Chapter 12 Culture Deal Bolman 4 frames 5th edition PDF

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CHAPTER 12

Organizational Culture and Symbols In 2002, Harley-Davidson celebrated its one hundredth birthday. The festivities lasted for fourteen months and included events in Mexico City, Sydney, Tokyo, Barcelona, and Munich. In a spectacular culminating extravaganza, a million bikers roared into the company’s headquarters in Milwaukee to showcase their bikes and revel in HarleyDavidson’s unique culture. To the HOGs (Harley Owner’s Groups), owning a Harley is a way of life: Despite their diversity, Harley riders have something in common: a fanatical dedication to their Harleys. It’s a feeling that many cannot articulate, and for them there’s a Harley T-shirt inscribed: “Harley-Davidson—If I Have To Explain You Wouldn’t Understand” [ . . . ] One thing is certain: This incredible brand loyalty is emotional. It is based on a pattern of associations that includes the American flag and another American symbol, the eagle (which is also a Harley symbol), as well as camaraderie, individualism, the feeling of riding free, and the pride of owning a product that has become a legend. On the road, one Harley rider always helps another in distress—even though one may be a tattooed biker and the other a buttoned-down bank president. (Reid, 1989, p. 5)

Harley-Davidson is only one example of how symbols permeate every fiber of organizations. After September 11, 2001, the American people turned to symbols to cope with the

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aftermath of the country’s most devastating terrorist attack. Flags flew everywhere. Makeshift monuments were erected to honor victims and the heroic acts of police and firefighters who gave their lives. Members of Congress gathered on the Capitol steps to sing “God Bless America” on national television. Across the country, people gathered in both formal and informal healing ceremonies. Especially in times of tragedies and triumphs, we embrace the spiritual magic symbols represent. In our highly complex world, persistent questions haunt us. In the wake of the Twin Towers tragedy, the most frequently voiced question was “Why?” It was a question raised by those who lost someone as well as by the firefighters, police, and others who survived. There is no satisfactory answer, only faith and hope that such a mind-numbing tragedy could somehow be rendered understandable. The symbolic frame seeks to interpret and illuminate basic issues of meaning and belief that make symbols so powerful. It depicts a world far different from traditional canons of rationality, certainty, and linearity. The frame forms a conceptual umbrella for ideas from a variety of disciplines, including organization theory and sociology (Selznick, 1957; Blumer, 1969; Clark, 1975; Corwin, 1976; March and Olsen, 1976; Meyer and Rowan, 1978; Weick, 1976; Davis and others, 1976; Hofstede, 1984) and political science (Dittmer, 1977; Edelman, 1971). Freud and Jung relied heavily on symbolic concepts in attempting to understand the human psyche. Anthropologists have traditionally focused on symbols and their place in the culture and lives of humans (Ortner, 1973). Joseph Campbell’s book The Power of Myth became a widely watched television special.

SYMBOLIC ASSUMPTIONS The symbolic frame distills ideas from these diverse sources into several core assumptions: • •

What is most important is not what happens but what it means. Activity and meaning are loosely coupled; events have multiple meanings because people interpret experience differently.

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In the face of widespread uncertainty and ambiguity, people create symbols to resolve confusion, increase predictability, find direction, and anchor hope and faith.

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Many events and processes are more important for what is expressed than what

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is produced. They form a cultural tapestry of secular myths, heroes and heroines, rituals, ceremonies, and stories that help people find purpose and passion in their personal and work lives. •

Culture is the glue that holds an organization together and unites people around shared values and beliefs.

The symbolic frame sees life as more serendipitous than linear. Organizations function like complex, constantly changing, organic pinball machines. Decisions, actors, plans, and issues continuously carom through an elastic, ever-changing labyrinth of cushions, barriers, and traps. Managers who turn to Peter Drucker’s Effective Executive for guidance might do better to study Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. But all the apparent chaos has a deeper sense of emblematic order. In recent years, the importance of symbols in corporate life has become more widely appreciated. This chapter begins our examination of the symbolic frame. Symbols embody and express an organization’s culture: the interwoven pattern of beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that defines for members who they are and how they are to do things. Accordingly, we first look at organizations as unique cultures or tribes. We then reinforce the importance of symbols by describing their effects in two companies, Volvo France and Continental Airlines. Next, we move on to discuss the various forms symbols assume: myths, visions and values; heroes and heroines; stories and fairy tales; ritual; ceremony; and metaphor, humor, and play. All these are basic elements of organizational culture.

ORGANIZATIONS AS CULTURES Culture: What is it? What is its role in an organization? Both questions are hotly contested. Some people argue that organizations have cultures; others insist that organizations are cultures. Schein (1992, p. 12) offers a more formal definition of culture: “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that a group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” Deal and Kennedy (1982, p. 4) define culture more succinctly as “the way we do things around here.” Culture is both a product and a process.

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As a product, it embodies accumulated wisdom from those who came before us. As a process, it is constantly renewed and re-created as newcomers learn the old ways and eventually become teachers themselves. There is controversy about the relationship between culture and leadership. Do leaders shape culture, or are they shaped by it? Is symbolic leadership more often empowering, or manipulative? Do organizations with strong cultures outperform those relying on policies and rules? Does success breed a cohesive culture, or is it the other way around? Over time, every organization develops distinctive beliefs, values, and patterns. Many of them are unconscious or taken for granted, reflected in myths, fairy tales, stories, rituals, ceremonies, and other symbolic forms. Managers who understand the power of symbols are much better equipped to understand and influence their organizations. From a symbolic perspective, meaning is the basic human need. Managers who understand symbolic forms and activities and encourage their use help shape an effective organization— so long as the organizational culture is aligned with the challenges of the marketplace. Nordstrom department stores exemplify the power of culture at work. Customers rave about its no-hassle, no-questions-asked commitment to high-quality service: “not service the way it used to be, but service that never was” (Spector and McCarthy, 1995, p. 1). Founder John Nordstrom was a Swedish immigrant who settled in Seattle after an odyssey across America and a brief stint in Alaska looking for gold. He and Carl Wallin, a shoemaker, opened a shoe store. Nordstrom’s sons Elmer, Everett, and Lloyd joined the business. Collectively, they anchored the firm in an enduring philosophical principle: the customer is always right. The following generation of Nordstroms expanded the business while maintaining a tight connection with its historical roots. The company relies on experienced, acculturated “Nordies” to induct new employees into customer service the Nordstrom way. Newcomers always begin in sales, learning traditions from the ground up: “When we are at our best, our frontline people are lieutenants because they control the business. Our competition has foot soldiers on the front line and lieutenants in the back” (Spector and McCarthy, 1995, p. 106). Nordstrom’s unique commitment to customer service is heralded in true tales of heroes and heroines going out of their way: • One customer fell in love with a particular pair of pleated burgundy slacks that were on sale at Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle store. Unfortunately, the store was out of her

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size. The sales associate got some cash from her department managers, marched across the street, bought the slacks at full price from a competitor, brought them back, and sold them to the customer at Nordstrom’s reduced price (Spector and McCarthy, 1995, p. 26). • When a customer inadvertently left her airline ticket on a Nordstrom counter, the sales associate tried to solve the problem with a call to the airline. When that didn’t work, she hopped into a cab, headed for the airport, and made a personal delivery to the customer (p. 125). • A Nordie cheerfully issued a refund on a set of automobile tires, even though Nordstrom had never sold tires. In 1975, Nordstrom had bought three stores from Northern Commercial in Alaska. The customer had bought the tires from Northern Commercial— so Nordstrom took them back (p. 27). Nordstrom’s commitment to customer service is regularly reinforced in storewide rituals. Newcomers to Nordstrom encounter the company’s values in the initial employee orientation. They are given a five-inch-by-eight-inch card labeled the “Nordstrom Employee Handbook,” which reads: Welcome to Nordstrom We’re glad to have you with our company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. (pp. 15–16)

At staff meetings, Nordstrom sales associates compare and discuss sales techniques and role-play customer encounters. Periodic ceremonies reinforce the company’s cherished values. From the company’s early years, the Nordstrom family sponsored summer picnics and Christmas dance parties. More recently, numerous events create occasions to celebrate customer service: “We do crazy stuff. Monthly store pow-wows serve as a kind of revival meeting, where customer letters of appreciation are read and positive achievements are recognized, while co-workers whoop and cheer for one another. Letters of

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complaint about Nordstrom customer service are also read over the intercom (omitting the names of offending salespeople)” (pp. 120, 129). At one spirited sales meeting, the regional manager asked all present to call out their sales targets for the year, which he posted on a large chart. Then the regional manager uncovered his own target for each individual. Anyone whose target was below the regional manager’s was roundly booed. Anyone whose individual goals were higher than the regional manager’s was rewarded with enthusiastic cheers (Spector and McCarthy, 1995). The delicate balance of competition, cooperation, and customer service has served Nordstrom well. In a sermon titled “The Gospel According to Nordstrom,” one California minister “praised the retailer for carrying out the call of the gospel in ways more consistent and caring than we sometimes do in the church” (p. 21).

ORGANIZATIONAL SYMBOLS An organization’s culture is revealed and communicated most clearly through its symbols. McDonald’s franchises are united as much by golden arches, core values, and the legend of Ray Kroc as by sophisticated control systems. Harvard professors, remarkably free of structural limits, are tightly constrained by historically anchored rituals of teaching, enduring values of scholarship, and the myths and mystique of Harvard. In recent years, the importance of symbols in corporate life has become more widely appreciated. Such books as Kotter and Heskett’s Corporate Culture and Performance (1992) and Collins and Porras’s Built to Last (1994) offer impressive longitudinal evidence linking symbols to the financial bottom line. A case in point is Goren Carstedt’s arrival to head Volvo France in the 1980s. It was a big challenge. Volvo had hoped to double sales to twenty thousand cars a year in France. Instead, sales were declining while other imported cars were increasing market share. Even more troubling was the net of excuses offered to rationalize the dismal performance: “The products were said to be too old, too heavy, too stodgy, too expensive, and all had stiff rear axles, which were not pointé (hip) in France. Too much performance had been sacrificed to safety. Deliveries were slow, and promised new models were late. Carstedt was told time and time again that ‘this is France.’ It was a Latin nation, passionate and hot-blooded, whereas Volvo was a cerebral car, something melancholy Scandinavians thought about on long winter evenings” (Hampden-Turner, 1992, pp. 156–157).

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Rejecting excuses, Carstedt was determined to put a more positive spin on an otherwise dreary situation. His actions illustrate the possibilities for someone who understands the power of symbols and culture. He began by listening: he convened nine regional meetings with Volvo’s 150 French dealers. Seated around tables, he asked for their ideas: “I want to know what you think should be done and what Volvo can do to help you sell more cars. Tell me what we are doing wrong, what you want from us, and I’ll see that it is done if I possibly can” (Hampden-Turner, 1992, p. 158). His approach was a dramatic departure from anything the dealers had seen before. His straightforward, open style soon earned him the nickname le vol du nord (the north wind). Carstedt’s next steps relied heavily on values, ritual, ceremony, and humor to show he was listening and willing to make real changes. He drew a cartoon that turned the traditional chain of command upside down. As Carstedt describes it, “The customer was king. The dealers were his courtiers, and it was our job—mine, Volvo France’s and HQ’s— to make sure the dealers had what they needed” (Hampden-Turner, 1992, p. 159). He invited dealers and their spouses to a conference center near Paris. The meeting opened with a humorous film, Où est Volvo? (“Where’s Volvo?”). French citizens were shown answering questions about Volvo and its dealers. Shrugs and gestures of indifference told the story: “Je ne sais pas” (“I don’t know”). Next, Volvo’s new models were shown via telecast from a beautifully appointed showroom somewhere in France. When asked to reveal the location, Carstedt raised the curtain behind him. There it was, a showroom assembled on the spot to show the dealers what a little ingenuity could do. Next, Carstedt took dealers on an excursion in Sweden. He wanted them to experience the culture behind the car: “Eighty percent of our marketing efforts are internal to help dealers assume the Volvo identity and take pride in the quality of the vehicles and see their own service is an inseparable part of this” (Hampden-Turner, 1992, p. 161). The group flew by chartered plane to Gothenburg, where they toured the factory and met with top managers. Later, said Carstedt, “we gave out prizes to our best dealers in front of our president and senior managers” (p. 162). The following day, the group traveled by train through the countryside. They met Volvo workers, toured old Stockholm, and were feted at a Viking party, complete with Swedish musicians and folksingers in traditional costume, where “they drank Schnapps, wore helmets, ate with their fingers, and threw the debris over their shoulders” (p. 162). Carstedt closed with a speech—in French:

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For two years now, I’ve been trying to explain to you that there is something special about Volvo: our philosophy and values are important to our success. And to understand Volvo, it helps to understand something about Sweden. So we’ve invited you on a trip to see our lakes, forests, trees and houses for yourselves. Now we’re here, in the heart of Sweden, in the room where Nobel dinners are served before the prizes are given, and you have the Nobel menus before you to remind you that this is the place that gives hospitality to the greatest achievements and the finest quality of which you are all a part. (Hampden-Turner, 1992, p. 162)

Back in France, Carstedt declared war on memos of excuse and defense. To convey the difference between where they had been and where they needed to go, he created two visual images. The first was a square made of four fingers, each pointing out what was wrong with someone else. The second depicted four hands in a supportive grasp. A graphic advertisement emphasized safety by showing a little girl strapped snugly in the rear seat of a Volvo. The caption read, “You need to protect the future, especially when the future is behind you.” Volvo was cited that year for the best automotive advertising in France. The work paid off. In the next four years, Volvo’s sales and market share doubled.

Greatest Hits of Organization Studies No. 7: Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1984).

Geert Hofstede pioneered research on the impact of national culture on the workplace. Defining culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from another” (p. 21), he focused particularly on work-related values. The heart of Hofstede’s book is a survey of a large U.S. multinational company’s employees. Some 117,000 surveys were collected from workers and managers in forty countries and twenty languages. The data were collected in two waves, one in 1968 and another in 1972. Hofstede then searched for variables that reliably differentiated managers of various nations. He ultimately settled on four dimensions of national culture: 1. Power distance: a measure of power inequality between bosses and subordinates. High power-distance countries (such as the Philippines, Mexico, and

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Venezuela) display more autocratic relationships between bosses and subordinates. Low power-distance countries (including Denmark, Israel, and Austria) tend to have more democratic and decentralized patterns. 2. Uncertainty avoidance: the level of comfort or discomfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. Countries high on uncertainty avoidance (Greece, Portugal, Belgium, and Japan) tend to make heavy use of structure, rules, and specialists to maintain control. Countries low on the index (Hong Kong, Denmark, Sweden, and Singapore) put less emphasis on structure and are more tolerant of risk taking. 3. Individualism: the importance of the individual versus the collective (group, organization, or society). Countries highest on individualism (the United States, Australia, Great Britain, and Canada) put emphasis on autonomous, self-reliant individuals who try to meet their own needs. Countries lowest on individuality (Peru, Pakistan, Colombia, and Venezuela) emphasized mutual loyalty between individual and collective. 4. Masculinity-femininity: In countries highest in masculinity (Japan, Austria, Venezuela, Italy), men tend to feel strong pressures for career success; there are relatively few women in high-level positions, and job stress is high. The opposite is true in countries low in masculi...