Some Thoughts on Organizational Culture–Part 6.

Some Thoughts on Organizational Culture–Part 6

Today’s organizations face challenges that have not been seen in the past. One of these is the need to employ individuals from a mixture of cultures, personalities, and ethnic groups that must then be formed into effective functioning units. The parent organization as well as its separate units all have a culture that is a composite of contributions from its members.

Because of the diverse nature of the workforce, many employees, in an effort to find a sense of well-being, compensate by identifying with or forming attachments to the rituals, symbols, and artifacts within the organization that provide them with a sense of familiarity. The ability to better understand and predict the interplay of these features on group performance and culture would be a major advantage to an organization’s leadership.

For reasons we do not yet understand some cultures provide for their organization more resilience than iceberg-analogy1 others. We need to learn how to predict the interplay of cultural features on group performance under various contexts, and better understand how culture controls and is controlled by the group. When we achieve this goal it will provide a significant contribution to all our organizations as they face the many challenges of the 21st Century.