Competing on Culture by VanWagoner Randall;Sydow Debbie L.;Alfred Richard L.;

Author:VanWagoner, Randall;Sydow, Debbie L.;Alfred, Richard L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Transforming Culture

The ultimate measure of a leader’s impact on culture is the performance of an organization, division, department, or team after the leader is gone. Too often, seemingly successful organizations have difficulty navigating transitions when boards have been lulled into complacency, employees have retreated into subcultures, or problems that were made to go away continue to manifest themselves.

Cultures implode when leaders put their personal interests at the forefront of decisions. If decision-making is designed to maintain stability and avoid change, the momentum that colleges need to navigate a dynamic environment can be squandered and result in unintended consequences. Strategic components that impact performance—labor contracts, finances, and enrollment management—can come apart and send leaders and staff into rescue mode and, worse yet, shifting time and energy away from opportunity.

Accrediting bodies and state auditors surface situations of this type all too frequently in the form of leaders who put their organizations at risk when they build structures, programs, and partnerships that they alone champion, and staff simply execute on behalf of the boss. These innovations may appear to be pioneering in the short term, but can fade away or fall apart once the leader is gone.

Organizational performance can be enhanced in the short term through a variety of strategies, but a healthy culture with staying power is characterized by leaders and staff guided by core values and a shared vision as they collectively pursue continuous improvement. In Built to Last, Collins and Porras provide a meaningful metaphor for leadership that is needed to foster a durable healthy culture.[51]

Leaders who operate with all of the answers and all decisions flowing through them are focused on keeping the official time and telling others what time of day it is. The problem with this approach is that when that leader is gone, no one knows what time it is and the culture is adrift in confusion. In contrast, leaders who place priority on the long-term success of the organization focus their energy on “clock building” to provide mechanisms for the time to be known throughout the culture regardless of who is sitting in the corner office.

Clock building within a culture requires commitment to building and refining systems that are self-correcting and continuously improving. These systems are possible in cultures that are data infused and capable of using data to optimize operations. Mechanisms for environmental scanning, forecasting, and strategic thinking are fully developed in these cultures as a means for anticipating change and disruption. These requisites of healthy cultures—meaningful employee engagement, data-informed decision-making, and strategic thinking—are topics that will be pursued in the closing chapters of the book.

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