Characteristics and Principles of Organizational Culture

2. TARGET GOALS:
•Definition of Organizational Culture
•Characteristics of Organizational
Culture
•Principles of Organizational Culture

3. Organizational culture - is a
system of shared assumptions,
values, and beliefs, which
governs how people behave in
organizations.

4. Characteristics:
1. Innovation (Risk Orientation) - Companies
with cultures that place a high value on
innovation encourage their employees to
take risks and innovate in the performance
of their jobs.

5. 2. Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation) -
This characteristic of organizational culture
dictates the degree to which employees are
expected to be accurate in their work.

6. 3. Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement Orientation)
- Companies that focus on results, but not
on how the results are achieved, place a high
emphasis on this value of organizational culture.

7. 4. Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation)
- Companies that place a high value on this
this characteristic of organizational culture
place a great deal of importance on how
their decisions will affect the people in their
organizations.

8. 5. Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation)
- Companies that organize work activities around
teams instead of individuals place a high value on
this characteristic of organizational culture.

9. 6. Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation) - This
characteristic of organizational culture dictates
whether group members are expected to be
assertive or easygoing when dealing with companies
they compete with in the marketplace.

10. 7. Stability (Rule Orientation) – A company whose
culture places a high value on stability are rule-
oriented, predictable, and bureaucratic in
nature.

12.  Work with and within your current cultural situations.
To work with your culture effectively, you must understand
it, recognize which traits are preeminent and consistent, and
discern under what types of conditions these traits are likely to
be a help or a hindrance.

13.  Change behaviors, and mind-sets will follow.
In reality, culture is much more a matter of doing than of
saying. Changes to key behaviors — changes that are
tangible, actionable, repeatable, observable, and measurable.

14.  Focus on a critical few behaviors.
The key is to focus on what we call “the critical few,” a small
number of important behaviors that would have great impact if put
into practice by a significant number of people.

15.  Deploy your authentic informal leaders.
Leadership is a natural attribute, exercised and displayed
informally without regard to title or position in the organizational
chart. Informal leaders can become powerful allies who can
influence behavior through “showing by doing.”

16.  Don’t let your formal leaders off the hook.
The people at the top have to demonstrate the change
they want to see. A handful of the right kind of leaders
have to be on board to start the process.

17.  Link behaviors to business objectives.
Offer tangible, well-defined examples of how cultural
interventions lead to improved performance and
financial outcomes. Select behaviors that are aimed
specifically at improving business performance and can be
measured over time.

18.  Demonstrate impact quickly.
It is extremely important to showcase the impact of cultural
efforts on business results as quickly as possible. One effective
method of doing so is to stage performance pilots — that is, high-
profile demonstration projects.

19.  Use cross-organizational methods to go viral.
Ideas can spread virally across organizational departments
and functions, as well as from the top down and from the
bottom up. One powerful way to spread ideas is through social
media.

20.  Align programmatic efforts with behaviors.
By providing the structure in which people work — through
disciplines such as organization design, analytics, human
resources, and lean process improvement — the formal organization
provides a rational motivation for employee actions, while the informal
organization enables the emotional commitment that characterizes peak
performance.

21.  Actively manage your cultural situation over time.
Companies that have had great success working with culture
— we call them “culture superstars” — actively monitor, manage,
care for, and update their cultural forces.

23. Prepared by:
Miss Charemie U. Cui