- What is the importance of organizational culture to the success of the IT organization?
- What are the differences between the four orientation cultures: collaboration, control, create, and compete?
- Is there a right or wrong culture for your organization?
- How can you assess the organizational culture of IT personnel?
See what you’re doing wrong, laugh at it, change and do better. Spencer Johnson
If you are a C-suite executive, business unit executive, director, or manager, you need to understand the key concepts of organizational change. The culture of your organization derives from the underlying values and behaviors personnel exhibit
as they work in teams, or independently, on programs, projects, and individual work assignments. Therefore, as a CIO, it is imperative for you to understand what organizational culture is, why it is important, how you measure it, and how you can change it.
- Understand how the culture of your organization derives from the underlying values and behaviors personnel exhibit as they work in teams, or independently, on programs, projects, and individual work assignments.
- Understand what organizational culture is, why it is important, how you measure it, and how you can change it.
- A company’s business strategies have a direct bearing on the cultural orientation required by the IT organization as well as other business units.
- To achieve company goals, personnel work together on projects that align with business strategies.
- Understanding the various cultural orientations, and how they compete with one another, is an important element in successfully achieving desired business outcomes.
- There are four orientation cultures: collaboration, control, create and compete.
- Each dimension includes a set of underlying characteristics exhibited by the organization. The orientation and underlying characteristics compete with one another to achieve specific outcomes. If your organization has an internal focus, such as manufacturing, then the underlying characteristics focus on collaboration and control. If your organization has an external focus, such as marketing or product development, then the underlying characteristics focus to create value and compete effectively.
- There is no right or wrong cultural orientation. You need to define the one that aligns best with your organizational goals. What is important is to know what your organizational culture orientation is today versus what it needs to be, in order to make the necessary cultural adjustments to successfully deliver business outcomes as defined by your company strategy.
Summary
Your company’s business strategies have a direct bearing on the cultural orientation required by IT organizations as well as other business units. To achieve company goals, personnel work together on projects that align with the business strategies. Understanding the various cultural orientations, and how they compete with one another, is an important element in successfully achieving desired business outcomes.
Following are the key messages:
- The Competing ValuesTM Framework is an example to help you understand the various cultural orientations within organizations. The basic premise is simple. There are different dimensions of organizational culture. In the example used in this chapter, there are four. Each dimension includes a set of underlying characteristics exhibited by the organization. The orientation and underlying characteristics compete with one another to achieve specific outcomes. If your organization has an internal focus, such as manufacturing, then the underlying characteristics focus on collaboration and control. If your organization has an external focus, such as marketing or product development, then the underlying characteristics focus on creating value and competitive markets.
- There is no right or wrong cultural orientation. You need to define the one that aligns best with your organizational goals. What is important is to know what your organizational culture orientation is today versus what it needs to be, in order to make the necessary cultural adjustments to successfully deliver business outcomes as defined by your company strategy.
- We also defined a method to measure your organization’s current organizational culture as well as the desired state. The gap provides you with the necessary information required to develop a plan to mitigate the gap and reorient your organization to exhibit the desired behaviors.