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Columnists: Pat Townsend & Joan Gebhardt

Photo: Pat Townsend

  

Photo: Joan Gebhardt

    
         

Corporate Culture

Pat Townsend & Joan Gebhardt
ptownsend@qualitydigest.com

 

 

Phil Myhra, the president of the company that one of the authors (Pat) of this column works for, often makes the point that: “Everything rests on mission, quality and culture. Mission is what we do; quality is how we do it; and culture is how we work together to get it done.” The secret of long-term success is, of course, to pay attention to all three at the same time and to work to keep them not only in sync but being mutually supportive.

Previous columns have addressed mission and quality (as will future columns), but this one will focus on “the culture thing.” Every group of any size has a culture. The key is for the people who lead and who make up that organization to choose and define the culture they want rather than just letting it happen accidentally. It is, after all, their organization; the people who make up the organization should choose who they are and who they will be perceived to be.

Culture is how we interact with each other—it’s how we treat one another; it’s the collective set of habits, beliefs and processes shared by the majority of the members of a particular collection of people. How frequently and how well we communicate with each other or say “thank you” to each other or offer a helping hand--all of these also come under “culture.” It’s who any group is.

Anyone who thinks that his or her company doesn’t have a distinct culture needs only to ask a customer or a partner. The assessment will probably start with, “You people always…”

A culture can be consciously pursued. It’s not possible for anyone to tell another person how he or she will feel, but it is possible to define a set of actions that must be taken on a repeated basis. When the action becomes a natural part of how the person acts, it’s part of the culture--like it or not.

An example of how a consciously pursued behavior can become part of a corporate culture is given in the new book by retiring IBM CEO Lou Gerstner. One of the central lessons of Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround is the importance of culture--a point that came as a surprise to Gerstner.

In the early 1980s, an IBM spokesperson once said: “There is no dress code at IBM. Our people simply like to wear white shirts and blue suits.” What became a rigid dress code at IBM began as a move to make customers comfortable. In the early days of computer sales, banks were major customers and most bankers tended to dress conservatively. To make them comfortable, the IBM leadership encouraged its sales force and on-site technicians to dress similarly.

What began as a customer-friendly initiative first became company habit and then an ingrained part of the culture--long after bankers began dressing less formally and long after bankers were the company’s major customers.

Under Gerstner, the source of IBM’s dress code was re-discovered and publicized, and a shift to less-formal clothing habits was accomplished. And IBM folks once again began looking like their customers.

The point is that a corporate culture can be chosen, although it must be done with some care. A company can decide what it would like to be--and be seen as--and can then choose behaviors that are commonly associated with companies that have the desired traits. That specific behavior can be modeled, taught and encouraged. Perhaps even before the new culture has been fully internalized by every employee of the company, customer perception can begin to change, reflecting the new culture.

In order to maximize the possibility of success for its quality efforts, the leadership of an organization must assess its culture. Once that assessment is made, decisions can be made about what to do to shape the culture so that it best supports the company’s quality efforts and mission. A corporate culture is much like an individual culture: It determines how people perceive you. It can be changed but only with a deliberate effort.

Mission, quality and culture. No one of the three can be left to chance.

About the authors

Pat Townsend and Joan Gebhardt have written more than 200 articles and six books, including Commit to Quality (John Wiley & Sons, 1986); Quality in Action: 93 Lessons in Leadership, Participation, and Measurement (John Wiley & Sons, 1992); Five-Star Leadership: The Art and Strategy of Creating Leaders at Every Level (John Wiley & Sons, 1997); Recognition, Gratitude & Celebration (Crisp Publications, 1997); How Organizations Learn: Investigate, Identify, Institutionalize (Crisp Publications, 1999); and Quality Is Everybody's Business (CRC Press, 1999). Pat Townsend has recently re-entered the corporate world and is now dealing with “leadership.com” issues as a practitioner as well as an observer, writer and speaker. He is now chief quality officer for UICI, a diverse financial services corporation headquartered in the Dallas area. Letters to the editor regarding this column can be sent to letters@qualitydigest.com.