Ducks in a Row: Ed Schein on Corporate Culture
by Miki Saxon
An interesting interview with Ed Schein, a senior professor at MIT and a “pioneer” on the subject of corporate culture, who now believes corporate culture is irrelevant.
The real answer to that is that Corporate Culture is no longer the relevant topic. I think the relevant topic is macro culture, nations, corporations, corporate culture (where all these nationalities and occupations play out), and micro cultures where you have problems in the operating room and in teamwork because you have multi-nationals, people from different occupations that cultures, all interplaying.
OK, I don’t have a PhD and I’m not a brilliant, recognized expert with an international reputation, but my initial reaction to reading the transcript of the interview was ’duh’.
Of course corporate culture is impacted by having multiple nationalities working together, but it was impacted when the workforce were all native-born, but from different regions or even neighborhoods.
As to the micro cultures created by each boss (leader in the accepted jargon), again my reaction is ‘duh.’
Every person is shaped by their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), AKA, values. Every manager (from team leader to department vp) creates a culture in their organization that is based on those values and it can be similar, synergistic or diametrically opposed to the cultures above.
All that said, I think it’s great when recognized experts put shape and definition to the things that most workers know by instinct and they do it with a level of credibility far beyond the reach of someone like me.
Here is the interview or you can read the transcript at the link above.
Flickr image credit: zedbee, YouTube credit Karl Moore
