The Character of a Corporation

"No business strategy or program can or will succeed without the appropriate organizational culture in place."

"Change: how to fine-tune and how to transform a company's culture."

"Rules and procedures today are not the same as in business eras past."

"The character of a corporation can be illuminated by identifying its sociability and solidarity."

"Maneuvering among all the cultures you belong to is perhaps one of the great unspoken challenges of a professional career."

"A company's culture is often buried so deeply inside rituals, assumptions, attitudes, and values that it becomes transparent to an organization's members only when, for some reason, it changes."

"With all its strengths, the networked culture has weaknesses too."

"In its positive form, the culture is usually led by an individual with superb interpersonal skills."

"There is no soft-pedaling the fact that the mercenary culture, even in its healthy mode, is restless and ruthless."

"In a negative mercenary culture, the enemy isn't just outside, it's inside as well."

"Where the value chain is complex and business challenges require discussion, analysis, thoughtful consideration, and ultimately consensus, the mercenary form is ill advised."

"Mercenary leaders tend to have very simple models for human behavior."

"People who have long existed in the fragmented culture are often the least aware of their social architecture."

"In negatively fragmented organizations, the ethic of the individual is so strong that selfishness and arrogance reign."

"Great ideas or important projects take a long time and a lot of space, and the fragmented culture offers that."

"Effective leaders will continually remind the members of their fragmented organizations of their obligations to the collective and enforce their advice with a formal control system."

"Perhaps the biggest problem with the fragmented culture is that it hinders institutional learning."

"Many large companies can be fragmented in their most macro form and still be successful."

"Imagine a networked organization and a mercenary one combined, the first bringing its high levels of friendship and commitment and the latter its performance focus and energy."

"To further increase socialization, the architects of HHCL&P's new culture installed a system of seating they call romping."

"A certain kind of communality can spawn a smugness, and often complacency."

"Human _nature_ probably can't be changed. Human _behaviors_ probably can."

"There are several common cultural migrations that happen with less conscious management guidance."

"A company may have the appropriate culture for its competitive environment, but the culture has slipped into its negative form because of managerial ineptitude or simple neglect."

"Increasing sociability is less fun than you might imagine; it's more delicate work."

"We are not merely passive victims of the business environments in which we work."