Personalities can be changed through the use of drugs, physical invasion of the brain or profound brainwashing techniques. None of these techniques are recommended or ethical, except under extreme conditions. Similarly, organizational cultures can be changed, but the cost is great. Insensitive mergers, decimation of work forces, and organization-wide threats can change culture. However, those who remain in the organization are demoralized, fearful and certainly marginally committed, at best, to the organization’s welfare.
Organizational culture will often shift with massive upturns or downturns in business, or rapid growth or decline in the size of an organization. These changes, however, will often leave the organization with little capacity to cope with future changes. All of this speaks to a simple, but often ignored, truth: organizational cultures are to be appreciated, not changed.
The Four Organizational Cultures
Given this brief introduction to the nature and dynamics of organizational culture, I turn specifically to the relationship between organizational culture and preferences of leaders for one or more of the specific domains and one or more of the appreciative strategies described in this set of essays. There are three kinds of organizational culture that relate directly to the three domains I have identified. These are the culture of information, the culture of intentions, and the culture of ideas.
The first of these three organizational cultures encourages the generation and sharing of information. This information-rich culture helps keep leaders in touch with constantly shifting realities. The second organizational culture is filled with conversations about and expressions of the intentions that serve as a foundation for the organization. This intention-rich culture encourages clarity of mission and values, and ongoing dialogue regarding organizational vision and purposes. The third organizational culture encourages and sustains the generation of ideas. This idea-rich culture promotes risk-taking and learning from experience. Emphasis is placed on movement in the organization from reflection to action.
