiting the capacities we think of when we
think of learning organizationsthe ability of everyone to
continually challenge prevailing thinking, the ability to think
systemically, and the ability to build shared visions that
truly capture peoples highest aspirations. Organizational
learning is not the same as individual learning. New
individual capabilities are a necessary condition for new
organizational capabilities, but they are not sufficient to
guarantee that such capabilities develop. Organizationwide learning will require critical masses of individuals
operating in new ways, so that new organizational norms
and habits are established. But that is not enough; it will
also require new infrastructures that support learning. The
only people who can by truly effective in making learning
happen are managers themselves.

87

Corporate Culture Change

Noel Tichy
Author and Director of the Global Leadership
Program, University of Michigan School of Business
Administration
We live in the era of corporate revolution, driven by
globalization and technological change that requires the
creation of organizations without boundaries, capable of
continuous radical change. Individuals will be required to
creatively destroy and re-architect their organizational
domains. Action learningdeveloping while simultaneously solving real organization problemsis the central
idea that organizations must embed in their way of life.
While we cannot begin to address fully the scope of
organizational learning in this section, we can outline
four critical behaviors managers can do to create learning
organizations:
Step
Step
Step
Step

A.
B.
C.
D.

Think systems.
Seek input.
Make knowledge happen.
Form partnerships.

Challenge
prevailing
thinking

88

Think
systemically

Build
shared
vision

Capture
aspirations

Skill 5. Create Learning

Step A.
Think systems
What it means:
Conceptualizing all the elements of the whole,
how they fit together, what functions they
perform, and how the processes are
orchestrated
How it works:
Define the components
Define the functions
Define the processes
Understand how they become an organic
system
The Idea
Seeing the organization as a system means seeing all
the elements of the whole, how they fit together, what
functions they perform, and how the processes are
orchestrated. Doing this makes it possible to create more
synergy among the integrated parts and to elevate the
functions to a higher level.
In our opinion, the most comprehensive and useful
models of organizational systems capture the elements
of a business components, processes and functions.
Additionally, we want to think of how technology fits into
the systems and processes. This is particularly important
when bringing together different managers with different
and possibly overlapping capabilities. The goal is to get
these managers and their respective teams to act as a
single organism with interdependent parts.

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Corporate Culture Change

Systemic thinking means thinking of organizational

relationships as dynamic networks. Perceiving the
organization as a network requires managers to be
sensitive to the flow of information and power. Network
managers encourage associates to:

Share accurate information,

Recognize the importance of relationships,
Deal directly with conflict, and
Eliminate barriers between line and staff.

Examples
NASA has a decentralized structure, where several
bases around the country had different responsibilities.
Johnson Space Center was in charge of managing the
orbiter; Marshall Space Center was responsible for the
main engines, external tank and solid rocket boosters;
and Kennedy Space Center conducted launches including
assembling the different components. This decentralized
management created problems in maintaining communication, cooperation and accountability. Each center
developed its own culture. As budget constraints began
to take their toll, centers felt threatened by possible shut
downs and began to view other centers as competition
for scarce funds.
This set up an environment in which finger pointing
became the primary response to inquiries following the
Challenger tragedy. Each center had become an isolated
part of the overall organization.
Ford Motor Company has been working hard to become a
learning organization and see the company as interrelated
systems for developing new cars. After all, people dont
buy a car because it has a great suspension system. They
buy a car because they like the complete package of
quality, styling and function.

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Skill 5. Create Learning

In the past, development engineers did not work as a

system. If one team solved a problem, it usually created
a problem for another team. For example a development
team was trying to reduce the noise and vibration for a
new Lincoln Continental. They solved their problem by
adding weight to the braking system, thereby creating
weight and structure problems for the braking system
team.
By thinking of the company as a system, they learned that
passing the problem buck did not help the company as a
whole and ultimately did not serve the customer.
Thinking systemically, they brought together the brake
people, development people, and chassis and suspension
people. All agreed that their goal was to solve the noise
and vibration problem without adding weight or cost, nor
reducing quality. Once the group had agreed on the goal,
they solved the problem together by revising the geometry.
Once they thought systemically, they found the best
solution that served the needs of the company and the
customer.

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Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
Use the space below to create a wholistic picture of
the organizational system in NASA as described in the
example above. What are the components, the processes
and the functions?

What are some management behaviors that would

facilitate systems thinking in your organization?

The
Organization
as a System:
Integrated
Health
Management

t
g
en ini n
m
a
es iron Tr
ic
&
v
v
er
En tion
s
lS
&
s
a
fit
ca ety
es
uc
ne lini
f
tn
Ed
C
Fi
Be
Sa
Leadership
Enhancement

Determination
Delivery

Conservation

Development
Compliance
Selected
Compliance

92

Design
Diagnosis

Skill 5. Create Learning

Step B.
Seek input

What it means:
Being open to the outside and inside world
How it works:
Resist the impulse to get into turf wars
Look for opportunities for cross-functional
collaboration
Make information accessible
Hire people from whom you can learn
The Idea
Seeking multiple sources of input means being open to the
outside world and the inside world. Learning requires that
organizations and managers be open to a wide range of
information so that they can identify challenges, threats,
trends, opportunities and choices.
In a learning organization, people are not only open to
new developments, but they also seek them out. With
new requirements and demands constantly bombarding
business leaders, it is essential to be tuned into social,
political, economic, technological and customer changes.
Some companies form an issues analysis forum whose
sole responsibility is to conduct external scans of changes
taking place that may have an impact on the business and
to share that information openly with all employees.
In order to process multiple sources of input, managers
must be able to see their own values, background and
experiences as not necessarily better or worse than the
values, background and experiences of others (McGill
et al., 1994). This pitfall of cultural superiority can even
affect internal operations. For example, in traditional
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Corporate Culture Change

organizations there is normally significant conflict

between engineering and marketing. Engineers and
marketing specialists tend to think the organizations
success revolves around their departments contribution.
In learning organizations, managers resist the impulse
to get into turf wars and look for opportunities for crossfunctional collaboration.
Learning organizations have a commitment to knowledge
that begins in the hiring process by hiring people from
whom the organization can learn instead of hiring people
whom the organization thinks it can teach. That commitment to learning is also demonstrated by making
information accessible to everyone and by supporting
efforts to seek out new information. Providing access to
information resources such as the Internet promotes both
learning and technology.
Leaders who are effective at seeking input ask several
questions:
What are the areas of strategic information we need to
have?
Where does that information reside?
How do we get it?
How do we manage it?
How do we use it?
The implications of asking and answering these issues are
multiple:

It
It
It
It
It

94

takes time.
takes resources.
requires someone who is responsible.
may require a Director of Knowledge Management.
requires a well-defined process.

Skill 5. Create Learning

This effort is likely to create resistance in the organization

because it always requires long-term investment at the
expense of short term. The leadership challenge is to
make people understand that the investment has potential
for great return.
Examples
Even though NASA was a research and development
organization, their decline was accelerated by a lack of
learning. In the years before the Challenger accident,
when mechanical problems were detected, they were just
corrected on the surface so that the next mission could go
up. Opportunities to reassess the underlying causes and
assumptions creating the problem were bypassed.
Additionally, the leadership of NASA had become too
closely connected with the contractor industry. Top
executives moved back and forth between contractor
organizations and the agency. This inhibited fresh ideas
or viewpoints from the outside.
With increasing pressure to maintain an unrealistic flight
schedule, the management did not seek out information
from anyone who might have an opinion other than their
own. Anything that might have caused them to stop what
they were doing, look and learn was discouraged.
It was even reported that officials at Marshall Space Flight
Center had shredded weekly reports on problems with the
solid rocket boosters.
Ingersol Rand, an Industrial Grinding Tool Manufacturer,
was able to turn lagging sales into a marketplace winner
by injecting learning and multi-functional teams into their
product development process. Engineers teamed up with
marketing personnel to travel into the field. The engineers
met with customers to learn about how people used
products.

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Corporate Culture Change

At location after location they noticed their tools

wrapped with layers of duct tape. Asked why the
duct tape, customers consistently responded that there
was no comfortable handle to grip when operating the
machine. The duct tape was a home-made solution to
product design not tailored to meet customer needs. The
engineers went back to the drawing board to redesign the
product, incorporating a comfortable grip ergonomically
designed to the way the tool was used. It became a runaway best selling product for the company and a leader in
the market.

96

Skill 5. Create Learning

YOUR
TURN
What information is most strategically important to us?

How could we be more effective in seeking out information

from external sources?

How could we be more effective in seeking out and

sharing information from internal sources?

How can we demonstrate our commitment to knowledge?

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Corporate Culture Change

Step C.
Make knowledge happen
What it means:
Continually generating new knowledge and
encouraging entrepreneurial behavior based
on that knowledge
How it works:
Suspend control
Provide more flexibility
Transform collective intelligence into a source of
competitive advantage
The Idea
Making knowledge happen means using the information
that people have access to in mission critical ways.
The idea is to create more customer focus so that
employees on the front line can get a better sense of
changing relationships and demands from their customers.
Making knowledge happen also involves encouraging
entrepreneurial behavior and giving more flexibility to
associates.
Many organizations change to more of a network or cluster
structure in order to facilitate collaboration both internally
and externally. The outcome of these changes is that the
organization generates new knowledge continually. This
knowledge needs to be shared throughout the organization
so that collective intelligence becomes a source of
competitive advantage.
In order to create a learning organization, managers
must suspend their need for control. Delayering and

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Skill 5. Create Learning

restructuring efforts have created flatter organizations

with less hierarchical controls, but the structural shifts
must be accompanied by managerial mental shifts if they
are going to work.
Workgroup technologies can enable this step. These
technologies can make the use of knowledge possible,
but without adequate processes and leadership, the
technologies alone will not produce the desired results.
Technology is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition
for making knowledge happen.
Examples
Nordstrom Department Store employees on the front line
have access to all resources within the company to help
them solve customer problems. They can communicate to
warehouse personnel, customer service, and the buying
department to gain information necessary to solve a
problem. In addition, they are given the authority to fix
the problem without checking with a supervisor.
This strategy is paying off for Nordstroms. Traditional
department stores have been in financial distress for the
past decade, but in each new market that Nordstroms
enters, they beat the competition. Their success is not
from selling anything different from their competition, or
from selling it cheaper. The difference is customer service,
and the customers are voting with their checkbooks and
charge cards.
Nordstroms also promotes open communication between
employees, customer service and buying departments so
that customer-derived information about problem products
goes directly to the department responsible for the buying.
In this way, with a direct line of communication from the
customer, Nordstroms can be more responsive to changes
in customer needs.

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Corporate Culture Change

In the extremely cost competitive world of electronics,

where cutting costs is critical to survival and growth,
Motorola has benefited from its commitment to learning.
Spending more than $100 million a year (4 percent of
payroll) on training and education, Motorola has invested
in learning and gotten the payback through reduced costs.
Since 1987, Motorola has cut costs by $3 billion, without
downsizing or massive restructuring. Motorola believes
that for every $1 spent on education, it gets a return of $3
in product sales.

Group IQ
4,326

CUSTOMER

Knowledge
Management &
Transfer

100

Skill 5. Create Learning

YOUR
TURN
How can you make collective intelligence a source of
competitive advantage and/or for real time, mission
critical applications?

How could you provide more flexibility in your

organization?

How could you suspend control in your organization?

In what ways could you free initiative?

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Corporate Culture Change

Step D.
Form partnerships

What it means:
Selecting partners who can teach
How it works:
Look beyond the organizational boundaries
Develop strategic alliances
Establish guidelines
Align partnerships with organizational vision,
strategy and goals
The Idea
Creating a learning organization extends beyond the
bounds of our own organizations. We can learn from
partners as well. Just as organizations need to hire people
from whom they can learn, they could also select partners
who have the ability to teach them as well.
Same time/different place/different time workgroup
technologies have eliminated boundaries that once
constrained the forming of partnerships. Individuals
within multiple departments, organizations and geographic
locations can work together in tandem to improve the
delivery capacity as well as learning capacity.
Example
In 1992, Lotus was at a significant disadvantage to
Microsoft on scale issues. Lotus could not possibly
compete with Microsoft by throwing resources at key
issues and opportunities. Microsoft had much deeper
pockets and more feet on the street.

102

Skill 5. Create Learning

An alternative way for Lotus to compete was to establish

strategic alliances with partners. By the end of 1992 Lotus
business partners program was fragmented, inconsistent
and weak. The revenue contribution from partners was
less than 5 percent, while mutual commitment and
satisfaction ratings were low.
To correct this situation Lotus created a partnering strategy
that aimed at winning in the marketplace and gaining a
competitive advantage. This strategy provided partners
with an opportunity to enhance their image, increase
sales and enhance opportunities for new markets and
businesses.
The strategic alliances led to greater credibility, marketing
knowledge, and sales teaming for large scale solution
sales. By the end of 1994, Lotus had established partnerships with major players, such as IBM, HP, Sun, Compaq,
Apple, AT&T, EDS, Andersen Consulting, Novell, SAP, and
Big 6 accounting firms. In strictly quantitative terms, Lotus
had increased its strategic alliances from 2,000 to 8,000.
By 1995, Lotus had established a competitive partnering
position to Microsoft. The outcomes of the partnering
strategy were:
Notes was established as the workgroup standard.
Lotus was rated a top ten partnering company in a
survey of over 200 companies.
Business executives worldwide know Notes.
Lotus developed substantial capacity worldwide for
selling, supporting, and training.
Notes seats increased from 300K to 3M.
Lotus reputation improved as a partner.
How did Lotus accomplish this task? It started with a comprehensive strategy, recruited the best possible people,
built high performing teams, established guidelines,
communicated widely, upgraded skills and thought
outside the box.

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Corporate Culture Change

When the business partner strategy was launched, Jim

Manzi said, It is essential that we develop the ability to
build mutually rewarding partnerships with companies of
scale who share our vision of both the business and the
competitive environment.
Finally, Lotus insisted that the partnering strategy be
consistent with key partnering principles:

Identify compelling Lotus and partner objectives

Partner proactively with the best companies
Know the partners strategy, organization and concerns
Pick key people to make the partnership succeed
Construct flexible, win-win agreements
Communicate openly, honestly and directly
Involve the deliverers from the beginning
Meet commitments
Define, measure and promote success
Expand to new areas of mutual benefit

While the partnering strategy significantly increased Lotus

capacity to compete, it missed a critical opportunity to
learn more systematically from its partners. If Lotus had
created a mechanism to learn from every transaction and
to translate that information into competitive advantage,
it may have improved its competitive position against
Microsoft and Internet providers.

104

Skill 5. Create Learning

YOUR
TURN
How can you create partnering strategies to increase your
capacity to deliver value to customers?

105

U
LT
CU

Customer
Growth

RE

CO
MM
IT
ME
NT

ING CHA
AG
NG
N
A

Corporate Culture Change

CAPACITY
SKILL 4. Develop people

SKILL 5. Create a
learning organization

Task II. Capacity Exercise

In our task to build capacity, we have discussed two skills:
Develop people
Create a learning organization
Please review these two skills and decide what actions
you can take in your organization to build capacity.

106

Task II. Summary

Knowledge
Skills
+ Capacity
Solution
Task II. Building Capacity
Summary
Human capacity involves providing people with the
knowledge, skill and capability to be solution-oriented
agents for the customer. People development is built by
attending to the physical, intellectual, emotional and
spiritual needs of employees. High performing teams
require high levels of employee job satisfaction and
commitment, which is the result of empowering people
and providing challenge and an appropriate amount of
stress. In a virtual environment, when you dont see
people all the time, these skills are more easily
overlooked, but they are no less important.
The second part of building capacity involves creating
a learning organization. In a learning organization, all
departments and functions within the organization are
viewed as part of an interdependent system. Each division
can learn from each other or from outside partnerships.
Employees are given the knowledge, the authority and
the autonomy to solve customer problems. In this way
the organization is gaining information directly from the
customer and is able to respond immediately to customer

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Corporate Culture Change

needs. In a learning organization, leaders take time to

debrief successful and unsuccessful projects. They take
time to learn from victories and from mistakes or disasters.
Finally, the learning organization is in tune with the
strategic information it needs to be successful, and it has
processes and leadership in place to build, maintain and
use it.

108

Task III. Aligning the Culture

Task III.
Aligning the Culture
Key Ingredients:
Norms, values, rituals and assumptions
The organizational unconscious
Critical Skills:
6. Articulate the cultural requirements for
success
7. Create a cultural revolution
Managing corporate culture change has emerged as a top
priority for most business leaders. Cultural norms, values
and rituals are being increasingly recognized as the key
factors that either enhance or retard change and renewal
initiatives. Indeed, if corporate culture is not compatible
with business strategies, hopes for success and growth
are dim.
For many leaders, corporate culture change seems so
esoteric and soft that deciding to shape it, manage it
or change it seems overwhelming. This section will help
to demystify the notion of corporate culture change.
Anthropologists and other social scientists have long
studied the dynamics of culture in the everyday lives of
people. As readers of National Geographic and viewers
of international news reports, we have been fascinated,
sometimes perplexed, and occasionally horrified by the
vast array of customs, traditions, world views and norms
that define the different human cultures around the globe.
Strangely, the power of culture in our own lives has gone
largely unexamined. As if by magic, we accept our own
cultural ways as a given. The culture has become our
organizational unconscious. Its just the way we do things
around here.
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Corporate Culture Change

We are largely unaware of the specific norms and

values that influence our lives. And we underestimate the
power of the culture to affect us routinely and profoundly.
Fortunately, we do have the ability to create norms of our
own choosing.
Those working with corporate culture believe that people
can and should play an active role in choosing the cultural
environment in which they work. In this section, you will
learn two skills for aligning the culture:
Skill 6. Articulate the cultural requirements for success
Skill 7. Create a cultural revolution

Aligning the culture is particularly important in the virtual

world because distance and diversity have changed
many of the rules, assumptions and values that have
guided our behaviors in traditional organizations around
the globe. Trying to conduct global business when there
are differences in language, time zones, and technologies poses new cultural challenges for the 21stcentury leader. On the most basic level, independent
of the national context, organizational cultures influence
how people act as individuals in their particular setting.
The first step of cultural alignment in the virtual world
is to establish the norms and values that inform how
teams need to act in a global context.

110

Skill 6. Articulate the Cultural Requirements for Success

SKILL 6:
ARTICULATE THE CULTURAL
REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS
Definition: Identifying the values, behaviors and
attitudes necessary to achieve desired
results
Benefits:
Increases the chances for strategic success
Communicates what is important
Steps:
A. Review stated values and operating principles
B. Translate values and principles into norms and
behaviors
Introduction
In a recent study of best practices in corporate restructuring, 43 percent of senior executives identified a
dysfunctional culture as a major barrier to success
(Wyatt, 1993). Apparently, executives are finding that
no matter how much effort they invest in crafting the
right strategy, structure and systems, their efforts do not
achieve the desired results unless the culture is aligned
with the strategy. Dr. Gwen Stern, a cultural anthropologist
at Wyatt, believes the key to changing behaviors and
attitudes is for leadership to define the new values of
the culture and why cultural change must happen. Then,
leadership must act quickly and decisively to show they
mean it.
There are several key characteristics that are common in
a renewing culture. Since seven seems to be a magical
number these days, we present the seven factors of highly
effective cultures.
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Corporate Culture Change

The Seven Characteristics

of Highly Effective Cultures
1. There is a common cause shared by all levels of the
organization.
2. People think and act outside the box. Doing things
the same old way is no longer rewarded.
3. There is a healthy tension between stability and
agility.
4. People learn from mistakesthere is more emphasis
on fixing the problem than assigning the blame.
5. Communication is direct and honest and flows in all
directions.
6. Information is shared openly.
7. Leaders support flexibility.
Even though these characteristics may be common in
effective changing corporate culture efforts, leaders must
articulate the characteristics of cultural success within
their own organization. To do this, start with a clear
understanding of the strategy, structure and systems
and then ask, What are the values and norms we will
need to implant and have operating in our culture to
make it possible for our strategy, structure and systems
to work? and Does the virtual environment pose any
demands that require a different set of norms and values?
To articulate the cultural requirements for success in your
organization, you will be taking two steps:
Step A. Review stated values and operating principles.
Step B. Translate them into norms and behaviors.

112

Skill 6. Articulate the Cultural Requirements for Success

Step A.
Review stated values and operating
principles
What it means:
Considering the enduring elements of the old
culture and preserving what still works
How it works:
Review vision and value statements
Identify those values and principles that are still
congruent with the strategy
The Idea
Most organizations have vision and value statements
written on posters adorning the walls. In Skill 1, Step A,
you listed the core values that guide your organizational
behavior. Think about the values that are currently hanging
on the office walls in your company. Management hopes
that these posters will remind employees of the values and
vision of the organization and result in cultural alignment.
But questions remain:
Do these statements and posters reflect how things
really work in the organizational culture?
Do the statements capture the essential character of the
organization?
Are the statements currently consistent with the strategy,
structure, systems and leadership behavior?
In an effective changing corporate culture effort, it is just
as important to maintain the values that still reflect your
deepest aspirations as a company, as it is to articulate
new values that reflect how you need to operate in a
virtual world. Leaders need to consider what enduring
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Corporate Culture Change

elements of the old culture it wants to preserve and what

needs to be changed. Again, there has to be a healthy
balance between stability and change.
Example
As NASA renews its organization by reviewing the stated
values and operating principles, it will find that many of the
things they were doing worked. In the early days, quality
as it related to safety was a major priority. It would be
helpful to NASA to reevaluate how things worked back
then. Perhaps interviewing associates involved on projects
in the early days could provide some insight. Clearly, not
everything that NASA was doing was destructive. They
had successfully created a positive public image. In fact,
they had one of the best images of any governmental
agency and succeeded in making each flight a media
event. Although the Challenger tragedy shook the public
trust for a time, reassessing NASAs culture to determine if
it still fits with their current focus will be an important step
to recovery.

114

Skill 6. Articulate the Cultural Requirements for Success

YOUR
TURN
Review your vision statements, values, operating
principles or any other documents that describe how
you want your organization to run. List those values,
norms and principles you want to preserve.

Compare this new list of norms and values with the

original company value statement. What are the major
differences? How do you feel about those changes?

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Corporate Culture Change

Step B.
Translate values and principles into
norms and behaviors
What it means:
Anchoring values with concrete examples
How it works:
Choose 10 values that describe the essential
character of your desired organization
Operationalize those values with 3 to 5 norm
statements
The Idea
Every value needs several norms to anchor it in reality.
Without these normative anchors, it is impossible to
implant the values or put the aspirations of your culture
into action. For example, we may say we value respect,
but what does that mean? Everyone may have a different
image of what respect looks like or how it exists in dayto-day operations. Therefore, it is important to ground each
value in a set of illustrative behaviors or norms that make
it clear what we would expect to see in attitudes and
behaviors if the value really existed in the culture. Lets
take the value respect. We can translate respect into
the following set of behaviors and norms:
Around here we:
Value different perspectives;
Think inclusively;
Treat individuals as whole persons with unique needs;
Promote understanding;
Seek to eliminate bias;
Consider the points of view of all groups.
We can translate the value sharing information into the
following behaviors and norms:
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Skill 6. Articulate the Cultural Requirements for Success

Around here we:

Are open and honest;
Give people information in a timely manner;
Consistently use group enabling technology;
Provide proper training in the use of technology;
Stay current with emerging technologies that enable
information sharing;
Reward information sharing.
There is great power in this step. Organizations can create
norms of their own choosing if they involve people in the
process and specify exactly the norms and behaviors that
are expected.
Example
A company using workgroup technologies might want
to translate the value sensitivity to cultural differences
when working in a virtual world.
Around here we:
Are open minded;
Build in opportunities for face-to-face communications;
Interact in social ways;
Are sensitive to language differences by using visuals
whenever possible;
Use short, to-the-point sentences;
Develop norms around cultural differences;
Strive for equity of time convenience;
Are sensitive to issues that are best presented in
primary language.

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Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
Choose 5 to 10 values you believe need to be implanted in
your organizations culture. These should be the essential
characteristics that you want to define your organizations
reputation and that support your strategy, structure and
vision. Then, translate each value into 3 to 5 norm statements. This will help you measure how well each value
has been activated into your culture.

118

Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

SKILL 7:
CREATE A CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Definition: Making the business shift to a global
environment in which technologyenabled, virtual teams are requirements
for success
Benefits:
Shocks the organizationavoids boiling frog
syndrome
Aligns the values with the strategyfrom words
to actions
Steps:
A. Diagnose your current culture
B. Develop programs
C. Deliver skills and support
D. Determine progress
Introduction
While Skill 6 gets you beyond the poster on the wall
(values are aligned and norms are specific), it does not
achieve radical cultural change. Changing corporate
culture is a polite way of saying radical revolution. As
shocking as that statement sounds, it may be necessary,
given the changes imposed upon us by the shift to a
global environment in which technology-enabled virtual
teams are now requirements for survival and success.
To achieve this revolution in a relatively painless and
peaceful way, a sound process is required. One such
process is the 4D model developed by Possibilities, Inc.
This model suggests a systematic approach to change
that guides the organization through the phases of the
four Ds: Diagnosis, Develop, Delivery and Determination.
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Corporate Culture Change

There are four steps for cultural revolution:

Step
Step
Step
Step

120

A. Diagnose your current culture.

B. Develop programs.
C. Deliver skills and support.
D: Determine progress.

Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

Step A.
Diagnose your current culture
What it means:
Collecting statistically significant data
How it works:
Select the sample
Decide on means of administration,
e.g., electronic, or paper and pencil
Attach a cover letter
Decide on incentives
Follow up with non-respondents
The Idea
In Skill 6 you learned a template for designing a culture
audit for your organization, and you identified some norms
and values you would want to assess in your culture.
As you develop your own survey, remember that
technology-enabled virtual work requires different norms
and values than traditional work. Make sure your survey
does not reinforce individualism. Also, think about specific
ways to encourage virtuality and teamwork in your culture.
Once you have decided what you want to measure, you will
need to decide how you are going to measure it. Here are
a few steps and tips for conducting a cultural survey in your
organization.
1. Who. Decide if you want to administer the survey
to all associates or a random sample. There is
an educational advantage to sending everyone
the survey because it contains messages about
the desired norms and values in the new culture.

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Corporate Culture Change

2. How. Decide how to administer the survey,

i.e., via the web, paper and pencil, distributed
through management.
3. Boost response. Here are several techniques to
boost survey response:
Have the CEO include a cover letter with the survey
explaining its purpose and what will be done with
the results.
Have associates do the survey on company time.
Set up a lottery or sweepstakes reward for all
people who complete the survey.
Include a token reward with the survey, such as
a coupon, lottery ticket or dollar bill.
4. Create safety. Protecting confidentiality will help
people feel safe enough to be honest. Simply include
a control card with the survey. Have people send the
survey to a third party and send the control card to
your staff. Follow up with non-respondents by offering
a smaller, but different type of incentive.
With incentives, company time and follow-up, response
rates can exceed 70 percent. Without follow-up, incentives or the option of completing the survey on company
time, you can expect response rates between 20 and
25 percent.
Analyze the Results
Results can be analyzed either internally or through an
outside contractor. The analysis should summarize the
strengths (i.e., those norms that were rated as very
important4.0 on a 5-point scaleas well as true
3.0 on a 5-point scale). It should also identify the weakness in the organizational culture (i.e., those norms that
were rated below 2.5 on the agreement scale). Further, the
survey should analyze incongruities (i.e., those norms that

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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

had large gaps between the importance ratings and the

strength ratings). Specifically, it is possible to identify
gaps as follows:
> 2.0 = danger
1.52.0 = problem
1.01.5 = concern
The analysis should also provide a directional indication
which norms are getting better and which norms are
getting worse. If you would like to administer and analyze
your culture audit on-line, go to [Link]. THINQ
has a web-based tool that will make your diagnosis easy.
Communicate the Results
The most important part of any survey process is what
happens with the results once you have them. At a
minimum, the results need to be summarized and
distributed to the people who participated in the survey.
Ideally, focus groups should be conductedbased on
the survey resultsto probe more deeply into those
areas of concern. The facilitator of those focus groups
should ask participants to describe the problem, e.g., poor
communications or lack of involvement, fairness, trust or
respect. Then, the group should do a Pareto analysis to
determine root causes of the problems.
Finally, the group should generate some specific ideas
that would be easy to implement, practical and costeffective. The ideas generated from these focus groups
usually contain some easy-to-implement, low-cost ideas
(low hanging fruit) that show visible evidence of the
leaderships commitment to change. These should be
identified and implemented as soon as possible.
Technology can be used to post the information and
provide open on-line discussion groups.

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Corporate Culture Change

Example
Here are two sets of norms that many virtual organizations
include in their surveys:
Collaboration:
We have deeply spirited, generative conversations.
We feel heard.
We share what we think and feel.
We have shared goals and mental models.
We look for ways to create and inspire vs. command and
control.
We dont engage in defensive routines.
We realize that we cant meet the challenges we face
independently in isolation.
We use technology to accelerate learning.
Communications:
We seek first to understand.
We communicate with each other as whole people who
are connected and trusting.
We feel understood and involved no matter where we are
in the world.
We are sensitive to differences in time zones.
We look for ways to close the distance between us.
We leverage diversity.
We make good decisions about how to communicate on
various issues, e.g., face-to-face, E-Mail, etc.

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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

Developing a survey strategy in a virtual environment

creates unique challenges. Questions to assess norms
and values will be different in a virtual environment than
in a single setting. Because associates may be working
in different environments, different cultures and even
different countries, these differences need to be taken
into consideration when developing the survey. Perhaps
you will need different surveys for different languages.
In a virtual world, company time and personal time
become more blurred, so other types of incentives need
to be strengthened to increase response.

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Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
In the space below, outline the steps you are going to take
to diagnose your culture. After you decide what you are
going to measure, you may want to revisit your strategy to
identify compatibilities, incompatibilities and possible ways
to revamp your strategy or your survey. In this process,
make sure you are identifying specific ways to encourage
virtuality and teamwork. When you are done, ask yourself,
Do these norms and values reflect a radical shift in the
way we do business in a technology-enabled, virtual world,
or are they just an incremental alteration of the same old
way?

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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

Step B.
Develop programs
What it means:
Creating the resources required for success
How it works:
Identify and train role models and champions
Just-in-time training
Communicate learning from the diagnosis
Involve people in the transformation process
The Idea
In this step, the emphasis is on developing the programs
required for success. Effective and lasting change requires
a broad base of leadership skills and support within the
organization. Internal resources need to be trained as
role models and exemplars for desired changes. lt is also
important during this phase to communicate what was
learned from the cultural diagnosis process and explain
the effects of the culture on organizational behavior, personal performance, virtual work, and business objectives.
The key objective is to involve people at all levels and all
locations in the change effort. Workgroup technologies
can greatly accelerate learning and involvement in this
process. The specific desired results are internal productivity and profitability as well as customer productivity
and profitability.

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Corporate Culture Change

In todays global economy, organizational development

needs to incorporate distance learning for diverse
populations. Given the fact that work teams now
operate at different times and different places for
shorter periods of time, it is no longer as viable
to develop people through traditional, classroom
instruction.
Time-consuming training programs in a single location
are less attractive. Training needs to be on demand and
be delivered anytime, anywhere. We need to explore
alternative delivery mechanisms for just-in-time learning. Technology can be used to allow employees to
access modular training materials wherever they are,
tailored to their individual needs, and with instant
progress feedback. Similarly, we need to develop
programs that are sensitive to the diverse needs
of global teams.

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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

YOUR
TURN
What are the particular development challenges you
face given the issues of distance and diversity in your
organization?

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Corporate Culture Change

Step C.
Deliver skills and support
What it means:
Implementing programs for mission-critical
changes
How it works:
Equip people with skills
Distance learning
CBT
Classroom
Create a supportive environment
The Idea
The key concept in this step is to deliver the ideas and
goals of the diagnosis and development phases (Steps A
and B) through a multi-faceted intervention, using a variety
of workgroup technologies. Leadership provides the vision
and commitment that drive the whole change effort. During
this phase, the primary job of management is to help
interpret, communicate and reinforce the organizational
mission by supporting collaboration, communications and
teamwork.
Delivery is a two-pronged approach emphasizing skills
and support. Distance learning programs are designed
to equip people with the skills they need to achieve their
goals even when located in remote areas. At the same
time, the organization and work teams must provide a
supportive environment for the acquisition and application
of new skillseven though some technologies and skills
may represent a radical shift in the way work gets done.
Leaders need to design systems to reward the required
norms in the new culture.
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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

Example
One company, Company A, trained its service employees
by having them work temporarily at a company that provided better service, Company B. Cash managers were
allowed to work in the cash management department
to learn from the best. Reciprocally, the production
employees from Company B were allowed to work in
Company As production department to learn from them.
By working collaboratively, both companies benefited by
learning from the others expertise in a particular area.

Year: 1980
Help wanted
Key Punch Operator.
Excellent typing
skills required.

Year: 2010
Help wanted
Network Guru. Able
to work with other
people in virtual
teams.

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Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
What new skills will your team need to function effectively
in the new culture?

How will your efforts to support these changes need to

change in a virtual world?

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Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

Step D.
Determine progress

What it means:
Evaluating results and recycling the process
How it works:
Assess how far the organization has come
Learn from successes and failures
Incorporate learnings into renewal efforts
The Idea
In this step, the goals are to determine the results of the
culture change efforts and to recycle the process. Since
change is a never-ending process, this step is both the
end and the beginning of the 4D process. Leaders need to
take a hard look at how far the organization has come and
how far it still needs to goand then rekindle the desire to
proceed. This step provides the systematic follow-up that
is crucial to lasting change.
Leaders will need to:
Create a consistency of purpose;
Adopt a philosophy congruent with the age we live in;
and
Make change a well-orchestrated process, rather than a
series of isolated events.
In determining progress, it is particularly valuable to
use workgroup technologies to learn from our successes
and our setbacks. We can debrief electronically in order
to capture the learnings from our intervention and incorporate those learnings in our on-going renewal efforts.

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Corporate Culture Change

Example
On the brink of impending doom in 1983, the HarleyDavidson Motor Company made a phenomenal comeback,
in part as a result of becoming a learning organization.
The company wanted to not only learn from mistakes, but
also understand the underlying causes of mistakes and
successes.
For example, at a strategic planning meeting, the management was trying to solve a production and capacity
problem. They hadnt been able to manufacture at a level
to meet demand. The management was trying to decide
whether to build another manufacturing plant. Since
the company had embraced the learning organization
philosophy, the management group now discussed the
issue in a new way. By looking at the impact on people,
capital and quality and questioning underlying assumptions, the team came to understand that they didnt need
to build another plant. They needed to use an existing
plant in a different way.

Recycle the Process:

Diagnose
Develop
Deliver
Determine

D
D

134

D
D

Skill 7. Create a Cultural Revolution

YOUR
TURN
How well does your organization learn from previous
interventions?

What are the special challenges and opportunities for

learning in a technology-enabled virtual world?

135

ING CHA
AG
NG

Customer
Growth

ITY
AC

CO
MM
I

P
CA

TM
EN
T

AN

Corporate Culture Change

CULTURE
SKILL 6. Articulate the Cultural
Requirements for Success

SKILL 7. Create a
Cultural Revolution

Task III. Alignment Exercise

In this task to Align the Culture, you learned two skills:
Articulate the cultural requirements for success
Create a cultural revolution
Please review Skills 6 and 7, then decide what three
actions you can take to align the culture in your
organization.

136

Task III. Summary

Task III. Aligning the Culture

Summary
When the corporate culture is not aligned with the goals
and strategies of an organization working toward renewal
efforts, frustration is the likely outcome. The corporate
cultures of organizations have a powerful influence over
how things get done. Ideally, we want to be sure that our
values and operating principles translate correctly into the
norms and behaviors of day-to-day life on the job. These
norms and values need to reflect what is necessary in
technology-enabled virtual environments. Therefore, we
need to consider new ways of dealing with distance and
diversity and new ways of collaborating, communicating
and teaming.
To ensure that the norms and behaviors of the organization are in alignment with the new vision and values
of the renewal effort, a radical change in the culture may
be required. This change requires a systems approach
such as the 4D process (Diagnosis, Develop, Delivery,
and Determination). Leaders who want to align their
culture not only need to articulate the cultural requirements for success, but they also need to create a cultural
revolution to have any hopes of achieving them. This
revolution imposes new demands on leaders. In addition
to Management By Walking Around (MBWA), the virtual
leader has to Lead by Flying Around (LBFA) and Lead
by Surfing Around (LBSA). These new leadership
requirements mean new skills and abilities for the
already-buffeted corporate executive. And, to add insult
to injury, virtual executives will need to invite 360-degree
feedback from their global constituents that will expose
their strengths and weaknesses on the cultural variables
required for success in the virtual world. In the companies
that are engaging in changing corporate culture efforts in

137

Corporate Culture Change

order to compete in this global whitewater, the surviving

managers are finding that the old ways of doing things
are largely obsolete. In the scramble to stay competitive
and to meet these new challenges, the skills in this book
will help leaders navigate the blind corners and forked
roads they face on a daily basis.
Remember, there are three simple principles in culture
change:
1. Engage people in a meaningful dialogue about the
culture they want and need to succeed.
2. Build core values into everything.
3. Measure progress.

138

Task IV. Managing Change

Task IV.
Managing Change
Key Ingredients:
Dealing with the fact that things are not, and
may never be, what they were
Critical Skills:
8. Promote understanding
9. Facilitate acceptance of what cannot be
changed
10. Enable change
Introduction
In the first three tasks of this bookMaximizing Commitment, Building Capacity and Aligning the Cultureyou
have explored and understood many changes you will
need to make in order to renew your organization and
compete successfully in a global economy. To the extent
that you implement the action plans you have developed
for your organizations, these changes will have significant
implications for you and for the people in your organization. In this last task on changing corporate culture,
you will learn the skills you need to help yourself and
your people manage these cultural and skill changes
successfully.
Several of the most consequential changes introduced in
this book relate to the demands of moving to technologyenabled virtual work and/or e-commerce. In a virtual
world, there are different rules, different assumptions and
different values. People are also faced with the need to
navigate the global workplace in which there are different
times, different languages and different technologies.
These differences require changes in habits, patterns
and ways of managing time. In this world, a person may
be obliged to function on multiple teams with fewer faceto-face meetings. And they must learn to communicate
effectively in electronic meetings by using PC technology.
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Corporate Culture Change

Generally, there are two types of change: unexpected

change and expected change.
Unexpected change occurs and causes us to react. On
a personal level it might be a sudden job loss or a natural
disaster. When a significant event occurs, you can either
manage the change and become healthier as a result,
or you can choose not to manage the change, thereby
increasing the chance of unhappiness and even illness.
On the corporate level, this type of change might be the
loss of a key player on a virtual team or a glitch in the
technology that slows down a project. How we and our
organization react to unplanned changes makes a big
difference in whether the change provides opportunity
for growth or derails us.
Anticipated changes are those that we undergo intentionally. On a personal level it might mean accepting a new
job offer, getting married or moving to a new city. In the
virtual world it might be bringing about change in corporate
culture, developing a new virtual team or adopting new
technologies.
Everyone is Affected
Whether unexpected or anticipated, change affects everyone at every level of an organization. Change can have
both a positive and negative impact on employees. It may
be perceived differently by different people, in different
places and in different cultures. Even positive events
demand skills to manage change. In a simple sense,
change means that things are not, and may never be,
what they once were. Change involves a disruption of
existing activities and feelings and requires learning new
ways of doing things.
Resistance is a common human reaction to change. In
todays changing environment it is imperative that managers understand not only how to create change in their
organizations but also how to manage the human change
process in a virtual world.

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Task IV. Managing Change

Managing change is letting go of illusions, accepting reality

and focusing on new possibilities. Change requires
working out new agreements and finding tools to move
beyond the current status.
Three Phases of Change
Managing change involves three different processes:
understanding, accepting, and changing. A healthy
response to change includes understanding what has
happened; accepting what cant be changed; and
changing what we can, to achieve a new level of health.
Often the barriers to healthy change include resistance,
denial and repression. These processes can lead to
negative thoughts, negative emotions, destructive
behavior, stagnation and even physical illness. Building
resiliency to change leads people to be more positive and
accepting of the change process.
Healthy response to change includes understanding,
accepting, changing and moving forward. Managing
change in a positive way results in improved health.
Barriers to healthy change include resistance, denial and
repression. These can lead to negative thoughts, negative
emotions, destructive behavior and even physical illness.
In this task you will work on three skills:
Skill 8. Promote Understanding
Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance of What Cannot Be Changed
Skill 10. Enable Change

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Corporate Culture Change

Change Assessment
Before you begin, please take a few moments to complete
this questionnaire. Its important for you to understand
where your department or organization is on the continuum of change. Do not spend too much time on each
item. Respond how you honestly feel, not how you think
you should respond.
In the space below, briefly describe a change your
organization or department is experiencing.
In response to each of the following statements, write
down the number that corresponds most closely to what
you believe the people in your department or organization
are feeling about the change.
0 = Disagree
2 = Agree
1 = Somewhat Agree
3 = Strongly Agree
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____

142

1. People dont agree with this change and

resent having to go through it.
2. People believe that the change makes sense
and will benefit everyone.
3. People are excited about the change and
have a vision of a better future.
4. The staff doesnt appear to feel anything about
the change.
5. People have both positive and negative
feelings about the change.
6. This change allows me to feel good about
myself.
7. This whole thing will blow over soon if we just
wait it out.
8. The staff knows what they can do to make
things work.
9. In general, people are pleased with the steps
the organization is taking to make this change
a success.

Task IV. Change Assessment

____ 10. People feel that nothing good will come from
this change.
____ 11. The change can be beneficial if everyone
pitches in to make it work.
____ 12. The change has already proven to be
beneficial and positive.
____ 13. Employees are upset about how this has been
carried out.
____ 14. Things are not what they could be, but its
starting to make sense.
____ 15. Everyone is working together to make this a
success.
____ 16. Peoples enthusiasm and enjoyment in work
are at an all-time low.
____ 17. People feel good about what theyre learning
and doing.
____ 18. What we are doing now is better than the old
way.
____ 19. This change will affect others more than it will
affect me.
____ 20. The worst is over and the best is yet to come.
____ 21. I feel like people have more energy and
enthusiasm since we started making changes.

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Corporate Culture Change

Score Your Change Assessment

To score your Change Assessment, simply transfer your
numbers from the previous page to the corresponding
lines below. Then add the numbers in each column. Write
your column totals in the screened boxes at the bottom of
each column. Note that the numbers go across the three
columns, from left to right.
1.________

2.________

3.________

4.________

5.________

6.________

7.________

8. _______

9. _______

10.________

11.________

12. _______

13.________

14.________

15.________

16.________

17.________

18.________

19.________

20.________

21.________

A
Resistance

B
Acceptance

C
Commitment
to Change

144

Task IV. Score Your Change Assessment

Your Phase of Change

The three scores from your Change Assessment represent
different phases of change. The highest score is an indication of where your department or organization is today
on the continuum of change. Where they are on the
continuum of change is influenced by many factors that
we will explore in the rest of this book.

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Corporate Culture Change

SKILL 8:
PROMOTE UNDERSTANDING
Definition: Promoting understanding of changes by
providing information and facilitating open
communication
Benefits:
Allows employees to comprehend their situation
and express how they feel
Steps:
A. Describe the event
B. Identify feelings and beliefs
Change of any kind requires a certain amount of
sacrifice and the experience of loss. Resistance can
be a temporary and natural part of change, or it can be
prolonged and disruptive. A persons first response to
change may be the tendency to ignore the event, suppress
feelings or underestimate its significance. Its important for
managers to promote understanding of the changes taking place by providing adequate information about the
changes through open and honest communication. It is
also important that employees be allowed to understand
and express how they feel about the changes.
You can promote understanding by using the following two
steps:
Step A. Describe the event.
Step B. Identify feelings and beliefs.

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Skill 8. Promote Understanding

Step A.
Describe the event

What it means:
Understanding the type and significance of
change
How it works:
Explore the significance
Understand the demands
Describing the event includes the ability to understand the
type of event that has occurred, the significance of the
event and the demands created by it.
Events can be unexpected or expected, positive or
negative. There are many types of unexpected events
such as job loss, job transfer or an equipment malfunction.
Expected events may include accepting a new job offer,
opening a new division, introducing new computer systems
or planning stages of corporate culture change.
Recognizing the significance of the event involves
exploring what the event means to people. Taking the time
to focus on the event and experience its significance is an
important step in managing change in a positive way.
During periods of change it is essential for managers to do
what they can to create an environment of trust. The best
way to promote trust is for people to believe that they have
all the information. People going through change will have
a tremendous thirst for information. They need to fully
understand what is happening to them and to believe they
know everything. Vagueness feeds anxiety, which feeds
fear, which causes paralysis and resistance. When people
dont feel they have all the information, they tend to
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Corporate Culture Change

speculate on the information thats missingthis can

become a great breeding ground for the destructive rumor
mill.
Use workgroup technology to allow access to information
and give people a sense of control over the information.
Create bulletin boards of information about every aspect
of the changes happening at all levels of the organization
and let people access the information at their own pace.
This is particularly important for virtual teams where
feelings of isolation from whats going on is natural. Open
communication and free-flowing, accessible information
can go a long way to helping people feel that the organization is keeping them informed. It might be a good time
to start a newsletter to help keep people up to date.
Soon after the change event occurs, people usually
experience the demands created by the event. These
demands may include learning new skills, finding support
or letting go of old beliefs or ways of doing things.
Managers should help each employee understand the
ramifications of the changes and what it will demand of
them. Once these demands are defined, it is essential to
provide the training and support necessary to meet the
demands. Education, new equipment or tools to help
people implement the changes will help them feel
empowered and committed to the change. Providing
support creates a positive outlook among employees.
They can start to feel that there is something good in it
for them.

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Skill 8. Promote Understanding

Different groups within the organization will have different

levels of demands placed on them from the change. There
is often a direct relationship between the level of impact
and the level of resistance encountered. A useful tool for
analyzing the levels of support needed and the impact of
the change process is the Stakeholder Analysis (see
bottom of this page).
By looking at the key players and the relationship between
demands and level of support, managers can determine
where intervention activities may need to focus. Some
groups may require more effort, information and resources
than others during the change process to ensure success.
Example
A dramatic example of an unexpected, negative event
involves the horrible story of a burning platform on an offshore oil rig. Employees working on the platforms in the
raging, Arctic Sea were instructed never to jump off the
platform in an emergency. Tragically one evening, an
uncontrollable fire broke out on the platform. All of the men
were killed, with the exception of one worker who jumped.
His choice was certain death if he stayed, and probable
death if he jumped. He chose the option with minimal
probability for survival, even though it meant jumping into
a dark sea with flames on top and freezing water below;
and it meant breaking the ingrained rule of never jump.

Stakeholder Analysis
Level of support
for the change

Level of impact
change will have

Marketing

Support/proactive

LOW

Senior
Management

Active support/
proactive

HIGH

Unions

Resistance

HIGH

Stakeholders

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Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
Describe an important event in your organization. This
event can be unexpected or anticipated, positive or
negative. What demands is this change creating for your
people? How will it change their lives?

What would be an example of an ingrained message, or

belief, in your organization that would preclude people
from jumping off the burning platform and that might
create negative consequences? One example might be
never collaborate with a competitor or never trust
______________.

150

Skill 8. Promote Understanding

Step B.
Identify feelings and beliefs

What it means:
Labeling the experience
How it works:
Acknowledge feelings
Help people make positive choices on the
feelings
The Idea
Identifying how a person feels requires the ability to label
the inner experience in relation to whats happening.
Most events that create a demand for change bring
about strong feelings. A death in the family may call forth
uncontrollable feelings of grief, while a change in work
responsibilities may bring out feelings of excitement and/or
fear. If we dont experience these feelings, acknowledge
them and utilize them, the repressed feelings will prevent
us from making necessary changes. This repression may
even cause us to act irrationally or develop physical
symptoms of illness.
Managers need to observe and identify feelings among
their employees and provide an environment where it
feels safe to express them. Use the table of feeling
words on the next page to help you identify how your
employees may be feeling about the event you described
on page 150.
Example
We are constantly in the process of describing events in
our daily lives and trying to discern how we feel and what
we believe about them. Unfortunately, the way we describe
the events and the way we perceive the events frequently
leads to unfavorable outcomes.
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Corporate Culture Change

Albert Ellis, a famous cognitive psychologist, has

developed a simple model for understanding this
process. He calls the model an ABC approach in which:
A = Activating Experience
B = Belief System
C = Consequence
For example, the (A) activating experience might be that
you are participating in a matrixed organization with two
bosses that assume they own 100 percent of your time.
The (C) consequence could be that you feel hopelessly
overwhelmed and frazzled. Even though working in a
matrixed virtual world does present challenges, part of
the frazzled consequence may be your (B) belief that
you must please both bosses perfectly all of the time.
While it is unlikely that you would be able to change the
(A) activating experience, you may be able to change the
(B) belief system accounting for a major share of the
problem.

Feeling Words
Happy

Sad

Angry

Afraid

Confused

Ecstatic
Thrilled
Joyful
Happy
Pleased
Delighted
Content
Satisfied
OK
Curious

Suicidal
Despondent
Depressed
Lonely
Sad
Unhappy
Blue
Upset
Concerned
Isolated

Alienated
Furious
Enraged
Resentful
Frustrated
Aggravated
Mad
Irritated
Annoyed

Terrified
Petrified
Panicky
Scared
Afraid
Anxious
Timid
Cautious
Uneasy
Intimidated

Disoriented
Shocked
Bewildered
Conflicted
Torn
Lost
Unsure
Hesitant
Mixed-Up
Overwhelmed

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Skill 8. Promote Understanding

YOUR
TURN
Think about a change that is affecting you personally and
identify some of the feelings and beliefs you are having
about that change.

Using the ABC model to deepen your understanding, how

might your belief system impact your feelings?

Practicing a New Skill.

Over the next week, take note of unexpected or anticipated events in your organization. Take time to identify the
event, describe it, understand its significance and listen to
the feelings you are observing in relation to the events.
153

Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

SKILL 9:
FACILITATE ACCEPTANCE
CANNOT BE CHANGED

OF

WHAT

Definition: Helping employees accept that things will

never be the same
Benefits:
Increases serenity
Prepares to move on
Steps:
A. Moving to commitment
B. Putting the past behind
Introduction
There are many things we cant change in life. They are
irreversible: the process of growing old and dying, the
inevitable demands of life transitions, and the appearance
of disease, disruption and disaster. Whether in our
personal lives or our work lives, events change us or the
world around us. They may challenge our assumptions
about the organization and ourselves. The nature of the
event says we cant go on the way we have been. If we
are going to make a healthy response to change, we must
accept the event and its meaning before we can move on.
The challenge is to accept the fact that the world is not the
way we thought it was. Most people respond to change
with some form of resistance. Much of the resistance we
encounter comes from fear, mistrust, confusion, not
understanding the need for change or comfort with the
status quo. Managers need to recognize resistance for
what it is, and learn to work with it.

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Corporate Culture Change

Facilitating acceptance is the second task in our model for

managing change. The goal of this step is to help your
employees incorporate the following Serenity Prayer into
their life:
Grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.
When a person cant, or wont, understand what has
happened, acceptance is very difficult. Its hard enough to
accept the negative changes in life, even when a person
understands what has happened. Accepting it means that
the clock cannot be turned back, no matter how much the
person hopes and wishes. It doesnt mean they forget, but
it does mean they go on. In this section, you will learn to
facilitate two changes in attitude.
Step A. Moving to commitment.
Step B. Putting the past behind.

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Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

Step A.
Moving to commitment
What it means:
Letting the event sink in emotionally and
intellectually
How it works:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
The Idea
Moving to commitment is the ability to let the event sink
in emotionally and intellectually. In our model for making
a healthy response to change, understanding is the first
step. In the unhealthy response, resistance is the first
step. It is important to note that sometimes a person may
not be able to move to acceptance right away. Elizabeth
Kbler-Ross, a well-known author on managing change,
suggests a five-stage process for accepting loss:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

These five stages represent a grief and mourning process

resulting from feelings of abandonment and/or loss. All
grief and mourning is about severed relationships. Grief is
the feeling of loss at the interrupted or broken connection.
Mourning is the process of incorporating that loss into our
lives. While these phases are normally considered in
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Corporate Culture Change

relation to loss, they can also apply to any turning point

in life. Managers need to recognize these stages so
that they can identify where people are in the process.
Understanding that this is a process can help managers
gently nudge people through the phases. If a person is
in the anger stage, it doesnt mean that they wont get to
acceptance. A manager should never give up on someone
just because they seem to be exhibiting anger, depression
or denial.
Denial is a defense against the reality of loss or change.
The first reaction may be a temporary state of shock. After
this initial feeling of numbness, the usual response is, No,
this cant be happening to me. This is a normal response
to an abnormal situation. Getting stuck in the denial phase
changes this normal response to an unhealthy response.
Anger is often the response to the question, Why me?
In the denial phase, the first reaction is, No, its not true.
Eventually this reaction gives way to the reality, Oh yes,
it is me. In many cases anger is displaced in several
directions. Suddenly, no one can do anything right, nobody
understands or cares. At some point, a person must look
inward and understand the real source of the anger
losing control, losing dignity and giving up unfulfilled
dreams. Anger, when properly directed, can be healthy.
Sometimes there is a right to be angry.
Bargaining is an attempt to postpone. Usually it involves
bargaining with a higher authority. There is a promise of
good behavior in exchange for a postponement of the
inevitable. At this stage of the transition process, there is
a shift in the way the event is viewed. The event is real,
but maybe it can be modified.
Depression is recognizing that a loss has occurred or
will occur. Going through the sadness and despair of this
phase paves the way for acceptance. It is part of the
mourning process for the loss of meaningful people and
places. It is also during this stage of the transition process
that a search begins for new ways of viewing the world.
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Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

Depression that is like a deep sadness provides a

doorway to transition. If the depression becomes clinical,
more like hopelessness, then there is a danger of being
trapped.
Acceptance is the contemplation of an impending event
with quiet expectation. In the acceptance phase, rest is
not a resigned and hopeless giving up; it is a time of
preparation and peace. Usually acceptance is preceded by
an emotional thud. The thud is the emotional realization
of what has happened. The moment can feel like a bolt of
lightning, when acceptance comes unexpectedly, or it can
come as a gentle awakening when the acceptance
process has been gradual. At this time, recycling the
understanding skills can be very helpful.
Most of us have experienced all five phases of the
grief and mourning process (denial, anger, bargaining,
depression and acceptance) in relation to certain changes
in our lives. The sequence may be different for different
people and your associates may not pass through all
phases. People may also recycle through certain stages
as they work toward acceptance.
Example
Try to identify the five stages of grief that an employee
experiences as she moves toward acceptance of an office
closing.
When Karen first heard about the office closing, she
wouldnt tell her family or friends. She didnt want to deal
with her own feelings about the change, let alone others
feelings about it. A week later she told her family and they
too began the process of acceptance.
Karen felt resentful and angry at her supervisors and
the unknown decision-makers at the parent company.
For a day or so, she tried to convince her supervisor that
the office didnt need to be closed, and promised to work
harder. Always a team player, Karen now resented taking

159

Corporate Culture Change

direction from her supervisors. It became increasingly

difficult to get up in the morning. She lost interest in
looking nice for work. She came to work late and left early.
Her family was pressuring her to find another job, but
Karen just couldnt get up the energy to look. After several
months, Karen experienced the emotional thud of her
change when co-workers expressed excitement at finding
new job opportunities. Karen started to accept the fact that
her life had changed. With the support of her family, she
began to think about new possibilities and what she might
like to do in a new job.

YOUR
TURN
In relation to the event you described on page 150, how
have your associates experienced each of the five phases
leading to acceptance? Describe the feelings and the
reasons for those feelings. If you did not notice a phase,
leave that space blank.
The event (summary):

160

Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

Denial:

Anger:

Bargaining:

Depression:

Acceptance:

Where are your people now in the transition process?

161

Corporate Culture Change

Step B.
Putting the past behind

What it means:
Accepting the past without being trapped in it
How it works:
Gaining perspective
Shedding the old image
The Idea
Putting the past behind involves accepting the past without
being trapped by it. Accepting means more than letting the
event sink in emotionally; it also means letting go. Letting
go is a way to recognize that acceptance of the new
means that something of the old must go. Getting the
past behind takes time and often includes a recycling
of the acceptance and understanding processes.
Often before we can put the past behind us, we have to
gain perspective. Gaining perspective means getting some
distance, or detachment, from the event. Getting distance
helps break up the old cue-system that served to reinforce
roles and to pattern behavior. With distance, people feel
free to let go.
During this stage of the change process it is helpful for
managers to be a bit more flexible with people and to relax
the controls. Because there may be ambiguity, managers
need to let people find their way and suggest alternatives.

162

Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

Once we have gained perspective, the next step is to shed

the old image, which requires breaking some familiar
connections to the world. This can take the form of roles,
behaviors and identity. It may also require challenging
beliefs about the organization and letting go of illusions
that are getting in the way of efforts to change. Often
during times of transition, people will have feelings of
not being sure of who they are any more or who they
are working for. In some sense, they may find themselves
in a state of limbo, between the old identity and the new
identity or situation. Letting go of prior images that defined
the organization, if only temporarily, is a critical step in
putting the old behind you.
Managers need to look at how the norms and behaviors of
the organization may be changing.
Example
Karen had to reflect about the coming change. For
20 years her image of herself was attached to her job
and her company. Now she had to let go of that identity
without really having a new identity to replace it. She felt
a little lost. Fortunately, her manager understood Karens
loss. She was given the space to shed the old image,
before high expectations were placed on her.

163

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
How is the event you described on page 150 creating
demands for your staff to change? Use the space below
to describe how you might be able to get the old ways
behind and increase readiness to make a transition.

164

Skill 9. Facilitate Acceptance

What people have to let go of:

What the new image is:

165

Corporate Culture Change

SKILL 10:
ENABLE CHANGE
Definition: Preparing and moving to something new
Benefits:
Seeing opportunity
Gaining direction
Steps:
A. Making the transition
B. Beginning again
Introduction
Gail Sheehy, in her book Passages, compares humans to
lobsters. The lobster grows by developing and shedding a
series of hard protective shells. Each time it expands from
within, the confining shell must be discarded. The lobster
is left exposed and vulnerable until, in time, a new
covering grows to replace the old.
And so it is with us. Getting the past behind means
shedding a protective structure that is really not functional
anymore. We are left exposed and vulnerable, but also
fresh and challenged, capable of stretching in ways we
hadnt known before. This shedding may take several years
or more. If we dont shed our defensive shells, life will
become stifling and uncomfortable. In our heart we know
we must change. Yet, questions such as What should we
do? and What can we do? still challenge and frighten us.
The third step in our Managing Change model is Enabling
Change. This section will present two steps to help your
people make a new beginning:
Step A. Making the transition.
Step B. Beginning again.
166

Skill 10. Enable Change

Step A.
Making the transition

What it means:
Finding something useful in the emptiness or
pain created by letting go of the past
How it works:
Discover whats left
Understand the pitfalls
Settle into the reality of moving forward

The Idea
Making the transition involves the ability to find something
useful in the emptiness or pain created by letting go of the
past. The gap between acceptance and beginning again
can be a time of considerable disorientation.
Change means heading into unfamiliar territory. A persons
foundation and sense of direction may get lost. They might
feel confused. Ordinary things may seem unreal, and what
used to seem critically important may suddenly lose value.
Out of this disorientation, a person struggles for some
direction. The key to finding that direction is to confront the
feeling of emptiness. Help people find something useful
in any change being made.
Making the transition may be a time for exploration
and experimentation. While the new reality is sinking in,
encourage people to remain open to new possibilities.
To begin making the transition we have to discover what
remains in the aftermath of a life-changing or workchanging event. Finding the positive in the emotional
aftermath is a test of inner resources and faith.

167

Corporate Culture Change

It is important during this step to provide sufficient time

for an inner reorientation to the change. Review old
commitments and exercise caution in making new ones.
Dont rush this inner process. Give people time. They may
be tempted to act for the sake of action, but those actions
often lead to trouble.
It should be a time to reflect on past experiences and
let new desires emerge. The desires that emerge in
the transition period are an important part of discovering
whats left. In fact, they may be a large share of what is
left.
People need to take good care of themselves during
this transition. Encourage them to exercise and eat right.
It is equally important to attend to emotional needs. Find
resources for your people to talk to. That person can be
a caring friend or a trained professional. Getting needed
support is part of taking good care of themselves.
Five Traps
Often when people are working through to new beginnings
they may fall into five cognitive traps. Most of these traps
are a result of being torn between the old and the new.
Managers need to recognize these traps that can get in
the way of successful change.
The five traps to making a successful transition are:
Moving too quickly in an attempt to remove the
emptiness.
Becoming defensive and impatient because transition
time feels unproductive.
Becoming depressed about changing of old patterns.
Letting fear get in the way of a deeper understanding.
Making rapid adjustments to overcome feelings of
being overwhelmed.
A person needs to avoid becoming so immobilized by the
old that they cant enter into the emptiness and learn what
it has to offer. People need to stay in the emptiness long
enough to discover new possibilities.
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Skill 10. Enable Change

Readiness to Change Indicators

People will get to a sense of readiness to make changes.
Here are four indicators of readiness to move forward:
People are not recycling as much. They spend less
emotional energy on the past and stop reviewing what
should or shouldnt have been done.
People feel an inner stirring to make a commitment
to move ahead. They spend more emotional energy
around the new image they are creating for themselves.
And they connect socially with new peers.
People have a clearer vision of where to go. A new
vision of possibilities starts to emerge that gives them
a sense of direction.
People start to integrate the change into their reality.
Theyll start thinking, saying and doing things that
demonstrate a commitment to the change.
When you start noticing these readiness indicators, you
will know that people are starting to settle into the reality
of moving forward. They are moving out of the transition
phase and beginning again to build a new reality.

169

Corporate Culture Change

YOUR
TURN
What are some of the positive things that could come out
of the changes?

What is left for the people?

What pitfalls have you found employees falling into during

the transition?

What readiness indicators have you noticed that let you

know your people are settling into the reality of moving
forward?

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Skill 10. Enable Change

Step B.
Beginning again

What it means:
Acting on the desire to make something happen
How it works:
Set a goal
Choose a strategy
Develop support

The Idea
Beginning again means acting on the desire to make
something happen. Understanding without action is fairly
useless. Once people have reached a point of readiness
to act, it is important to encourage action. Acceptance
decreases the chances of going through the future
anchored to the past. Making the transition increases
the chances of creating a new vision of whats possible.
Beginning again gets people moving forward again to
implement and live with the change. This involves setting
a goal, choosing a strategy and developing support.
Setting a goal means developing some direction in the
change process. Setting a goal gives people a way to
measure progress.
Choosing a strategy is helping people select the best
alternative for achieving their goals. To give people the
best chance of success, help them select a strategy that
best matches their style.
Developing support means mobilizing whatever resources
are needed to increase your employees chances for
success. This may require exploring some new lifestyle
possibilities, including exercise, stress management,
171

Corporate Culture Change

healthy eating or quitting smoking. Providing training,

education and other physical and emotional support
develops a positive outlook among employees. It may
also mean involving other people in the change program
to support them in a new beginning. You may want to
reward progress or help people get back on track when
they experience setbacks.
Example
Karens goal: I will learn new job skills to give myself
greater opportunities for a new position. I will learn
computer skills to make me eligible to work at home
as part of a virtual team.
Karens strategy for change: I will enroll in the skills
training course offered by the company.
Karens support: I will ask my family to help with chores
and to respect my need for study time.

172

Skill 10. Enable Change

YOUR
TURN
In the space below, please complete the following
statements for one person you are helping to begin again.
The goal is:

The strategy is:

The support will be:

173

E
UR
LT
CU

CO
MM
IT
ME
NT

ING CHA
AG
NG
AN

SKILL 8. Promote
understanding

Corporate Culture Change

SKILL 9. Facilitate
acceptance
SKILL 10. Enable change

Customer
Growth

CAPACITY

Task IV. Managing Change Exercise

In this task, you learned three skills to help you manage
change within your organization:
Promote understanding
Facilitate acceptance
Enable change
Please review these three skills and decide what actions
you can take in your organization to manage change.

174

Task IV. Summary

Task IV. Summary

This task presented a healthy response to managing
change in turbulent times. It was designed to give you
some insights and tools for helping your employees let
go of illusions, accept their realities and focus on the
possibilities even when working in a virtual world of
geographically dispersed teams.
The first section demonstrated how you could promote
understanding of the event, the demands that it created
and how people felt about it. It is vitally important,
especially in virtual teams situations, that people have
a full understanding of the changes taking place.
The second section helped you facilitate acceptance of
what cannot be changed. You learned some ways to help
people move toward commitment, gain perspective and
shed their old image. This process enables people to
experience the reality of the change and to let it sink in
emotionally as well as intellectually.
The third section focused on helping people change what
they can so that they can invest their energy into new
beginnings. You helped people set goals and develop
strategies to reach those goals.
If you understand change and facilitate a healthy
response to the changes people face in life, you will
make a significant contribution to organizational and
individual health. Remember to pay attention to the
signs of mismanaging change: denying, repressing and
stagnating. We hope that these skills for managing change
will lead to new opportunities for your people.

175

Summary

SUMMARY
Mobilize people behind the shared values, strategy
and structure
Empower people
Recognize individual and team contributions
Develop people
Create a learning organization
Articulate the cultural requirements for success
Create a cultural revolution
Promote understanding
Facilitate acceptance
Enable change
As organizations experience the turbulence caused by the
great pace of changes happening in our world, many will
be aware of what is happening and take steps to engage
in a systematic changing corporate culture effort.
Although a great master plan can be created for corporate culture change, commitment, capacity, alignment
of the culture, and managing the process of change are
necessary for success. Maximizing employee commitment
involves mobilizing employees behind the new values and
vision of the organization. This is done by defining and
communicating the vision, mission, goals, objectives and
values of the organization and by empowering people with
direction, autonomy and necessary support. In addition,
reward systems specifically targeted to the individual
motivators that reward the behaviors required by the new
values and vision will facilitate the shifting of employee
attitudes.
Building capacity within the organization involves
developing people by attending to the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual health of the employees. By

177

Corporate Culture Change

creating a learning organization of empowered, energized

and committed people, the new vision for the organization
begins to take shape.
Leaders must ensure that the corporate culture is not
only in tandem with the new vision and values but also
in support of technology-enabled virtual work. Not only
do we have to talk the talk, but we have to walk the walk.
Articulating the values and translating those into more
concrete norms and behaviors ensures that the new vision
is not just talk and that virtual work is for real. Creating this
type of environment may require a cultural revolution. If
we choose to engage in radical thinking and revolutionary
ideas, we need to be thoughtful and deliberate. It requires
a systematic process that takes full advantage of
technologies that deal with distance and people skills
to deal with diversity.
Revolution should never be considered lightly. Yet, the
business drivers that we discussed in the introduction
impose demands on organizational leaders that may
require revolutionary thoughts and ways of doing business.
The whole nature of relationships with customers, competitors and suppliers has changed. Technology and team
demographics have caused alterations in organizational
dynamics that we could not have anticipated even a
decade earlier. Radical changes require radical solutions.
In this book, you have learned ten skills to help you
maximize commitment, build capacity, align the culture,
and manage change. Hopefully, these skills will help you
navigate the changes thrust upon you in mindful and
productive ways. By living in the questions we have
introduced here, you have begun to develop your action
plan for renewal.

178

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181

Index

Index
A
ABC model, 152
Acceptance, 159
Action, encouraging,
171173
Action learning, d88
Activating experience, 152
Affiliate partnership
agreement, 17
Andersen Consulting, 103
Anger, 158
Apple, 103
Argyris, Chris, 86
Assessment
change, 142145
success of cultural
change, 133135
AT&T, 74, 103
Network Systems
Division, 24
Audience, survey, 121
Authority, 42
limits of, 3435
Autonomy, 3740, 59, 177
B
Bargaining, 158
Behavioral symptoms, of
stress, 68
Behaviors, 116118
Belief system, 152
Benefits, 64
Block, Peter, 86
Business drivers, impact on
strategy, 23

C
Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce (CIBC), 79
Capacity, corporate change
and, 9
Capacity development,
61108, 177178
creating a learning
organization and,
85105
developing people and,
6384
exercise, 106
overview, 6162
summary, 107108
Change
barriers to, 141
as a cultural revolution,
119135
cultural requirements
for successful,
111118
employee development
and, 6384
empowering people
and, 3144
engaging people in,
2627
healthy response to,
141
mobilizing people for,
11, 1629
phases of, 141
readiness indicators for,
169
183

Corporate Culture Change

recognizing individual
and team
contributions to,
4557
signs of mismanaging,
175
types of, 140
See also Change
management;
Commitment to
change; Cultural
alignment
Change management,
139175
change assessment,
142145
enabling change,
166173
exercise, 174
facilitating acceptance
of, 155165
overview, 139141
promoting
understanding of
change, 146153
summary, 175
Chief Information Officers
(CIOs), 6
Client relationships, 8
Coaching, 4143
Collaboration
cultural survey on, 124
defined, 8
rewarding, 46, 55, 60
strategic, 3
in virtual environment, 5
workplace technology
and, 8
Collective intelligence, 98
184

Commitment to change, 9,
157161, 177
empowering people
and, 3144
exercise, 58
mobilizing people and,
1629
overview, 1215
recognizing individual
and team
contributions and,
4557
summary, 5960
Communications, cultural
survey on, 124
Community
sense of, 65
spiritual health and,
8182
stress and, 68
Compaq, 103
Computer conferencing, 7
Conference calling, 6
Conflict resolution, 74, 75,
90
Confusion, as stress
symptom, 68
Contributors, 5152
Control
empowerment and, 32
as high performance
variable, 6568
in learning organization,
9899
tracking in virtual
environment, 65,
6768
Core values
aligning rewards with,
5456

Index
defining, 16, 1822, 59,
177
norms and, 116118
Corporate structure. See
Structure
Cultural alignment, 109138
alignment exercise, 136
creating cultural
revolution and,
119135
cultural requirements
for success and,
111118
overview, 109110
summary, 137138
Cultural diversity, 2, 3, 65
Cultural revolution, creating,
119135, 178
delivering skills and
support for, 130132
determining progress
of, 133135
developing programs
for, 127129
diagnosing current
culture and, 121126
Culture
corporate change and,
9
diagnosing, 121126
survey of, 121124
Customer, focus on, 2, 3
capacity building and,
61, 107108, 178
D
Decision making,
empowering employees
and, 31, 32, 34

Denial, change and, 158,

175
Dependent relationship,
between employer and
employee, 15
Depression, 158159
Detractors, 5152
Different time/different place
configuration, 7
Discussion databases, 13
Disorientation, in midst of
change, 167
Distance learning, 128, 130
Diversity, 2, 3, 65
Double-loop learning, 86
Dow Chemical, 71
DuPont, 71
E
Eastman Chemical Co., 24
EDS, 103
Education, 65
intellectual health and,
78
See also Training
Electronic communications
technology, 3, 6
Ellis, Albert, 152
e-mail, 27, 38
Emotional capital, 65
Emotional health, 7477
during transition to
change, 168
Emotional thud, 159160
Emotions, change and,
151153
Employee development,
1213, 15, 6384

185

Corporate Culture Change

emotional health and,
7477, 168
in horizontal structure,
24
intellectual health and,
7880
physical health and,
7073
spiritual health and,
8183
Employees
impact of change on,
140141
supporting, 4143
Employeremployee
relationship, 1214
Empowering employees, 13,
3144, 59
defining job direction
and boundaries and,
3436
in horizontal structure,
24
providing autonomy
and, 3740
supporting employees
and, 4143
Empowerment, as high
performance variable, 65,
6768, 107, 177
Emptiness, in face of
change, 167
Entrepreneurial behavior, 98
Ergonomics, 70, 72
Esprit de corps, 8182
Ethical Leadership, 12
Evaluation criteria, 47
Executive development, 65
Exemplars, 5152
186

Expectations, defining,
4750
Expected change, 140, 147
Experimentation, change
and, 167
F
Fear, change and, 168
Feedback, 4143, 47, 137
Feelings, identifying during
change, 151153
Feeling words, 152
Financial capital, for
capacity development, 61
Fishnet model, 4, 24
Flexibility, gaining
perspective on past and,
162
Flexible work options, 38,
74
Focus groups, cultural
analysis and, 123
Follow-up, on cultural
change, 133135
Ford Motor Company,
9091
Forgetfulness, as stress
symptom, 68
4D model, 119120,
133134, 137
G
Global village, 2
Global workplace, 110, 128,
139
Goal setting, 3435,
171173
Grief, 157

Index
H
Haelan Group, 17, 49
Harley-Davidson Motor
Company, 134
Headaches, as stress
symptom, 68
Health
emotional, 7477, 168
intellectual, 7880
physical, 7073, 168
promotion of, 64
spiritual, 8183
High blood pressure, as
stress symptom, 68
High performance variables,
6566
Hiring process, 94
Home, working from 7475
Horizontal structure, 2324.
See also Fishnet model
HP (Hewlett-Packard), 103
I
IBM, 103
Impatience, as stress
symptom, 68
Independent relationship,
between employer and
employee, 14, 15
Individual vision, linking to
organizational vision,
2627
Information
change and need for,
147148
flow of, 90
sharing, 116117
See also Knowledge

Information capacity, 61
Information processing
empowerment and, 31
virtual environment and,
33
Information Systems (IS), 6
Ingersol Rand, 9596
Innovation, rewarding, 55,
60
Input, seeking, 9397
Insomnia, as stress
symptom, 68
Inspiring Commitment, 14
Institute for the Future, 4, 24
Integrated Health
Management, 92
Intellectual capital, 65
Intellectual health, 7880
Interdepartmental conflict,
9394
Interdependent relationship,
between employer and
employee, 14, 15
Interdependent thinking, 4
modeling, 62
Irritability, as stress
symptom, 68
IS. See Information Systems
Issues analysis forum, 93
J
Job boundaries, 3436
Job direction, 3436
Job security, 12, 13
Johanson, Robert, 4
Johnson and Johnson, 71
Just-in-time learning, 128

187

Corporate Culture Change

K
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 86
Knowledge
employee development
and, 64
generating, 98101
See also Information
Kotter, John, 11
Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, 157
L
Lawler, Ed, III, 87
Leadership
for corporate culture
change, 1, 9, 1011
for employee
development, 64
in managing
communications, 7
in modeling
interdependent
thinking, 62
reward system and,
5455
role in supporting
employee health, 71
seeking input and,
9394
for technology-enabled
virtual work, 178
in virtual environment,
27, 137
Learning around routines,
86
Learning
action, 88
defined, 86

188

distance, 128, 130

double-loop, 86
just-in-time, 128
organizational, 8588
Learning organization,
creating, 85105,
107108
forming partnerships
and, 102105
generating knowledge
and, 98101
seeking input and,
9397
systems thinking and,
8992
Loss, process for accepting,
157159
Lotus, 102104
Loyalty, winning employee,
1415
M
Management By Walking
Around (MBWA), 137
Manzi, Jim, 104
McKinsey and Co., 24
Mechanical capacity, 61
Mendes, Anthony, 14
Mental symptoms, of stress,
68
Mercer Inc., 71
Microsoft, 102104
Mission
defining, 19, 20
recognition and, 47
redefining, 47, 48
Mission statements, 19
Motivating factors, 5153

Index
Motivation, 4546, 59
Motorola, 100
Mourning, 157
N
NASA (National Aeronautics
and Space
Administration)
aligning rewards with
organizational values
at, 56
communication at, 75
employee support at,
43
esprit de corps at,
8182
expectations and
requirements at, 48
lack of learning at, 95
linking individual to
organizational vision
at, 2627
providing autonomy at,
38
renewal at, 10
stress at, 71
systems thinking at, 90
vision at, 19, 2021
National Geographic, 109
Nordstrom Department
Store, 38, 99
Norms, 116118, 178
Novell, 103
O
Observers, 5152
On-line question and
answer database, 27

Open meetings, 27
Operating principles, vs.
values, 18
Organizational culture. See
Culture
Organizational learning,
8588
Organizational vision. See
Vision; Vision statements
Organization, as network,
9092
P
Pace, increased work, 3
Pareto analysis, 123
Participants, 5152
Participatory log-on
routines, 27
Partnerships, forming,
102105
Passages, 166
PC projectors, 7
PEIS processing skills, 64
Perspective, on past,
162165, 175
Peters, Tom, 87
Physical capital, 64
Physical, emotional,
intellectual, and spiritual
(PEIS) processing skills,
64
Physical health, 7073
promoting in virtual
environment, 72
return on investment in,
71
transition to change
and, 168

189

Corporate Culture Change

Physical symptoms, of
stress, 68
Pizza chart, 24
Possibilities, Inc., 119
Power, flow of, 90
Principles, norms and,
116118
Processes, structuring
organization around, 23
Productive reasoning, 86
Psychological contract,
between employer and
employee, 13
Q
Quaker, 71
Quinn, James, 64
R
Readiness to change
indicators, 169
Recognition, 4557, 59
motivating factors and,
5153
requirements and
expectations and,
4750
reward system and,
5457
Reengineering, 63
Reinforcement, levels of,
5152
Renewal, need for, 1011
Repression, 175
Requirements, defining,
4750
Resistance, to change, 146,
149, 157
190

Retreats, 27
Rewards
commitment and, 59
criteria for, 47
designing system of,
5457
programs, 46
team, 60
Risk taking, 55, 60
S
Safety and environment, 64
Same place/different time
configuration, 7
Same time/different place
configuration, 6, 7
Same time/same place
configuration, 6, 7
SAP, 103
Satisfaction, as high
performance variable,
6566, 68
Screen sharing, 7
Senge, Peter, 87
Serenity prayer, 156
Seven Ss, 1, 9
Shared values, 12, 16
Sheehy, Gail, 166
Skill profiles, 8
Skills, 1
learning new, 89
Spikes, 4
Spiritual capital, 65
Spiritual health, 8183
Staff, 1
new demands on, 45
Stagnation, 175
Stakeholder analysis, 149
Strategic alliances, 102, 103

Index
Strategic collaboration, 3
Strategic information,
9395, 98, 108
Strategy, 1
aligning with structure,
2325
impact of business
drivers on, 23
implications for
structure, 4
selecting, 171173
Stress
as high performance
variable, 6566, 68
physical health and,
7073
tracking in virtual
environment, 65
Stretch targets, 35
Structure, 1
aligning with strategy,
2325
Fishnet model, 4, 24
horizontal, 2324
implications of strategy
on, 4
need for support
systems and, 69
vertical, 23
Styles, 1
learning new, 89
Success, cultural
requirements for, 111118
stated values and
operating principles
and, 113115
translation of values
and principles into
norm and behaviors
and, 116118

Sun, 103
Supervision strategies,
5152
Support systems, 69
Systemic planning models,
49
Systems, 1
Systems thinking, 8992
T
Team rooms, 7
Teams
collaboration and
technology and, 8
corporate model and, 4
incentives and, 46
new demands on, 45
rewards for, 60
structuring organization
around, 23
use of supervision
strategies for, 52
virtual, 5, 7
Technology
impact of electronic
communications, 3,
6, 178
inclusion with values
and vision
statements, 19
stress and, 70
systems thinking and,
89
teams and, 5
Technology training, 38
Teleconferencing, 6, 27
Tenneco, 71
THINQ, 123
Tichy, Noel, 88
191

Corporate Culture Change

Time/space configurations
for workgroups, 67
Training, 130132
intellectual capital and,
65
technology, 38
in virtual environment,
128
Training and Development,
85
Transitioning, to change,
167170
Trust, 5, 147
Turf wars, 9394
Two-way video, 7
U
Ulcer, as stress symptom,
68
Understanding change,
146153, 157
Unexpected change, 140,
147
V
Values, norms and,
116118. See also Core
values
Vertical structure, 23
Virtual environment
access to information
and, 148
aligning culture in, 110
commitment and, 17,
60
common vision and, 27
community building in,
82
192

conflict and, 76
culture survey in, 124,
125
defining requirements
and expectations in,
49
empowerment in, 107
individual and group
boundaries in, 35
information processing
in, 33
leadership in, 137, 178
managing change in,
139, 140
mobilizing people for
change in, 17
opportunities for
community and
support in, 69
promoting health in, 72
recognition in, 46
stress in, 69
tracking control and
stress in, 65
training in, 128
translating values into
norms in, 117
Virtual teams, 5, 7. See also
Teams
Vision
clarifying, 1822
defining, 16, 19, 59,
177
linking individual to
organizational, 2627
virtual environment and,
27
Vision statements, 19
Voice mail, 7
Volunteerism, 65

Index
W
Workforce structure, 4. See
also Structure
Workgroup technologies,
67
access to information
about change using,
148
to assess success of
cultural change, 133
collaboration and, 8
creating cultural
revolution and, 127,
130

knowledge generation
and, 99
partnership formation
and, 102
workplace flexibility
and, 38
Work/life balance, 33, 65,
7475
Workstation networks, 7
World Confederation of
Productivity Science, 65

193