Organizational Culture

Today's discussion of Zappos is a fun way to get our discussion of organizational culture started. Zappos certainly has a unique way of working together. And when we're talking about culture in any organization, that's really what we're talking about: how we work together, or what some authors phrase as, "how things done around here".

There are a lot of different definitions of organizational culture. Let me offer a simple one: organizational culture is the beliefs, values, and customs or habits shared among organization members. These characteristics are often visible not only in our conversation and problem solving, but are physically visible in artifacts within the organization. Organizational culture is relatively stable, but it can change and does evolve as the organization solves problems, and these problem solving methods are accepted as valid (see Schein, 2010).

Cameron and Quinn's (2011) competing values framework provides us with a model for thinking about these beliefs, values and customs, and the impact various culture types can have on innovation, speed, and organizational sustainability. The first five minutes of this video provides a helpful introduction to the competing values framework.

Your posts captured some of the beliefs, values and customs at Zappos, and even some of the artifacts (e.g., the open and highly decorated work space). See Michael's post for a thorough discussion of why Zappos' culture might be classified as "clan" according to the competing values framework. Lucas, Rob and Ricky's posts help stretch our thinking, noting that there appears to be elements of the Zappos culture that fall outside the clan quadrant. We'll see on Monday that company cultures are rarely exclusive to one quadrant. As the video notes, each quadrant offers some value to the organization. The key, as Nuebert and Dyck (2014) point out, is to ensure our culture aligns with our customer/stakeholder expectations, and our business strategy.

We've looked at some interesting organizational cultures this semester. Earlier we took a peek at Ideo. Now Zappos. How would you like to work at these companies? A number of you would, but Joel, Lucas, Ricky and Ryan observe in their discussions that these organizational cultures may not be a fit for everybody, depending on personal work style, etc. That is certainly true. Let me also challenge us to consider being open to alternative organizational cultures and the value of each of the quadrants. Those of who prefer a more internal focus, or perhaps predictability and control, may find our organizations in need of the innovation offered by adhocracy in order to survive. If that's the case, how do we make that transition as an organization and as individuals? We'll talk about that more on Monday.  :-)

References

Cameron, K.S & Quinn, R.E. (2011). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Neubert, M. & Dyck, B. (2014). Organizational behavior. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Schein, E. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

You Are a Leader

Take a few minutes to read Dr. Kathy Ann Hernandez's reflection on John Quincy Adams' statement about leaders and leadership.

Susan Cain on the Power of Introverts

Hello to all of the introverts and extroverts in our class this semester! Take a few minutes to watch this TED talk by Susan Cain from 2012. Cain provides insights for all of us to consider in conjunction with our own Jung typology test results and our study of Liswood (2010). Enjoy!

Nonverbal Communication

Professor Amy Cuddy (Harvard Business School) offers some interesting insights and science on the power of nonverbal communication, not only in what it communicates to others, but to ourselves.

Our Individual Attributes

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Hi all. This week we have transitioned from our introduction to organizational behavior to diving into our first level of study: the individual. We have already taken two self-assessments, the individualism/collectivism self-assessment and the Jung typology test.

Thank you for your reflections on your Jung type. The website and our text both provide helpful information to interpret our results (we'll talk more about the IC self-assessment on Monday). As a group you are demonstrating very healthy critical thinking about assessment results. You are agreeing with the interpretation where it makes sense, and disagreeing where you have contrary data from your own experience. This will be an important habit to develop as we work through the semester.

None of the instruments or self-assessments we use this semester should be considered a definitive description of who you are; they do not define you. Rather, they should be used to shine some light and provide food for thought about our individual preferences and styles. Self-awareness is a key leadership attribute. We will employ these tools to build self-awareness, and facilitate choices about personal development. We'll also be using these tools to help us understand more about the impact of our personal styles and behaviors on those around us, and how that affects groups and organizational behavior.

Be sure to retain your results from this and future assessments as we will refer back to them throughout the semester, and you'll need them for your final paper.

By the way, here's an interesting tidbit from our Jung type indicator results: two-thirds of our class identified themselves as one of the extrovert types. Do some thinking over the weekend about the implications of this for our classroom interactions. We'll pick-up this question on Monday.

Until then, enjoy the weekend!

Motivating with Systems - DB Feedback

Hi all,

Our October 10 and 13 discussion boards transition us from thinking about motivation at the individual-level to thinking about how we can design organizational systems to promote the intrinsic motivation discussed in chapter five. Hackman and Oldham's (1980) job characteristics model (JCM) is only one of many theories that explores motivational characteristics of job design, but it is a particularly useful one. The JCM's five basic job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job) remain central to discussions of job design and worker motivation today.

A key aspect of the JCM is the meaningfulness of work. Three of the five job characteristics identified by Hackman & Oldham (1980) contribute to experienced meaningfulness of one's work. Many of you effectively identified the lack of skill variety, task identity and task significance in Phil Stallings' job, noting that the exact opposite was true for the NUMMI workers. See Katie, Andrew B. and Greg's posts for very effective comparisons of the two cases using the JCM.

The best part of the JCM is it's practicality. It identifies aspects of job design that managers can take action to address without major investments in equipment or facilitates. Recall that the NUMMI plant continued to use much of the equipment used to assemble Chevrolets prior to the NUMMI joint venture. The difference was in job design and management style.

I've provided a link to JCM overview done for BUSA 340 last semester. While there are some references specific to that course, the video provides a more in-depth look at the model than that provided in our text. Take a few minutes watch it and learn a bit more about the model.

On Wednesday we shift from our discussion of the individual in the organization to a discussion of teams and groups. Enjoy your reading in Lencioni (2002); it's a fun, story-like read. See you in class for our first discussion of teams and trust.

Expectancy Theory & "Open Space"

Hi all,

Thanks for your contributions to our online discussion of the Kenny Moore & Keyspan case from Neubert (2014) chapter 5. A number of you had very strong posts fully responding to the case questions for discussion (see Ayanna, Katie, Andrew B., Ethan, Greg & Joe's posts for good examples).

I did want to highlight a very interesting and important conversation related to question 3: Would you be motivated by an Open Space meeting? Why or Why not. Many of you agree that you would. Tom provided an example of an open space-type meeting at his employer that he finds valuable. A number of the group, however, indicated that they would not find the structure of an open space meeting useful or valuable. Consistently this response came from the introverts among us (remember that I include myself in that group).

Future managers and leaders, this is an important point. Not everybody will be motivated to contribute in a large group setting such as Moore's open space model. This goes back to the difference in type that we saw in our class when we took the Jung Typology Test. It also relates back to Liswood's (2010) encouragement to us as managers that "the silent have something to say". As managers and leaders we need to find forums that gives voice to everybody in the organization. Also recall that Liswood identified responsibilities for both managers and individual contributors in the quest for the silent to be heard. Her chapter 7 provides tips for both. Expectancy theory may provide us with an additional tool.

Recall that expectancy theory is characterized by the consideration of the following questions:

Neubert (2014) Figure 5.2 (p. 101)

Neubert helps us reframe these questions in the sustainable approach, shifting them from the personal focus defined in the original model, to a group or other-focused approach. What if we as managers, leaders and individual contributors asked these questions instead (from Neubert, 2014, chapter 5):

• Can we achieve the goal together as a group? (expectancy)
• What is in it for the group? (instrumentality)
• What value is the achievement to the group? (valence)

Perhaps reframing our thinking of expectancy theory in this way can challenge us as managers and leaders to risk finding new ways to open up discussions to involve everybody, both the ready-to-speak and the quiet. And for individual contributors perhaps these "us" centered questions can begin to reframe our thinking about the challenges associated with large group discussion and contributions. It is not so much about me the individual and my personal style, but rather about what we can accomplish together as a group, and my role/responsibility to contribute to that group achievement.

What do you think? Can approaching the question of participation/contribution from the sustainable perspective begin to change what individual and group discussion looks like in an organization?