Innovative thinking & culture change - PowerPoint Presentation

1. Innovative thinking & culture changeSession 5FOSTERING Culture ChangeDr. Pauline Turner StrongDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of Texas at Austin

2. innovative thinking and culture change:Where are we?Overview & Introductory Exercises (Dr. Art Markman & Rich Gergasko)Confronting & Reducing Change Apprehension (Dr. Robert Abzug)Idea Generation & Celebrating Failure (Dr. Art Markman)Innovation Management & Leadership (Dr. Luis Martins)Innovative Thinking & Fostering Culture ChangeStrengthening the Innovation Evaluation Process

3. reducing change apprehension idea generation & celebrating failureinnovation management & leadership Taking Stock: What Is Your Main Take-Away Thus Far?

4. reducing change apprehension idea generation & celebrating failureinnovation management & leadership setting the agenda:What Is Your most pressing question?

5. Ambitious goals for Session 5Learning how to foster culture change through understanding the concept of organizational cultureunderstanding how organizational culture relates to organizational structure and behaviorunderstanding how to place structures and behaviors in place that reward innovative thinking and overcome resistance to cultural change.

6. WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?Organization as machineOrganization as organismOrganization as cultureOrganization as psychic prisonOrganization as political systemOrganization as brainGareth Morgan, Images of OrganizationThinking with metaphors

7. The Organization as MachineDates to work of Frederick Taylor (1865-1815)The machine metaphor highlights:maximizing efficiencymaximizing productivity Premise:Organizations can be engineered to maximize contribution and minimize costs to society.Employees treated like parts of a well-oiled machine.Discourse:“design,” “control”

8. Bureaucratic Organization:Epitomizes values of mechanical organizationEmphasizesPrecisionSpeedRegularityReliabilityPredictabilityEfficiencyMeasurable resultsNotes forfixed division of laborhierarchical supervisionset of rules and regulations governing performancetechnical qualificationsmerit-based selection and promotiondiscipline & control

9. Costs of Bureaucracy?Max Weber’s “iron cage”“erosion of human spirit and capacity for spontaneous action”

10. Strengths & Limitations of Machine Metaphormechanistic organization works when:task is straightforwardenvironment is stableconsistency is desiredprecision is at a premiumhuman “parts” are compliant (“docile”)but:taken for granted, hard to think otherwisemay result in mindless conformitydifficulties in adapting to changing circumstancesmay lead to maintenance of the bureaucracy for its own sakedehumanization, apathy, carelessness

11. The Organization as OrganismDates to work of Charles Darwin (1809-82)Treats organizations as adaptive organisms with structure of interrelated parts Directs attention to:dynamics of competitiondependence on resources provided by environmentadaptation to changing environmentMakes use of general systems theorywholes consisting of interrelated parts that function together to create emergent (higher order) properties; systems are nested within each otherDiscourse: “survival,” “competition,” “environment,” “resources”

12. Organizations as Organisms (Morgan)Challenge to machine metaphorcritique to its focus on efficiency, productivityLiving systems existing in a wider environmentCertain species of organization better adapted to specific environmental conditions (contingency theory)bureaucratic organizations best adapted to stable, protected environmentstumultuous environments call for more flexible forms of organizationFunctional analysis: Organizations may be seen as structures that fulfill individual needs

13. “Maslow Re-wired”Pamela Rudledge, Psychology Today, 2011Individual needs in a social context.

14. Individual Needs & Organizational MeansNeedsself-actualization > > > > > > esteem (ego) > > > > > > > > belonging/love (social) > > > safety/security > > > > > > > physiological > > > > > > > >Organizational Meansjob a major expressive dimension of employee’s life, complete employee commitmentscope for achievement & autonomy, enhancing personal identity, recognitionopportunities for satisfying & spontaneous interactionspension, tenure, career pathssalary, wages

15. Strengths of Organism MetaphorEmphasis on relationship between organism and environmentReorientation towards systematic attention to needs that must be satisfied for organization to surviveAttention to the balance of internal processesAttention to different “species” of organizations, hence range of optionsFocus on “ecological” relationships among organizationsSuccessful organizations “evolve” appropriate structures and processes for dealing with the challenges of their external environmentsEmphasis on innovation

16. Limitations of Organism MetaphorAssumption of functional unity: may underestimate dysfunction and conflictMay overemphasize the role of organizationals in leading fulfilling livesMay naturalize and legitimate current organization of society

17. The Organization as CultureApplication of work of Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) and othersDerived from “cultivation,” signifying socialization into a particular way of lifeCulture as a pattern of symbols, meanings, & valuesCulture as a way of creating identities & a sense of belongingCulture may be both overt and tacit (taken for granted)Culture as ideology, concealing domination and exploitation (Karl Marx, 1820-95)

18. The organization AS CUltureGeertz“man is an animal suspended in webs of meaning he himself has spun”Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture & Leadershippattern of basic assumptions that a given group has . . . developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation & internal integrationand that have worked well enough to be considered valid& therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think & feel in relation to these problems

19. How are culture, structure & behavior related in organizations?Edgar Schein:Assumptions are manifest in values that guide behaviorIn turn, culturally influenced behavior produces artifacts that realize cultural values and assumptions

20. How leaders embed & transmit assumptions (Schein)Embedding mechanisms:Visible artifacts of the organizational cultureCreate “climate” of organizationPart of everyday routinesConflict within mechanisms can form basis of subcultures & countercultures

21. Primary Embedding Mechanisms

22. Secondary embedding mechanismsWork only when consistent with primary embedding mechanismsWhen institutionalized, constrain future leaders

23. The Organization as Psychic PrisonApplication of the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Michel Foucault (1926-1984)Organizations as scenes of unconscious processes:desireanxietystressrepressionOrganizations as shared illusionsHelps understand emotional aspects of organizations, conflict & resistance to changeDiscourse: “irrational,” “resistance,” “stress”

24. Organizations as Systems of Political ActivityRelationship among interests, conflict, and power

25. Modes of Political Rule in Organizations:Systems of Legitimacyautocracyabsolute power held by individual or small group“We’ll do it this way.”bureaucracyrule of law based on formal (“rational”) allocation of responsibilities“We’re supposed to do it this way.”technocracyrule exercised through expertise“It’s best to do it this way.”codeterminationjoint management of mutual interests“How shall we do it?”representative democracyrule by representatives of stakeholders“How shall we do it?”direct democracycommunal decision-makingHow shall we do it?”

26. CULTURES, Countercultures, Cultural changeThe official culture is dominant or hegemonicCountercultures (counterhegemonic cultures) may develop overt opposition to official organizational valuesCountercultures may counterbalance negative aspects of the dominant cultureThe struggle between hegemonic and counterhegemonic forces leads to cultural change (Antonio Gramsci, Italian neo-Marxist theorist,1891-1937)

27. Evaluating the Political MetaphorStrengthsAccepts reality and inevitability of organizational politicsRecognizes its constructive rolePlaces power at the center of organizational analysisQuestions the neutrality of organizational realityOvercomes limitations of idea that organizations are functionally integrated systems (machines or organisms)LimitationsMay lead to increased politicization of an organizationCan breed cynicism and distrustMay fail to take adequately into account overarching structures of domination

28. The Brain MetaphorImages of the brainan elusive metaphor!Organizations as Information Processing Processing SystemsOrganizations as Complex Learning SystemsOrganizations as Holographic Systems with Centralized and Decentralized Elements

29. Organizations as Complex Learning SystemsCyberneticsself-regulating behavior, negative feedback loopssimple cybernetic systemsSystems must have capacity to sense and monitor significant aspects of the environmentThey must be able to relate this information to the operating norms that guide system behavior.They must be able to detect significant deviations from the normsthey must be able to initiate corrective action when discrepancies are detectedcomplex systemsdetect and correct errors in operating normsself-questioning ability, learning to learn

30. Organizations as Complex Learning SystemsHow Can Organizations Learn to Learn?learning organizations (Chris Argyrisaction learning (Reg Revans)Double-loop learningquestioning whether operating norms are appropriatebarriersbureaucratic fragmentation of information flowreward systems that reinforce single-loop learningsystems of bureaucratic acountability“defensive routines”

31. Organizations as Complex Learning SystemsGuidelines for Learning OrganizationsDevelop a learning orientation, capacities that allow them to:scan and anticipate change in environmentcreation of insight and knowledge (e.g., of customers)develop ability to question, challenge, and change operating norms & assumptionsframing and reframing (TQM, in theory)encouraging “emergent” organizationJapanese ringi, collective decision-making processavoidance of undersirable system states: limits as well as intentions

32. what might a learning organization look like? (Schein)ProactivityCommitment to learning to learnPositive assumptions about human natureBelief that environment can be managedCommitment to truth through pragmatism and inquiryPositive orientation toward the future Commitment to full and open task-relevant communicationCommitment to systematic thinkingBelief that cultural analysis is a valid set of lenses for understanding and improving the worldCommitment to cultural diversity

33. Strengths and Limitations of Brain MetaphorStrengthsDovetails with “knowledge economy”Powerful way of thinking about implications of IT and its support for developing learning organizationsAllows us to rethink key management principlesLimitationsNo coherent image of the brainResistance to indeterminance

34. What structures & behaviors Reward innovation and overcome resistance to change?What ways of thinking about organizations structures and cultures best leads to innovation? Does it help to use the organic metaphor? The brain metaphor?What does it mean specifically to think outside of the box in your organization? In your particular role in the organization?What specific forms of resistance do innovations encounter?How can employee diversity lead to innovation? What does it take for that to happen?To what extent is your organization a learning organization? How could it become more of one?