Archive for June 4th, 2009
Posted on June 4, 2009 - by Vic Desotelle
Organizational Culture and Its Importance
Linda Devis asked:
The contemporary definition of Organizational Culture includes what is valued; the leadership style, the language and symbols, the procedures and routines, and the definitions of success that characterizes an organization. It is a specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.
Here, organizational values are beliefs and ideas, about, what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develops organizational norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational members towards one another.
In the past 25 years, the concept of organizational culture has gained wide acceptance as a way to understand human systems. From an open system perspective, each aspect of organizational culture can be seen as an important environmental condition affecting the system and its subsystem. Increased competition, globalization, mergers, acquisitions, alliances, and various workforce departments have created a greater need for organizational culture. Thus, it has become an important pattern for the organization’s development.
Below are important key ingredients of Organizational Culture:
It focuses attention on the human side of organizational life, and finds significance and learning in even its most ordinary aspects.
It clarifies the importance of creating appropriate systems of shared meaning to help people work together toward desired outcomes.
It requires members especially leaders, to acknowledge the impact of their behavior on the organization’s culture.
It encourages the view that the perceived relationship between an organization and its environment is also affected by the organization’s basic assumptions.
Organizational culture is possibly the most critical factor determining an organization’s capacity, effectiveness, and longevity. It also contributes significantly to the organization’s brand image and brand promise.
Organizational Culture creates energy and momentum. The energy will permeate the organization and create a new momentum for success.
The above-mentioned relevance of organizational culture supports the proposition that, in this competitive and globalized corporate scenario, there is huge need of organizational development strategy at various workforce departments, as this can improve the company’s culture. Thus, to fulfill organizations development needs, Organizational Culture Center is the better option! With its outstanding services, OCC provides meaningful responses to the company’s wants, needs and values. Its services range from Workshop, Speaking to Consulting and Coaching.
OCC, Workshop and Speaking service teach cultural enhancement programs to the attendees to improve their cultural effectiveness. It educates current and emerging leaders on issues related to organizational culture. Besides, its associates work parallel with leaders at every level of the organization by engaging and training them to understand workplace culture and to assume their responsibilities as the cultural leaders of their own individual subcultures.
Organizational Culture Center’s thirty years of experience of building culture, combined with VisionLink process, provides a complete guideline of six critical elements of workplace cultural effectiveness with the power of strategic mapping and the balanced scorecard. This proven and highly effective leadership concept brings about a direct linkage between the activities and measurements of every associate at every level of the organization with the vision and strategy of the enterprise as a whole.
Thus, the Organizational Culture Center with all its services has improved the culture of many organizations and has also proved to be the first choice of many of the organizations. It has brought wisdom and passion to the consulting arena and has been an extremely effective process for many of the corporate company’s of America. By availing the services of OCC you, too, can improve your company’s culture. http://www.organizationalculturecenter.com/
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The contemporary definition of Organizational Culture includes what is valued; the leadership style, the language and symbols, the procedures and routines, and the definitions of success that characterizes an organization. It is a specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.
Here, organizational values are beliefs and ideas, about, what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develops organizational norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational members towards one another.
In the past 25 years, the concept of organizational culture has gained wide acceptance as a way to understand human systems. From an open system perspective, each aspect of organizational culture can be seen as an important environmental condition affecting the system and its subsystem. Increased competition, globalization, mergers, acquisitions, alliances, and various workforce departments have created a greater need for organizational culture. Thus, it has become an important pattern for the organization’s development.
Below are important key ingredients of Organizational Culture:
It focuses attention on the human side of organizational life, and finds significance and learning in even its most ordinary aspects.
It clarifies the importance of creating appropriate systems of shared meaning to help people work together toward desired outcomes.
It requires members especially leaders, to acknowledge the impact of their behavior on the organization’s culture.
It encourages the view that the perceived relationship between an organization and its environment is also affected by the organization’s basic assumptions.
Organizational culture is possibly the most critical factor determining an organization’s capacity, effectiveness, and longevity. It also contributes significantly to the organization’s brand image and brand promise.
Organizational Culture creates energy and momentum. The energy will permeate the organization and create a new momentum for success.
The above-mentioned relevance of organizational culture supports the proposition that, in this competitive and globalized corporate scenario, there is huge need of organizational development strategy at various workforce departments, as this can improve the company’s culture. Thus, to fulfill organizations development needs, Organizational Culture Center is the better option! With its outstanding services, OCC provides meaningful responses to the company’s wants, needs and values. Its services range from Workshop, Speaking to Consulting and Coaching.
OCC, Workshop and Speaking service teach cultural enhancement programs to the attendees to improve their cultural effectiveness. It educates current and emerging leaders on issues related to organizational culture. Besides, its associates work parallel with leaders at every level of the organization by engaging and training them to understand workplace culture and to assume their responsibilities as the cultural leaders of their own individual subcultures.
Organizational Culture Center’s thirty years of experience of building culture, combined with VisionLink process, provides a complete guideline of six critical elements of workplace cultural effectiveness with the power of strategic mapping and the balanced scorecard. This proven and highly effective leadership concept brings about a direct linkage between the activities and measurements of every associate at every level of the organization with the vision and strategy of the enterprise as a whole.
Thus, the Organizational Culture Center with all its services has improved the culture of many organizations and has also proved to be the first choice of many of the organizations. It has brought wisdom and passion to the consulting arena and has been an extremely effective process for many of the corporate company’s of America. By availing the services of OCC you, too, can improve your company’s culture. http://www.organizationalculturecenter.com/
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Posted on June 4, 2009 - by Vic Desotelle
Engage Individual Perfection to Organizational Flawlessness for the Greatest Breakthroughs
Donald Mitchell asked:
What do you get when you add individual perfection with organizational flawlessness? It’s a marriage made in heaven for making the greatest breakthroughs in performance improvements.
Capture this perspective and you’ll soon be accomplishing beyond your wildest dreams . . . while working less.
Let me put this message in context: It’s an important lesson for those wanting to make lots of 2,000 percent solutions (ways of accomplishing 20 times more with the same time, effort, and resources).
The steps for creating a 2,000 percent solution are listed here:
1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.
2. Decide what to measure.
3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.
4. Implement beyond the future best practice.
5. Identify the ideal best practice.
6. Pursue the ideal best practice.
7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.
8. Repeat the first seven steps.
This article looks at practicing to become more effective in accomplishing step five.
Combine Perspectives from Individual and Organizational Ideal Best Practices in New Ways
Of all the approaches to identifying ideal best practices, this one is the most powerful because it allows you to build on individual strengths in nearing perfection to create new dimensions of group strengths. You’ll be delighted with what this perspective can help you accomplish.
Here’s an example to explain what I mean: Individuals are very good at remembering to put fuel into their vehicles. Rarely will you see a vehicle stranded for lack of fuel. Why? If you run out of fuel far away from a fueling station where there’s no cellular telephone reception, you may have a long walk to fill and carry back a heavy container. The process may waste an hour or more. Also, if you run out of fuel when it’s frigid, this exposure can be dangerous. Some people are probably worried about being robbed while going to and from the station. Most vehicles have fuel gauges that are reasonably accurate in letting drivers know when more fuel is needed. As a result, there’s not much reason to run out of fuel.
Groups are exceptionally good about using up supplies that their organization provides. Why? There’s no barrier. If you need it, you take it. There’s no cost to you. Groups are often not be nearly as good about remembering to order more when supplies dwindle.
Let’s assume now that you want to lower costs more rapidly in your organization. How might these two principles be combined? Let’s start with the individual tendency to want to have enough. You could appeal to that instinct by tying salary and wage increases to achieving cost improvements above a certain target and letting everyone know on a daily basis how cost reductions are going. People who want to be sure to have a decent income increase will be monitoring the information and taking action.
There’s a problem though. Many people may not feel like they have the knowledge or time to work on faster cost reductions. You could provide free breakfasts, lunches, and dinners to those who were willing to attend training sessions to learn more about creating and implementing better cost reductions. Your organization could also provide a hotline people could call to get advice on how to develop their cost-reduction ideas. The tendency for organizations to use free resources would accelerate learning.
By comparison, most organizations disqualify almost everyone in the organization from being able to work on cost reductions. Only managers, supervisors, and engineers may be given the leeway. Yet the best ideas often come from outside those perspectives. Cost reduction is clearly one of those places where more heads work better, but the task has to engage everyone in helpful ways.
For even better results, you can combine even more near-perfection perspectives. You might use four individual and three group principles to identify the potential for an astonishing breakthrough practice.
To provide further opportunity, build a list of 100 individual and 100 group instances of near perfection. With experience, you’ll locate even more helpful perspectives that can be applied to achieving breakthroughs.
Spread the Word
Share your ideas about how to combine individual perfection and organizational flawlessness with members of your family and people at work. Tell them what you have learned. Coach them in how to devise their own solutions.
The following questions will help you focus on the right steps:
? How can you interest others in pursuing ideal best practices by sharing your experience in intriguing ways?
? How can you help other people work through the process of identifying ideal best practices?
? How can the value of this new way of thinking be spread even further by encouraging those you’ve helped to coach others?
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
Website content
What do you get when you add individual perfection with organizational flawlessness? It’s a marriage made in heaven for making the greatest breakthroughs in performance improvements.
Capture this perspective and you’ll soon be accomplishing beyond your wildest dreams . . . while working less.
Let me put this message in context: It’s an important lesson for those wanting to make lots of 2,000 percent solutions (ways of accomplishing 20 times more with the same time, effort, and resources).
The steps for creating a 2,000 percent solution are listed here:
1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.
2. Decide what to measure.
3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.
4. Implement beyond the future best practice.
5. Identify the ideal best practice.
6. Pursue the ideal best practice.
7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.
8. Repeat the first seven steps.
This article looks at practicing to become more effective in accomplishing step five.
Combine Perspectives from Individual and Organizational Ideal Best Practices in New Ways
Of all the approaches to identifying ideal best practices, this one is the most powerful because it allows you to build on individual strengths in nearing perfection to create new dimensions of group strengths. You’ll be delighted with what this perspective can help you accomplish.
Here’s an example to explain what I mean: Individuals are very good at remembering to put fuel into their vehicles. Rarely will you see a vehicle stranded for lack of fuel. Why? If you run out of fuel far away from a fueling station where there’s no cellular telephone reception, you may have a long walk to fill and carry back a heavy container. The process may waste an hour or more. Also, if you run out of fuel when it’s frigid, this exposure can be dangerous. Some people are probably worried about being robbed while going to and from the station. Most vehicles have fuel gauges that are reasonably accurate in letting drivers know when more fuel is needed. As a result, there’s not much reason to run out of fuel.
Groups are exceptionally good about using up supplies that their organization provides. Why? There’s no barrier. If you need it, you take it. There’s no cost to you. Groups are often not be nearly as good about remembering to order more when supplies dwindle.
Let’s assume now that you want to lower costs more rapidly in your organization. How might these two principles be combined? Let’s start with the individual tendency to want to have enough. You could appeal to that instinct by tying salary and wage increases to achieving cost improvements above a certain target and letting everyone know on a daily basis how cost reductions are going. People who want to be sure to have a decent income increase will be monitoring the information and taking action.
There’s a problem though. Many people may not feel like they have the knowledge or time to work on faster cost reductions. You could provide free breakfasts, lunches, and dinners to those who were willing to attend training sessions to learn more about creating and implementing better cost reductions. Your organization could also provide a hotline people could call to get advice on how to develop their cost-reduction ideas. The tendency for organizations to use free resources would accelerate learning.
By comparison, most organizations disqualify almost everyone in the organization from being able to work on cost reductions. Only managers, supervisors, and engineers may be given the leeway. Yet the best ideas often come from outside those perspectives. Cost reduction is clearly one of those places where more heads work better, but the task has to engage everyone in helpful ways.
For even better results, you can combine even more near-perfection perspectives. You might use four individual and three group principles to identify the potential for an astonishing breakthrough practice.
To provide further opportunity, build a list of 100 individual and 100 group instances of near perfection. With experience, you’ll locate even more helpful perspectives that can be applied to achieving breakthroughs.
Spread the Word
Share your ideas about how to combine individual perfection and organizational flawlessness with members of your family and people at work. Tell them what you have learned. Coach them in how to devise their own solutions.
The following questions will help you focus on the right steps:
? How can you interest others in pursuing ideal best practices by sharing your experience in intriguing ways?
? How can you help other people work through the process of identifying ideal best practices?
? How can the value of this new way of thinking be spread even further by encouraging those you’ve helped to coach others?
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
Website content









