ATD Blog
Tiptoeing Into the Culture Arena
Mon Dec 10 2018
Leadership is a daunting task.
Leaders must set direction, align the people and processes to move in the desired direction, and ensure the creation of strategies, systems, and methods to achieve performance excellence. Simultaneously, leaders are responsible for enabling the organization to attract, hire, and maintain employees who are capable, engaged, and motivated. Piled on top of this is staying competitive in a world of frequent disruptions that require constant change. To add to the complexity, leaders are also responsible for the organizational culture regardless of how it is defined.
To put this in perspective, culture is defined differently by everyone in the organization—and even academic definitions vary. Research includes many models and frameworks. Recent research, The Leadership Guide to Corporate Culture, published in the January-February 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), describes culture as an elusive lever for leaders “ . . . because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns.” Even management guru Peter Drucker is quoted as saying “culture eats strategy for lunch.”
If culture is such a quagmire, what can leaders do to enable success?
Like all major conundrums, the first step is gaining a deeper understanding of the issue. This requires investigation and research. It means looking at the phenomena with a critical eye for discerning the various components and nuances. This takes time—which is not readily available to most senior leaders.
One response to help leaders understand culture is in the aforementioned HBR article, which also includes a framework provided by Spencer Stuart, an American global executive search and leadership consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois. The authors’ extensive research indicated two dimensions related to culture in all of the organizations (230 companies and more than 1,300 executives). The first is the organization’s orientation toward people interactions with a continuum that extended from independence to interdependence. The second is the organization’s response to change with a continuum from stability to flexibility. Using these two dimensions to form a 2x2 quadrant, the researchers discovered eight styles of culture (two in each quadrant).
\* Does not add to 100%; represents the top two choices
Leaders have a difficult role, especially when it comes to guiding the organizational culture.
Knowing where and how to start delving deeper is a first step. Using these eight styles is a useful place to start. As a leader, where do you want your organization to be in the matrix? Where are you now? How might you research companies to find out what works in their organization so that you can successfully apply those principles to your organization? As a leader, what style are you using in your personal behaviors? What are you modeling for your fellow employees?
If you are a trainer or an internal consultant, how might you use this framework to help leaders tiptoe into the culture area? It is a mushy and uneven terrain with mine fields in unexpected places. This style framework is not a full blown solution. However, it is a useful guide to start a conversation that can lead to action and enable leaders to be more successful.
References:
Cheng, Y., Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, and Jesse Price. 2018. The Leadership Guide to Corporate Culture. Harvard Business Review, January-February.
Integrated Culture Framework by Spencer Stuart