Organizational culture is like pink cotton candy: fluffy but sticky
Edgar Schein is not amongst us anymore. He died this January 2023 at age 94. However, one of his tools lives on — and it is a tremendously useful one: the model of organizational culture. In case you have never heard about Edgar Schein: He was not your regular guy. A creative thinker, he was a professor for organizational psychology and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Culture is fluffy. It is difficult to discern. It is like pink cotton candy. If you don’t know how to manage it, it will stick to you in the most uncomfortable way. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
As the old adage goes: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” (Peter Drucker)
I first learned about professor Schein’s model in 2013 and have applied it many times since. There are many use cases for the model:
- You want to assess whether a prospective employer’s culture is a good fit for you
- An organization is in middle of a transformation / restructuring process and the culture has to support it
- An employee has left a company and still feels like he / she has not fully processed “the breakup” — and still ponders why they never felt at home and like they fit in.
As a change management expert, I recommend holding a culture workshop to my clients. Many C-suite executives hardly ever set aside time to actively reflect on their organization’s culture. They don’t applaud the idea of dedicating 2–6 hours to it. I understand. Managers are busy. They prioritize.
Culture’s fluffyness does not mean it is harmless, in particular when going unnoticed. This is where Schein’s model comes in. Taking stock of the culture is the first instance an organization’s leadership team becomes cognizant of the company’s “climate”, “ambiance” … call it whatever you like.
Let’s take the example of a self-imposed change process. Some grand transition is going underway. The company is doing well, the restructuring is not necessary. It is nice to have. The executive team — the team that initiated the transformation — is unaware of the company’s culture and their role within it. There is a disconnect between the proclaimed culture and what is actually there. The change will only be effective if it is embedded in a participatory culture; a culture that embraces making mistakes and pivoting at all levels.
These are the three layers of Schein’s model of organizational culture:
- Basic assumptions
- Values
- Artefacts and creations.
Let’s paint a picture! And determine how this translates for (a) a management consulting firm and (b) a private equity firm:
- Basic assumptions: these any assumptions about the environment, how individuals / groups should behave, but also any prohibition — Consider a top tier management consulting firm whose stance is: “work hard, play hard”; “client is king”; “we are the elite” or “only best manage to enter our ranks” and “we possess the intellectual prowess to advice anyone”
- Values: these are often formalized statements; such as “at our firm, meritocracy leads to a promotion”, or “diversity and inclusivity matter” or “salary information is made publicly available. Based on my experience, management consulting and private equity firms both embrace these.
- Artefacts and creations: visible manifestations of the culture, such as a dress code, which cars senior leadership drives (consider the heyday of investment banking and sports cars), what type of language and behavioral code is used for interacting with each other. For example, I once served a boutique private equity firm where doors to the offices were always open, the CEO drove a Maserati…
Another use case: “breaking up” with your former employer.
My last boyfriend used Schein’s model to assess his current employer’s culture. He jotted down notes regarding the firm’s basic assumptions, values, and artefacts and creations.
It soon become clear to him: this company does not trust its employees. Senior leadership creates a visible chasm between itself and the rest of staff.
Other artefacts: senior leadership had private offices, while the rest of the staff shared an open office space. The senior founder flew in from Munich every other week and drove an expensive sports car.
By assessing the culture, my former boyfriend was finally able to pinpoint the uneasy feeling he experienced each morning when driving to work. This organization’s culture was simply not a good fit.
One could argue that employees get renumerated to perform tasks. And that the “ambiance” or “atmosphere” is nothing but the cherry on top. Yet, organizations are more than the sum of employees and tasks being performed. As mentioned earlier, as soon as a transformation occurs, not being aware of the organization’s culture and how to steer it can have an impact. In particular when there is a clash between the proclaimed (official) culture and the actual one.
Many studies show that the cost of resistance to change can be quite high (see sources below). In a 2022 study, Deloitte Switzerland stated that 65% of transformation projects fail due to unrealistic expectations from leadership, resulting in unclear communication about people and process changes as well as technology changes. Forbes author Percy in 2019 also listed organizational politics and lack of collaboration as negative factors.
This is the connection between “fluffy” culture (remember my pink cotton candy analogy) and costs. Anytime you ignore culture, you do not actively reflect on it, it can create havoc.
At the risk of having only shed a bit of light on the connection between Edgar Schein’s model of organizational culture and its many use cases, I wrap up the article at this stage. I will publish another article focusing on one use case only in the next three months.
Did you ever fail to become cognizant of an organization’s culture? What were the implications? What was one of the *best* cultures you encountered? What did you like? Did you ever “break up” with a company because it simply wasn’t a fit?
Find out about my change management expertise at www.clulbrich.com
(A few select) sources:
Jacob M. Engel for Forbes. Why Does Culture ‘Eat Strategy For Breakfast’? Published on 20 November 2018. Link.
Next Level Human-Centric Change Management. Published on 06 April 2022. Deloitte Switzerland. Link.
S. Percy for Forbes. Why Do Change Programs Fail? Published on 13 March 2019. Link.
Edgar H. Schein. Organizational culture and leadership. 3rd edition, 2004. Link.
M.E. Smith. Implementing Organizational Change: Correlates of Success and Failure. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 15(1), 67–83. 2008. Link.
