The Role of the Founder in Creating an Organizational Culture - Book Report/Review Example

Introduction and overview of the book The book provides insights on situations that might happen at work. These situations can cause communication related problems. The book makes one understand how miscommunications (apart from those with a coworker or a manager) could happen at work. Furthermore, Gilbert has explained the common causes of miscommunications such as employees feeling that their manager is not listening to their ideas, blaming them unnecessarily, withholding vital information, problems between coworkers or something even as simple as favoritism. Matthew Gilbert tries to teach communication skills in his book. These communication skills can help one to mend relationships with colleagues, supervisors, and customers. Moreover, Gilbert also tells about how to identify barriers to effective communication, eliminating inappropriate communication habits, and learning to communicate effectively in order to attain workplace sanity. Topics covered in the book include the impact of organizational culture on employees’ capability to build relationships with others, the role played by stress in poor communication, gender-related issues, and communication skills for handling a wide array of real-life scenarios. Overall, this book offers real-life suggestions that are possibly applicable to any job. This book tells that refining communication is the important factor for having improves day-to-day experiences in workplace. Analyzing the topic “Assessing your company’s culture” in the book’s chapter 1 Research conducted regarding the topic how organizational culture is found Three articles, written by professors with qualifications relevant to the field of organizational behavior or subjects related to culture, were read. Different articles had different points while some of the points remained the same. Each article can be discussed separately and then the findings from them can be merged to give a generalized idea regarding how to assess organization’s culture. Article 1: The role of the founder in creating organizational culture According to this article organization culture has the following meaning: Organizational culture relies for its survival on any definable company. It relies in the sense that many people are communicating with one another in order to accomplish certain goals in their distinct environment. Moreover, organizational culture can be perceived as fundamental assumptions that any group has invented and accepted to cope up with issues related to becoming adapted to the external environment and becoming internally united. These fundamental assumptions are considered valid and hence they are taught to whoever becomes a new member of the organization. Moreover, the writer has given examples to prove what he means by using assumptions for adapting to external environment or becoming internally integrated. For instance, stating that the only way to ensure a business is successful is to invest five percent or less of one’s money in it is an assumption designed to handle an external problem of economic uncertainty. On the other hand, an assumption like ideas can be given by any person and so openness in terms of communication must be maintained is an example of an assumption made to increase internal integration. Furthermore, the author elaborates on the relationship between the aforementioned assumptions and the determiners of organizational culture. The author negates the widely accepted concept of organizational culture according to which philosophy, artifacts and value system are what one can observe to know any organization’s culture. Instead, the author states that the founders of a company bring along with them assumptions which helped them succeed previously in other businesses or life experiences and these assumptions are then taught to subordinates. The subordinates themselves have their own experiences which lead to the creation of new assumptions. Such new assumptions along with the assumptions which were initially taught by the founders of an organization to the subordinates ultimately form organizational culture. Since this combination of assumptions is used for solving external and internal problems, one can observe the way an organization handles problems in order to know the assumptions and hence the organization’s culture (Schein, Organizational culture). Comparison with the book being reviewed The book being reviewed asks a lot of questions from the reader regarding the various aspects of an organization which might help in determining its culture. These aspects are the same aspects which have been negated by Schein. Furthermore, the book does not define organizational culture instead It directly asks readers to answer certain questions regarding particular aspects of the organization. The idea of finding how problems are solved by the company, with the aim of knowing assumptions supporting problem-solving, has not been stated anywhere within the topic. Article number 2: Organizational Culture: Origins and Weaknesses There has been a trend among certain researchers to perceive organizational culture as a ’variable’ that can be regulated and altered just like any other corporate variable. Although, some people in the organization are in a superior position to influence certain aspects of a culture, still culture as a holistic concept cannot be altered. The researchers have a tendency to suppose that culture can be altered and this happens because the idea of culture has been derived from subjects like sociology and anthropology. The foundation of the argument offered in this article is that culture must be viewed as a collective phenomenon that makes up the firm instead of viewing culture as something an organization has created, discovered, destroyed or altered. Moreover, the author states that it is essential to know, for interpreting behaviors of organizational actors, that there is a difference between ’culture’ and ’social structure’. Culture is described as a combination of language, artifacts, architecture, myths, ideology and rituals. Social structure is the name given to the organization of people with respect to their relationships within the society. Comparison with the book being reviewed As far as the concept of culture not being a variable is concerned it seems that gilbert understands this and this explains why Gilbert did not extend the topic of “Assessing your company’s culture” to tips regarding how to change the organizational culture. Secondly, Gilbert does not take into consideration all of the various aspects of culture as stated by the aforementioned article. There is absolutely no mentioning of language and myths. However, artifacts such as details of the workspace have been mentioned. One vital issue with respect to this topic is that there are a lot of questions and there are no hints regarding how to use the answers to those questions to reach a conclusion regarding what the actual culture of the organization is like. Article 3: Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture The author tries to explain the formal definition of organizational structure. This definition shows that culture is continually changing and becoming more refined. Furthermore, the definitions states that culture considers how humans function, culture is associated with the assumptions used for solving external and internal problems and it is made up of basic assumptions regarding human relationships, nature of reality and humanity (Schein, Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture). Moreover, the author states that it is best to use interviews, observation and choose certain people from the organization to work with an outsider in order to reveal the assumptions that form the culture of that organization. Comparison with the book being reviewed The book emphasizes on using personal observation and answering questions regarding potential determinants of organizational culture. On the other hand, the aforementioned article focuses on joint-approach to determine organizational culture which is based on assumptions that are used for solving internal and external problems. The book does not mention assumptions being a part of organizational culture and so even if the reader answers all of the questions regarding various so-called aspects of organizational culture it can never be actually found what the organizational culture is like. Moreover, many of the aspects of organizational culture stated in the book are not a part of any theory on organizational culture. These aspects have originated from the author’s opinion and there is no research which proves that organizational culture is related to them. How will the book impact me in the workplace (or everyday life)? What is the practical value? In the workplace scenario the book will teach me how to avoid miscommunication and how to communicate effectively. There are various examples given in the book. Since, the book has minimal research to prove that the examples are valid; many of the examples become irrelevant. This minimizes the practical value of this book. Conclusion and recommendations The book provided an understanding regarding the barriers one encounters while attempting to communicate at work. Although, there were long lists of questions to answer for oneself it was never explained how all those answers could be linked to one another to reach a reasonable conclusion. This is especially true for the topic “Assessing your company’s culture”. The positives of this book include covering in depth the attitude and values of both genders and the advantages or challenges of having a culturally diverse workforce. Moreover, the author included a resource chapter right at the end. This chapter provides URLs and names of books or articles which can be helpful in understanding the topics which could not be discussed in-depth within the book. Special workplace circumstances such as interacting with subordinates and managers, communicating with clients and team mates have been discussed. As a result, the book is an easy to understand overview of communication in workplace scenario. I will recommend this book to those people who think that communication can be improved. Works Cited Meek, V. Lynn. "Organizational Culture: Origins and Weaknesses." Organization Studies 9.4 1988: 453-473. Schein, Edgar H. "Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture." Sloan Management Review Winter 1984: 3-16. —. "Organizational culture." American Psychologist 45.2 1990: 109. Read More