Recently I came across a book titled
Corporate Cultures. This book, written by Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy, is a
classic on the rites and rituals of corporate culture. The authors combine
insights from anthropology, psychology, sociology and management into a work
that outlines the effect of corporate culture on strategy and performance.
Fig: Four Generic Cultures
In describing the various types of company
cultures, Deal and Kennedy present four cultural archetypes.
• Macho – A world of individualists who take high risks and get quick
feedback on whether their actions were right or wrong
• Work hard, Play hard – Employees take few risks, with quick feedback. Culture
encourages maintaining high level of low-risk activity
• Bet-your-company – Years pass before employees come to know whether
decisions paid off. Big stakes decisions. High risk, slow feedback.
• Process – Little or no feedback, hard to measure
what you are doing, so people concentrate on how it is done. When taken to
extremes, it is bureaucracy.
Can you place your organization on this
map? What kind of culture do you have? Personally, what kind of culture are you
comfortable working with? When a person’s behaviors stick out as being
different in your company, can you discern the cultural reasons?
