Chapter 30 – Culture Vultures
"I should have asked, but how do you go about determining what the culture or ethos of a business is?" Dave and Ginny were sitting on the sofa in his EneRG office.
Ginny stood and went to the flip chart in the corner of the seating area. She turned to a blank page and wrote: traits, behaviors, leaders, and measurements. Opposite those terms she drew a line and wrote clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy."
She turned to Dave, "Let's define some terms. By the term 'culture' we mean the social and psychological environment of a business. It includes how people interact, their resistance patterns, how they share knowledge, the values and beliefs of the group, the stories that they embrace, and the sometimes unwritten rules about how business really gets done. All types of things influence it: history, group lore, past behaviors and major events or milestones, technology, skill base, market, products, management style, the industry or setting it is in, its vision, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, environment, location, and habits. I probably forget a few things, but you get the idea. Everything impacts a group's culture to some extent.
"Think about two large companies that have vastly different cultures. I'll pick Apple and Exxon Mobil. Do you think they have the same cultures? They're both big, rich, providing critical products to their customers, and so on."
"No, not at all. Apple became almost a cult built around Steve Jobs. It's innovative, design sensitive, customer centric, and wants to see major changes in how its products shape society. Exxon is a big, dinosaur of an oil company. They turn the crank and out comes petroleum products."
"Right, so expect your culture to be different from others that you think you know about."
Dave said, "So, we're talking about two groups: the Circle and EneRG. Both are important to me, as well as to the many others around me in both settings."
Ginny smiled, "I'm going to wander around both groups and interview people. I want them to tell me what makes the Circle and-or EneRG great and not so great? What guides their behavior in those settings? I'll gradually develop a model for each group, something like what I wrote on the flip chart. Those are some of the things I'm looking to hear. They're standard models popular in consulting circles dealing with the culture of organizations. You won't be all in one category or another; you'll smush out among those areas, with an emphasis here and there."
"How long? How many interviews?"
"I'll be doing both groups in sequence, but I'll focus on EneRG first and then the Circle. Of course, just from hearing you talk, I have some idea about what I expect to hear, but I'll see whether I'm right or not."
"You do this alone?"
Ginny shook her head. "I take someone in the group that appears to have the confidence of the others in the company. Later, after an interview, they can also clue me into anything subtle that I missed, like an oblique reference to some accomplishment that turned out to be major in some way."
"Have you picked your partners?"
She smiled, "Yes, so I'm asking permission to co-opt them for about two weeks each. I'd like Jenny Harvest from EneRG and Cricket from the Circle."
Dave nodded, "They're yours. Should I tell them?"
Ginny nodded and Dave yelled out for Jenny to join them for a moment. Five minutes later she'd been conscripted as Ginny's assistant in the interviews. She said she'd get Deborah to spend time at her desk to help with appointments and calls. Nikky could help out, too.
Dave turned to Ginny after Jenny left. "Are we OK? I want to emphasize that what we did on Sunday night had no bearing on you getting and keeping this consulting gig."
Ginny chuckled, "I think you've told me that about fifty times now. Personally, I don't examine my baser motivations, so even if it did, I don't care. Chill on the issue. It's past, and I'm already on the job. I also am more that happy at our lovemaking and how much pleasure you gave me. I really do love you and I believed you when you told me that you loved me. I want us to maintain our social and sexual relationship, as well as our business relationship. So, there!"
Jenny reported to Dave on Friday afternoon just before they left for the weekend. She was pumped up, juiced, excited, and twitching. "I have learned so much from Ginny Fuller. I want to go back to college and get an MBA. They teach all the stuff she uses every day in the B-School at the university."
"What have you been doing?"
"Well, since we met Monday morning, we've done fifteen interviews with the execs and a few of the staff. I learned so much about how to interview somebody. Throw out an open-ended question and then shut-up and let them ramble around in the space of the question. Ginny taught me and I even led the last couple of interviews. She taught me about listening frameworks, and I've got a whole new way to talk to people and listen to what they say."
"And you've discovered what about our culture?"
Jenny danced around, "I'm sworn to secrecy. I can't tell you really, because we haven't done the analysis. Ginny and I will finish typing up the interviews and on Monday we'll start our analysis. She has a unique methodology she's going to teach me – organizational analysis frameworks. She said I'll have analysis matrices coming out my ass when we're through, but we'll have a thorough analysis of the culture, what's changing, what we want to change, what will change if we do or don't tinker with it, and a lot more. This is so exciting. I hated to take the weekend off, but she insisted."
Dave laughed. "Well, I can see we have at least one convert among us. I'll wait. I assume we're not sinking fast on any front?"
"No. Ginny liked what she was hearing. She said it was all good."
"What about the Circle?"
