Leading and Managing People - Improving Organization Culture - Essay Example

Leading and Managing People affiliation Improving organization culture Organizational culture is a far and wide used term although it seems to cause some ambiguity in terms of evaluating its efficiency on change variables in an organization. For the last few decades, most practitioners and academics studying organizations argues that the idea of culture is the practice and climate that organizations develop when handling people. Nowadays, one of the major managerial trends emphasizes that managers should create strong organizational cultures (Schein, 2004). Schein described culture as a pattern of primary postulations- developed or invented by a particular group as it learns to deal with its problems of internal integration and external adaptation. Schein also suggested that leadership and culture are conceptually related (Schein, 2004). Culture provides to an organization a sense of identity and determines the organizational legends, beliefs, norms, rituals and language. Organization culture is the only way that state the way things are done around the organization. An organization culture summarizes what has been appropriate and what has worked in the past (Schein, 1990). This paper seeks to analyze the how managers can improve the culture awareness in the organization. Further, it seeks to discuss the strategies that managers can use to improve culture awareness in an organization. Many managers are using the language of corporate culture or organizational culture. I am always curious to know why people share perceptions, attitudes and interpretations as well, as how workplace symbolism characterizes the way people act and feel. There is a prevalent belief that particular types of logical commonality can promote collaboration, minimize unproductive conflict and arrange work towards a common agenda without the need for supervision. As a manager, I realize that there is something about culture pride that can inspire and raise the mind to improve service for a common good. An organization’s culture is not something that can be manipulated directly; managers are required to dictate a course of action or allocate resources. Culture is shaped indirectly (Schein, 2004). It evolves randomly over time. The premeditated manipulation of culture requires the sophisticated collection of leadership skills and an intense sense of socio-psychological dynamics (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). In the progression of internationalization, organizations face hardships in harmonization of corporate culture. As a manager, I must come with strategies that will help in improving cultural awareness at an international level. A strong international corporate culture will fortify the company’s image and identity. In the effort of improving the global corporate culture, I have to ensure that the culture of the parent company is transmitted to the subsidiary. The transfer of culture from a parent company to the subsidiaries mainly concerns the mediation, transfer and adjustment of cultural artifacts, values and practices from one company to another (Schein, 2004). Culture is one that managers should be concerned about as it has a large impact on the performance of the organization. One of the first things that the employee learns when employed in an organization is some of the organization’s legends. Legends can be kept in an organization and eventually become a way of doing things (Newman, 1996). Understanding that culture is important in determining organizational performance and practice is one thing, but the subsequent issue is a degree in which I as leader can influence or shape culture. Some academics caution of the danger of attempting to influence the superficial aspects of culture such as ceremonies and cultures while not paying attention to the most pervasive issues of cultures such as beliefs and values. These deep aspects of culture are very difficult for leaders to influence (Schein, 2004). As a manager, there are major issues that I need to concentrate on to contribute to developing a more performance-oriented culture in the organization. The first question involves creating a climate for changed with the organization. In creating an atmosphere for change, culture is only useful if it is employed in the appropriate area that is requiring change. It is worth to mention that a workplace culture can hinder or enable success. It is possible for me as leaders in an organization to affect the alignment of the culture with the company’s strategies and mission. Culture is socially built, and l am required need to start great conversations that bind cultural norms to the organizational goals. If the existing culture does not match with the current reality, as a leader there is a need to act as bridges or catalysts. The leader will develop a new understanding and assist individuals, choose new behaviors and beliefs. As a leader, it is important to define, illuminate and reinforce understanding of the practices and beliefs that create the desired culture. The organization’s culture is mainly important when executing an organizational- wide change (Morgan, 2006). As a leader, it is significant to understand that a culture can either allow or be a barrier to hysterically changes. If the culture is in the tendency of being realigned, change will be more efficient and fluid. Most significant changes require to be reinforced by corresponding changes in the organizational culture. Change plans the address the current and preferred cultural elements. Leaders can play a fundamental role in enhancing change by arranging developments and projects efforts to support the desired culture. In the alignment of events and projects, a leader should determine the cultural elements of the organization (Schein, 2004). To improve the cultural awareness in organizations, I need to encourage a continuous learning culture. A learning culture means people who want to grow and be receptive to changes and willing to undertake new obligations (Chang & Lee, 2007). Employees place some value on continuous self-development and makes learning a priority due to the competing demands. Additionally, leaders match their aim to seek development and coaching with the attention the pay to learning each day. Whenever there is continuous learning, there is a collective understanding of the significance of the team and personal growth. Cultures of lifelong learning are more likely to be nimble, which means they can be easily aligned and realigned when new objectives or realities change the way an organization carries out its activities. Resistance to changes in an organization is prevalent when members of the organization are not willing to learn and relearning new tasks, processes and projects. People who are adventurous and curious (Chen & Huang, 2006), characterize continuous learning. These people value mental exploration, and they are naturally curious. Team members in a culture with continuous learning are encouraged and allowed to carry out experiments. Leaders in such an organization will enable employees to venture outside the established practices. The working environment is stimulating. The sounds, smells, sights and textures are engaging and entertaining. Employees in an organization with a culture of continuous learning seek and adapt learning in various forms (DeLong, 2004). Appropriate cultures incorporate all good things in peaceful co-existence. I should encourage the workers to concentrate on highly positive virtues, behavior and attitudes that are claimed to be necessary for attaining corporate goals that are defined by the management. The assumption that culture can be assessed in terms of right and wrong come in embarrassing phrases such as ‘the wrong values creates the culture a significant liability’. Cultures have positive effects on an organization when they provide the right direction. On the other hand, cultures with negative have adverse impacts when they give out the wrong direction. Therefore, as a manager in an international company I should mainly concentrate on emphasizing on a culture that result in positive impacts. As a leader, it is important to understand the features of an ideal organizational culture. The ideal culture features the assumption a clear sense of joint competence, a clear postulation of equity and a capability to continuously apply the collective competence. Cultural themes call for cautious consideration, where normative ruling should be applied carefully (Schein, 2004). The consequences of the pragmatic approach is that a culture has a tendency to be minimized to those limited facets of this complex phenomenon, that are said to be directly associated with organizational competitive advantage and efficiency (Dixon, 2000).Managerial ideas and organizational cultures are not always the same. This disparities is due to lack of depth of philosophy compare to culture, variations with organizational and differences between the high-level management and other levels in the organization. In differentiating between managerial ideology and organization culture, there should be harmonization of organizational values that end up to a common goal. However, administrative ideas are not necessary different from the organizational cultures – there are instances where management ideology strongly impregnates cultural patterns (Knapp & Yu, 1999). When the management ideology becomes the organization’s culture, this is supposed to be openly investigated and shown. Management philosophy is mostly an expression of organizational culture. Therefore, as a manager it will be crucial to reconcile the organization culture and management ideology (Lai & Lee, 2007). Theories of organizational culture The increased interest in the organizational culture has resulted the development various theories, which aims that explaining the organizational culture as well as its impacts and its relevancy in organizations. In my attempt to improve culture awareness in organization I studied, the Organizational Culture Theory, which enabled me, understand better about organizational culture. Organizational Culture Theory is a major theoretically rallying point. O’Donnel-Trujilo and Pacanowsky were involved in the researcher’s focus toward an extroverted understanding of organization. Cultural anthropologist also provided a complex and diverse theories of culture that featured particular slants, assumptions and emphases. Figure 1 demonstrates a Schein’s theory of organizational culture. The model recognizes three levels in organizational culture: artifacts and behaviors, assumptions and espoused values. Figure 1: illustration of Scheins model for organizational culture (Schein, 2004) Some mechanisms assist in solidifying the acceptance of the values and make sure that the culture is sustained or reinforced. As a manager in a multinational corporation, these mechanisms will help me in enhancing culture awareness in leadership and management. These mechanisms follow steps for the socialization of employees. These mechanisms include: Selection of employees One of the basic mechanisms involves the selection of the staff. The socialization process begins with careful selection of employees. When selecting employees in the company, I will ensure that I regulate procedures and concentrate on values that are useful in the culture. The candidates whose personal morals do not match with the outlined values of the organization are offered an opportunity to deselect. Selection of employees will improve culture awareness in management, as leaders will only select employees whose values match the organizational culture. Orientation Another mechanism that can be used to improve culture awareness in management is the organizational culture is an orientation. After hiring the candidate, considerable training should be carried out to expose the person to the culture. I should make sure that there is humility- inducing experiences that make an employee ask questions regarding values and beliefs (Hatch, 2004). This questioning makes the new employee more receptive to the beliefs and values of the new culture. In many organizations, new employees are given more work than they can handle, and they assign tasks to the employee is overqualified. For instance, a newly employed faculty member of a university may be assigned undesired responsibilities, which senior professors do not wish to perform. These activities may include off-campus assignments, teaching the primary subjects, allocations to several committees and assignments to a discriminatory number of doctoral committees. Job Mastery The other mechanism used in improving organizational culture awareness is job proficiency. As a leader, to improve culture awareness in management, I should ensure that the employees who are employed in various fields in the organization have adequate technological skills and knowledge. This stage is designed facilitate the employee’s technological skills and knowledge. As the employee increase more experience and skills, the organization evaluates their performance and allocates other responsibilities based on their progress. Frequently, organizations create a systematic technique to this career plan. Reward and control systems Organizations pay scrupulous attention to rewarding individual performance and measuring operational results. Rewarding systems are comprehensive, focused and consistent on these aspects of the organization that is connected to the success and the beliefs of the culture. Operational measures help in assessing the factors while performance appraisals of employees are related to the accomplishment of these factors. Merit pay and promotions are determined by the achievement of each of the predetermined critical factors. For instance, the school administrators who breach the culture are often transferred or given a rather mild position (Stoyko & Fang, 2007). In the company, it is my duty to ensure that productive employees are rewarded accordingly and this will help continue even with the future management. Adherence to values As employees continue to work for an organization, their behavior closely corresponds to the underlying values and beliefs of the culture. Identification with the outlined values helps employee merge personal sacrifices caused by their employment in the organization. Employees learn to adapt to the organization’s culture trusting that the organization will not hurt them. It will be very crucial for me as a leader to ascertain that all the workers and management adhere the values and beliefs off the company. Strategies that managers can adapt to improve culture awareness There are critical issues that managers should address to understand and manage culture in an organization. The first question that managers should address is creating an environment for change. In creating a climate for change, culture is only efficient if it is employed only in the relevant areas. It is suggested that understanding the determinants of cultural behavior is vital to the development of a climate for change. Changes that are not matching with the cultural philosophy of an organization can often result in perverse outcomes (Machlup, 1990). Organization often uses either internal or external drivers to facilitate the culture change that is desired. For instance, the UK civil service during the unfreezing phase of their change program developed a climate where public service transformed into a more managerial culture that seemed to deal with long-standing problems. Another issue that as a manager I should use to address and manage culture in an organization is viewing leaders as champions. Leadership is undoubtedly important in evaluating the effectiveness of cultural shift (Podsakoff, et al., 2000). Leaders in every organization are champions of managing and understanding the organization and punishing, or rewarding subcultures depends on whether they match or not with the organizational culture adopted by the leaders. Strong leadership is a primary ingredient in initiating the change process and making sure that the culture of change is implemented and maintained. Another important issue that I should address is employee empowerment and engagement. Personnel engagement and empowerment is significant in ensuring that the culture is actually aligned and managed with the cultural postulations of the organization as a whole (Rosezweig, 2007). As I a leader, I should make involve employees in making crucial company decision so that may feel that they are well engaged. By involving and empowering, the employees there will be minimal resistance and it will be easy to execute the company decisions. The fourth important strategy that as a manager I should address in improving the cultural awareness is team orientation. Team working is a common feature in many organizations as it helps in crossing the existing barriers. It is also important in disseminating and promoting new cultural traits. In terms of organizational and individual development, teams are perceived as a way of advancing in talent development. Tracking cultural changes is another vital issue that the managers should use to improve cultural awareness in their organizations. Monitoring cultural changes is relevant in terms of assessing whether the culture has been misaligned in terms of the sub-group cultural practices (Zerubavel, 2007). Various initiatives support the idea of improving culture awareness in an organization. One of the fundamental strategies that have always been overlooked is instilling a positive organizational culture. Organizations that value the significance of a strong culture spend heavily in creating an atmosphere where employees feel counted and appreciated. Regardless of the size of an organization, maintaining a strong and positive culture is essential to the long-run success. There are two significant issues to reflect on when assessing a culture and looking for ways to improve it. First, culture is because of organization’s leadership. Culture is said to be created at the top and perceived at the bottom. Organizational culture not only shapes how employees view the organization, it also shapes how the outside world sees the organization. An organizational culture significantly contributes to the going concern of a company. In other words, a company’s survival is significantly related to the strength of their organizational culture. Identification of the characteristics of a weak corporate culture is the first phase in transforming a company into a strong culture that can shape the future of the company positively. A strong organizational culture is one, which has a large number of participants who holds similar values and beliefs as applies to the company or organization. A strong corporate culture is very useful in team building. Often organizations strive to ensure that they develop an environment where all the employees have the same objectives. Working together and having the same goals improves efficiency and productivity within organizations. Strong organizational cultures are also critical to the implementation of rules and regulations with an organization. Well, implemented rules and regulations are the architects in the achievement of organization mission, vision, and goals. Rules help workers to remain focused as they carry out their daily operations. In most cases, rules and regulations assist workers to recognize when they deviate from the primary objective of the organizations. In other words, strong organizational cultures help workers to improve their performance (Riley, 2014). Additionally, strong organizational cultures increase the cohesiveness of different teams within corporate departments and divisions. Cohesiveness is achieved since organizational cultures establish a high level of respect for the employee and their superiors. In an organization that has a strong corporate culture upper-level management treat its lower level employees with respect and often strive to make them happy in their work. When employees feel appreciated, they tend to perform wells and keep on dynamically engaged in the daily jobs. In addition, respect creates a good relationship between employees and their immediate supervisors, which in turn play a significant role in improving a company’s productivity. A strong culture creates an environment of trust. The top management believes their subordinates at all cost. Additionally, there is a consistent communication about the overall goals and visions (Kumar, 2006). Whereas a strong culture seems to be a good fit, there are some intrinsic disadvantages associated with this style. When there is a strong culture in an organization, people in the organization are more likely to resist change. Improvement and innovation have a little place since there is no room for freethinking. A member who comes in from such kind of an organization, having a different set of values and beliefs will find it tough to fit in a new organization. Red tape culture can also be viewed as a characteristic of a strong organizational culture. Red tape culture can be described as a collection of procedures and rules required to attain bureaucratic approval of something. A red tape culture is a rigid culture, which does not give room for change. A red tape culture has bureaucratic regulations that may not be helpful when unexpected situations happen. Most organizations, which have a weak culture, lack focus. Often companies that have no focus do not have a business plan, and they do not follow any organized structure. Organizations that do not have thought out objectives that can be shared with staffs tend to be disorganized. This disorganization can significantly affect the performance and productivity of an organization in terms of human resources, financial resources among others. Organizational culture is not only essential in terms planning financials; it helps organizations in outlining priorities which lets staffs understand where they expect the organization to be in future. Weak organizational cultures have indigent motivation towards the company. Often financial success is the main source of motivations for most companies. In ensuring that there is a strong culture in an organization, managers must provide that motivation come from something else other that financial success. A strong culture ensures that employees have pride in their work and thus improving productivity. If employees lack pride in their work, it would permeate the organization and eventually extends to the clients as well as the suppliers who can negatively influence the company. An organization with weak cultures, employees are more likely to change, and these could be beneficial to an organization. People in this kind of a set-up, team members of an organization will adapt to new policies, practices, processes and technologies. An employee who is employed in an organization that has different values and beliefs from those of the previous employment, quickly adapt to the new culture. Challenges that managers may face in improving organizational culture awareness As a manager in a multinational company, there are numerous challenges that I may encounter when improving the organizational culture. There difficulties that are mainly faced when trying to change the underlying organization culture. One of the major challenges that I am likely to face during the process of improving culture awareness in a multinational company is the definition of culture in terms of the organization and understanding its implications to the organization. To have an improved organizational culture, norms and beliefs should support the desired change in an organization. In a multinational company, it is difficult to harmonize the cultures in different companies from different countries. There are different practices that are practiced in different countries and these practices may influence the way an organization is run. Impact of culture change on the employees with some pros and cons Changing organizational culture may be due to a number of factors such as changing legal environment, technological innovation and changing customer taste. Changing organizational culture results to radical improvements in employee productivity. Installing new working methods will at most times minimize employee’s errors. Additionally, changing organizational culture improves the relationship between the employees and the company. On the other hand, there are some adverse effects of changing the organizational culture. Employees are more likely to resist the changes than embracing the change. Employee productivity may plummet, as the employees get involved in the change. Additionally, change resistors may spread fear and doubt to other employees. It is possible to destroy a good relationship that could exist among employees especially those who embrace the change and those that resist. Conclusion In conclusion, organizational culture is a far and wide used term although it seems to cause some ambiguity in terms of evaluating its efficiency on change variables in an organization. Culture is described as a pattern of primary postulations- developed or invented by a particular group as it learns to deal with its problems of internal integration and external adaptation. Culture provides to an organization a sense of identity and determines the organizational legends, beliefs, norms, rituals and language. Appropriate cultures incorporate all good things in peaceful co-existence. Leaders are encouraged to concentrate on highly positive virtues, behavior and attitudes that are claimed to be necessary for attaining corporate goals that are defined by the management. There are various mechanisms managers can utilize to improve culture awareness in management. These mechanisms include employee selection, employee orientation, job mastery and adherence to organizational rules. 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