Handout of my session with PGDM studnets on culture and its competitive advantage in business

1. Prof S K Palekar prepared this summary in September 2014 for sending to PGDM (Admap) class
Admap Lecture on Culture : Sept 2014
September 26th, 2014
1) When you study management you are essentially deciding and implementing activities, using resources for these activities and trying to produce results which will satisfy the stakeholders. The resources are men, money, machines, materials and methods. Today we shall talk about the human resource. The most important resource is you yourself
a) How you manage yourself ( OB-1) – managing within, preparing for the future, which is consistent with what the organization goals ( Mark Spitz Diver, Nazi Concentration Camps )
b) How you manage others (OB – 2)
i) Inside the organization (back office jobs)
ii) Outside with stakeholders (results are outside )
2) This means that a key issue for managers is to make people behave in a given way. Draw Personality as a container : what is inside the container is invisible but the two things that are visible are
a) Circumstances / Stimulus
b) Behavior
3) Starting Point : How employees behave in different circumstances depends on what is in the container. The ideal is to have each employee produce the right behavior under all circumstance.
a) Example : Sun Pharma : The circumstances are changing. They want different behaviors to come out of the employees as quickly as possible.
(1) Company used to convince doctors to prescribe patented (  generic) molecules
(2) The doctors used to consult to self-paying patients (  insurance company)
b) Go back to the container illustration and ask what can change ?
i) Stimulus ? Can they really change ? Dinosaurs died !
ii) Containers ? ( difficult to change the composition of employees )
(1) New recruitment policy from here onwards
(2) They can sack existing employees
(3) Re-orient existing employees ( Old dogs do not learn new tricks )
c) Can they directly influence the behaviors of employees
i) Reward and Punishment systems
ii) Townhall meetings

2. Prof S K Palekar prepared this summary in September 2014 for sending to PGDM (Admap) class
iii) Meetings to create a new strategy
4) Revise the container model
a) The container that was brought to the company to start with. What kind of impact his family, schools, playgrounds have had on him. “The battle of Trafalgar was won on the playgrounds of Oxford and Cambridge”
b) What happened to that container when the person joined the company. With whom did he engage : formally and informally ?
i) Formally : Induction, appraisal, career planning, counseling, engagement
ii) Informally : water cooler, grape wine, lunch conversation,
5) Culture is like a mental program / softwear / app - the lenses you wear - not because you have been told formally by the management or by some rulebook – but what you learnt on your own through the process of “culturisation” after joining the company. When people say someone is a “pucca” insider, what they mean is he has imbibed the culture very well and he knows the “right behaviors” that are needed to fit into the undercurrent of mutual expectations from employees within the organization.
6) Let us now look at multiple containers within a company and you will find COMMONALITY of the pattern of behaviors and assumptions that affect the way the members perceive, think, feel and behave with each other, with clients, and other stakeholders. Of course such commonality exists also among people belonging to a family, a school group, a caste, a company, a nation.
7) Management students think that the work inside a company gets done through a formal strategy because that is all that you can read in a book or learn from the board. The work actually happens due to all the 7Ss.
a) Management controlled within a short time
i) structures, systems and strategies.
b) Management controlled but takes a long time
i) Staff : Recruit people quickly, Create vacancies quickly
ii) Skills : Training is a long process.
c) Not directly controlled by the management
i) Style and shared values ( “How things are really done here”)
8) How to find the workplace culture ? There is a model called shein’s model
a) Artifacts
i) Physical : attributes that can be seen, felt and heard by even a casual visitor. Ask the class : what can you glean from facilities, offices,

3. Prof S K Palekar prepared this summary in September 2014 for sending to PGDM (Admap) class
furnishings, visible awards and recognition, dress code, behavior of employees, slogans, mission statements.
ii) Behavioral : rituals and ceremonies are collective interpersonal behavior and values as demonstrated by this behavior, constitute the fabric of an organization's culture .
iii) Verbal : Myths, stories, sagas, language
b) Values : preferences : these can studied by interviewing the organization's membership. .
c) Tacit assumptions run deep and cannot be easily / cognitively identified in everyday interactions between organizational members and may be even a taboo to discuss inside the organization and may be 'unspoken rules'
9) STORY : How US captured the US Auto Market.
a) Artifacts : Uniform, Common places
b) Rituals : morning rituals
c) Verbal : quality circles (importance given)
d) Values : You, your talent and your contribution is valued
10) Cultures has two uses
a) External Alignment : A good culture holds the potential for generating sustained competitive advantages ( Honda Hatchback).
b) Internal integration : Organizational practices are learned through socialization at the workplace. Work environments reinforce culture on a daily basis by encouraging employees to exercise cultural values.
11) Organizational culture has to be appropriate to the industry
a) Sony ( Organization with an innovation culture)
b) Panasonic ( Organization with a copying culture )
c) AIWA ( No organization )
12) Strong cultures helps because they believe it is the right thing to do. But then there is also a risk of groupthink (quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking) which may be inappropriate to the situation.
a) Better aligning the company towards achieving its vision, mission, and goals
b) High employee motivation and loyalty
c) Increased cohesiveness among various departments and divisions
d) Promoting consistency and coordination and control within the company
e) Shaping employee behavior at work