Organisation culture is a set of values, norms and practices prevalent across the echelons of a company. Its like the norms of a family or a society, which is omnipresent and impacts your conduct, interactions and your decision making.
A company’s culture is set in an implicit manner by its Founders. The Founder’s values are the company’s values. As the company grows, more people with different value systems and cultural background join. At this point, The founder or the CEO can take the decision to modify its culture considering the new additions or impose the founders culture.
When a company is small in size and less diversified, the employees understand the push-andpull in the company and tag along with the top-down culture. But when it outgrows the boundaries of a location, country or employee-size, then Culture gets set by what the leadership says, does and measures.
For e.g. James McNerney was the CEO of a GE Business Unit. GE followed Statistical Control and Process-Orientedness using the methodology of Six Sigma. GE made Quality a structured approach and succeeded quite well in its pursuit of Quality Management across the board.
When McNerney moved to 3M as its CEO, (2001-2005) he injected the same philosophy of Six Sigma at 3M. 3M was an innovation driven company and gave a lot of freedom for ideation and failure. But when the Leadership made Innovation a structured approach it failed to elicit new ideas and new innovations, leading to a fall in 3Ms revenues, and a fall in employee engagement.
He changed not just the structure and processes but also the Culture (the heart of an Org). This imposition led to disengagement which led to falling revenues, eventually leading to his exit.
The above example shows how Leadership plays a dominant role in setting, practicing and communicating the Organisation Culture.
For further details on how we do help organisations with their Culture & Engagement please visit www.peoplecube.ai
A company’s culture is set in an implicit manner by its Founders. The Founder’s values are the company’s values. As the company grows, more people with different value systems and cultural background join. At this point, The founder or the CEO can take the decision to modify its culture considering the new additions or impose the founders culture.
When a company is small in size and less diversified, the employees understand the push-andpull in the company and tag along with the top-down culture. But when it outgrows the boundaries of a location, country or employee-size, then Culture gets set by what the leadership says, does and measures.
For e.g. James McNerney was the CEO of a GE Business Unit. GE followed Statistical Control and Process-Orientedness using the methodology of Six Sigma. GE made Quality a structured approach and succeeded quite well in its pursuit of Quality Management across the board.
When McNerney moved to 3M as its CEO, (2001-2005) he injected the same philosophy of Six Sigma at 3M. 3M was an innovation driven company and gave a lot of freedom for ideation and failure. But when the Leadership made Innovation a structured approach it failed to elicit new ideas and new innovations, leading to a fall in 3Ms revenues, and a fall in employee engagement.
He changed not just the structure and processes but also the Culture (the heart of an Org). This imposition led to disengagement which led to falling revenues, eventually leading to his exit.
The above example shows how Leadership plays a dominant role in setting, practicing and communicating the Organisation Culture.
For further details on how we do help organisations with their Culture & Engagement please visit www.peoplecube.ai
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