Human Resources: corporate culture: Is it better to stand out? Or stand together?

Priscilla Nelson & Ed Cohen were senior leaders for a global
organization that went through a 2.5 billion dollar scandal when the
Chairman confessed to "cooking the books" causing the near bankruptcy
and closure of the company. They had the opportunity to observe and be a
part of culture's true influence, and shared the lessons learned in
their book, RIDING THE TIGER: Leading through Learning in Turbulent
Times.

Organizations are made up of both conscious and accidental cultures and
a crisis truly magnifies both. The conscious culture comes from what's
written and documented. Its accidental culture comes about from those
accepting and performing around unwritten or unspoken behaviors and
norms passed from one employee to the next, and even one generation to
the next.

So, is it better to stand out? Or to stand together?

Roland Kelts addresses this in detail in an article in the Christian
Science Monitor, February 2010. According to Kelts, ".we tend to prize
opinionated, headstrong mavericks who are often lauded for their
capacity to stand out from the crowd. In Japan however, it is the
individual who can facilitate and sustain maximum harmony among group
members - the Japanese concept of wa - who achieves praise for
leadership in society..."

If the organization has planned and prepared well, many programs and
systems will be in place for such turbulent times. If not then the road
back will be tricky and filled with additional challenges because it
requires shifting the organization's culture to get it back on track.
Attempting to shift from the accidental culture back to the desired
conscious culture is a daunting task.

Here are four steps to regain or establish a conscious culture:
1. Identify all of the components of the existing culture. Include
the written, spoken, unspoken and unwritten.

2. Facilitate what to keep, what to eliminate, and what to add.
This step merges the positive accidental culture into the conscious
culture and helps identify the negative accidental influences that need
to go away.

3. Revisit your organization's core purpose and values, and
reorganize them if necessary. In order to get Toyota back on track,
Akio Toyoda realized the need to shift his purpose to "serving the
greater global community" in addition to caring for his employees, the
team, neighbors, and protecting the organization. When documented as
part of the conscious culture of Toyota, this shift has the potential to
positively change the organization forever.

4. Communicate and reinforce the core purpose and values. A
conscious culture can drown out the accidental culture only when it is
consistently communicated and reinforced.

Priscilla Nelson was global director of people leadership and Ed Cohen
was chief learning officer for Satyam Computer Services from 2005-2009.
They are both long-tenured learning leaders (just prior, Priscilla was
an executive coach and consultant and Ed led learning and development
for Booz Allen Hamilton) who took the bold move to relocate their family
to India without ever having stepped foot on the subcontinent. During
their tenure, Satyam received international accolades and was recognized
as being the best in the world for learning and leadership development.

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