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The modern world is characterized by the growth of changes in the life and economics. There is the biggest challenge for the whole time of business existence. Humanity enters into the digital era where the physical world connects with the virtual one. Information technologies, telecommunications, production are merging and at the same time production becomes increasingly independent. A definition of the key drivers for the organization, which include the strategic priorities, the business landscape, and the challenges your team members will face becomes more and more important.
The changes affect all the processes of economic decision-making and penetrate the entire system of labor relations. The changes manifest the company's ability to self-updating. A visible increase in the rate of changes requires the correspondingly fast response to market requirements, instant estimation of circumstances, pro-active solving of problems. All the business activities directed to developing and bringing to market new products and services, to customer service, to relations with partners and suppliers are inextricably linked with the process of adaptation to the new conditions that have arisen as the result of changes. This process consists of:
- What investors think and how they approach innovation from a valuation perspective, if they want to invest in talent and to cultivate innovation, to focus on educating of others about the implications of digital technologies and the value it creates;
- If the creative leader is constantly exploring the forefront of technology and testing how technology can improve business. He reimagines the future and the business models that support that vision, he creates the roadmap and the winning digital strategy, sets the pace for changes;
- If the creative leader understands the vision and is able to transform the operations and culture, if he manages the organization and its people through changes and pushes the digital agenda forward;
- If the creative leader enables the path from the interior digital initiatives to the market, i.e., if he brings and builds technical capabilities such as analytics, application design, the development that enable the execution of the strategy if he gives employees the right tools and helps to overcome digital challenges.
One of the most important adaptation factors is the corporate culture (CC) that allows mobilizing and orienting the company and each employee to achieve common goals and thus plays an important role in the economic success. There are several points that allow the creative leader to get a jerk in the innovative economy:
- The creative leader has to understand what the general corporate culture is;
- The creative leader has to understand what the tangible corporate culture is about;
- The creative leader has to understand how to put corporate culture at the service of the company;
- The creative leader has to understand how it is possible to modify the already existing corporate culture according to the atmosphere of the new economics.
The transition to the concept of Knowledge Management in the economics has had a huge impact on changing approaches to the formation of corporate culture. One can talk not about a complete transformation in certain cases, but the adjustment of the existing cultural features that ensure the circulation of information and knowledge within the organization is required by the most of the companies today. Corporate culture provides the determination of participants' values, gives them conscious choice that allows building productive relationships within the company and interaction with the environment.
The nature of corporate culture is provided by the existence of different value systems, the possibility of an independent choice of values and the alignment of their hierarchy. However, the creative leader has to build relationships with other people in the organization, and this requires certain rules and regulations that are emerging under the influence of values. Focusing this choice towards the value of knowledge contributes to the performing of the company’s tasks.
Corporate culture is designed to create a favorable environment for creativity and to realize the full potential of each employee that allows him to bring the matter to the real result.[44] In practice, each organization bears the features of different types of culture. That is why the creative leader who has taken up the challenge of building the intellectual capital and of efficient use of human resources has to identify the dominant type of existing corporate culture taking into account the developing trends of modern economics.[45] However, this solution is difficult due to the specific correlation of corporate culture with the set of latent factors of business functioning.
It is only possible to outline some framework of this or that corporate culture by comparison with the real existing typology and thus to develop the strategy for future action. The current state of the corporate culture of the organization becomes the starting point of purposeful movement to the formation of the adequate corporate culture in new socioeconomic conditions.
Researches in corporate culture have a fairly extensive history. The creative leader’s goal is to find out the approaches that can be implanted into the contemporary economics. In the early 30s within a famous Hawthorne experiment, it was found that labor productivity was heavily influenced by "hidden" psychological and social factors.[46] Scientists have formulated guidelines for a corporate culture which are suitable nowadays:
- Individuals have unique goals and motives.
- Human beings' problems can't be simple.
- Personal problems can affect productivity.
Their conclusions became the kind of impetus for further attempts to study the needs and behavior of employees in terms of the culture of their organization.
By the 1980th corporate culture had been defined as the totality of the following features:[47]
- Dependence upon the external business environment;
- The presence of a comprehensive system of values that are shared by the staff;
- The personification of values;
- The establishment of behavior standards;
- The internal environment suitable for the transmission of values.
The classification of a corporate culture based on these features affords the following types:
- Tough-guy - culture or Macho-culture (World of individualists who regularly run the risk and recognize if their actions are right or wrong rather fast).
- Work hard/Play hard - culture (Action and game - the basic rules of this type of culture).
- Process-culture (There is no focus on what to do, but on how doing it).
Edgar H. Schein updated his understanding of culture and demonstrated the crucial role that leaders played by applying the principles of culture to achieve organizations' goals. He showed how to identify the cultures at any stage of the company’s development.[48] He represented the corporate culture in the form of a pyramid: at the top level, there were visible organizational structures and processes; in the middle - shared values; at the bottom - cognitive mechanisms.
Charles Handy argued that the key to successful organizations lied in a better understanding of the needs and motivations of the people.[49] We pay special attention to his classification of corporate cultures which is based on power, role, task, personality in creative leader’s activity:
- Power culture — the head is dominating and all powers are concentrated in the center. Employees are implementing the prescribed policy. There are not many formal rules of the organization, but strict codes of conduct and labor are implicit;
- Role culture — the job is determined by the clear and detailed descriptions and other formal requirements;
- Task culture — the focus is concentrated on the successful completion of tasks or projects, the emphasis is on the integration of resources and staff to carry out the work. Employees are evaluated according to the contribution they can make to the job. They usually work in teams that allow productive use of various combinations of knowledge and skills to achieve a common goal. Such organizations are characterized by high adaptability to changes in the environment, as the teams have the ability to switch quickly to new projects;
- Personal culture — the activities of employees significantly affect the wishes of individuals - members of the organization.
The creative leader will find the important methodological support for his activity in the organizational model type Z which shows the importance of integration processes in the economics and creates an efficient variant of the corporate culture in a company.[50] This model is based on seven variables of the corporate culture:
- Liabilities of the organization in relation to the employees;
- Evaluation of the work done;
- Career planning;
- Control system;
- Decisions making;
- The level of responsibility;
- Interest to the person.
When considering items of corporate culture we have tried to highlight the theoretical schemes which reflect creative leaders’ approaches to the study of this phenomenon in the contemporary socioeconomic situation. Some methodological orientations are of great importance in the definition of the main strategic lines of activities for the development of the corporate culture. A successful leadership must harmonize the external and the internal space of its employees and ensure the integrity of its development in a variety of activities in the unity of intellectual, emotional, social experience. Corporate culture is one of the most effective resources for solving this problem. In turn, the emergence and development of the cultural forms of activity are determined by the adequate integrating factor - "the basis" of the social space of the company.
Values play a decisive role in the lives of people at all times. In the modern world, they have the functions of orients; they form a complex world of meanings and symbols that are the basis of individual or collective judgments and actions. They have regulatory and normative components. The values contribute to human world stability and organize a purposeful human activity. In some sense, the values are the targets of the individuals and society; they are the criteria for assessing any cultural phenomenon.
The transition to an innovative economics is the imperative of modern development. So the value of knowledge becomes the key element that affects the employees, forms a unity of views and actions and helps to achieve the objectives of the organization. This value should be declared in the corporate culture and the way to embody it must be found. So it is possible to create an environment where knowledge management will ensure the results of content, technology and conditions to satisfy the needs of all its subjects of self-realization and self-development.[51] Following this approach, the leader will choose reflection as the method for probing of the current status and potential changes of corporate culture. Reflexing always generates new knowledge.[52]
One of the common means of describing the organization's culture is a typology that classifies different cultures according to certain design features. As the most appropriate typology of corporate culture in terms of value orientations of personality it is good to adopt a typology proposed by Charles Handy. This typology reflects the idea of the polarity of two types of culture: Power culture and Person-Role culture. Task - culture can be regarded as the "golden mean" which implies the harmony of the distinct individual optimum of performance. It means that the probability of the existence of organizations with a "pure" type of corporate culture is extremely low.[53] The most often the leader has to deal with the so- called "intermediate type". But within the framework of solving the problem of corporate culture, it is necessary to emphasize the difference of terminological concept of "Formalized corporate culture" and "Formed corporate culture ". It is possible to speak either about the degree of corporate culture formalization or about the extent of its formation. It is accepted in our study that these two variables are not associated with each other. The corporate culture not matching any of the selected types may exist in the organization. It is a kind of variant of intermediate typology that is created thoroughly enough. So, it seems we have the need to assess the accuracy of certain qualitative tendencies in the direction of one of the selected types. On the basis of "knowledge economy" methodological orientations, we assumed it possible to use the methods of assessing the “awareness of the knowledge internal environment” as the way to the corporate culture of Task type.[54]
The complex nature of socioeconomic development has changed the emphasis in the modern approach to the management of the corporate culture. It operates and develops as a complex organism, providing the vital potential of the company. Corporate culture determines not only the differences between the organizations but also the success of their operation and survival in the competition. The future of any organization is determined by the innovative development: business processes are accelerating; customer needs are expanding; complicated relations with other market players are rising; the changes in the environment grow and become unpredictable. Therefore, the management of the company must be proficient and use a variety of managerial tools to find new opportunities to develop and strengthen the company's position in the future. Modern society and knowledge economics make the management realize that to get maximum results they need to rely on employees. Knowledge becomes the reference point of the progressive movement and the core values of every member of the organization. Unaccommodating corporate culture does not allow employees moving to a qualitatively new level of skills and personal potential. Changing the role and nature of corporate culture as an integral and permanent part of companies provides positive dynamics of the process of innovation and transformation as an important component of its strategy.
However, the transformation of the corporate culture of the company is a very complex and delicate point. It turns out that on one hand, the existing culture can be positive or negative in terms of the goals of the company, on the other - it can’t be changed in an instant. It is impossible to cancel or announce the corporate culture, one can only react to changes or develop it gradually. But the leader can't use the classic model of the transition from the current to the desired state either. The fact is that culture is the intangible category and is based on a set of latent factors that can only be identified in the course of a thorough study of the existing type of the culture at the moment. The definition of the desired state of corporate culture that responds to the problematic situation inside and outside the company and adapts to changing conditions depends on the correct analysis of its current state. The analysis of the current state of corporate culture should become the starting point of the long path of transformation, of improving the company's intellectual potential and of generating new knowledge and ideas that can be claimed by the innovative economics.
Setting a goal to assess the effectiveness of the existing corporate culture, the creative leader should find the answer to the following diagnostic questions:
1. How does the organization solve problems?
- Employees work unsystematically but energetically until the result is obtained in order to demonstrate their enthusiasm;
- Employees are not in a hurry to act as they expect that everything will work out by itself;
- Employees strive to follow the rules, they wary of violating the boundaries of responsibility zones, etc.
2. How the organization deals with conflicts;
- The parties analyze the conflict causes together;
- Each participant in the conflict reinforces his position with a reference to the rules in force;
-Those who argue switch to "personality" quickly, etc;
3. Who the "hero" of corporate culture is;
- A bright individualist, a winner in conditions of free competition;
- A "Workhorse";
- An intriguer who has managed to build relationships with the right people;
- A Workaholic: he comes to job early in the morning and leaves late in the night;
- An employee who shows better results, etc.
4. What attitude according to the career growth is accepted in the company?
- Career growth is the main prize: many people will come out to the distance but the only one will win;
- "Too much trouble, there is no need for this”;
- "To become a boss you need to work for a long time in the company /to show excellent results / to build relationships", etc.
5. What is the nature of communications in the company?
- All information is transmitted verbally;
- There is informal communication in free form;
- There is a formal electronic correspondence; there are templates for communication;
- There the only formal correspondence is possible - reports, memos, etc.
6. How does the company relate to learning?
- "Training is a great opportunity not to go to work!";
- "Learning is not bad, but in real life it does not help";
- "The waste of time";
- "We need to use every opportunity to learn something," etc.
7. What should be the ideal applicant for work in the company? We need to think over his education, appearance, experience, manner of communication.
8. How could a film about this company be called
9. What would the founders of the company say about the company today (relevant for companies with a long history)?
The same way the attitude to crisis, money, mutual assistance, stress, management, errors is evaluated. If the company has adopted an informal and confidential communication style, it is possible to diagnose corporate culture for public discussion, to organize "Open space" or even to form a project team responsible for this task. Discussing the existing unspoken rules of the organization is an excellent way to learn about the actual problems of employees and it can become the first step in changing the corporate culture.
Once the diagnosis of the existing corporate culture is made, the leader should describe the culture for the sake of which he is ready to work.
The example of such a description may be this way:
· As for the aspect of corporate culture - "TIME":
o We cannot work together if the employee ...
- does not know how to manage its time: to prioritize, to monitor the implementation of really urgent tasks, to solve problems before they become urgent;
- is busy with nonsense for the whole day and it makes him work till night;
- claims for help as he "does not have time";
- refuses to eat "frogs" but can't gnaw "elephants" systematically.
By the way, "Frogs" and "Elephants" are popular terms of time management. "Frog" is a small but unpleasant business that should be "swallowed" as soon as possible. "Elephant" is a big and serious task that can be solved only by " cutting into parts" and by organizing a long-term systematic work.
o We respect and want to retain an employee who ...
- does not create the unnecessary fuss but works quietly and clearly;.
- fills his day with quality work and goes home in time;
- is able to keep a diary of work tasks and manages time himself;
- informs that he needs help in advance and proves this by correct assessment of his work scope.
· As for the aspect of corporate culture - "MONEY":
o We cannot work together if the employee ...
- calculates the amount of his bonus and refuses to work on the project when it is not too big;
- counts the incomes of colleagues, including managers of other departments, and conducts clandestine talks on this topic;
- works only for the sake of money. As we try to build work in the company so that it was a comfortable and useful stage in the career of the person, we are sad when our efforts are not appreciated.
o We respect and want to retain an employee who ...
- understands that any project is a valuable experience;
- works in order to increase the company's income and understands what makes his own income grow;
- understands his reward consisting of two parts - material and non-material (valuable experience, new knowledge, good relations, useful links).
· As for the aspect of corporate culture "TRAINING":
o We cannot work together if the employee ...
- is not ready to learn from his colleagues;
- is satisfied with the implementation of instructions only, does not show initiative;
- does not know who he is, where he goes, what professional qualities he has, what he needs;
o We respect and want to retain an employee who ...
- accepts alive, complex, "learning" situations with pleasure;
- is ready for an open, calm and constructive dialogue about his professional qualities;
- draws conclusions;
- shows the conclusions are made by his actions.
· As for the aspect of corporate culture - "COMMUNICATIONS":
o We cannot work together if the employee ...
- is always looking for those who are guilty, often uses the phrase, "This is not my job!"
o We respect and want to retain an employee who ...
- takes responsibility for participating in the construction of processes;
- shares the result that he wants to use.
The creative leader must remember that it often happens like this: the corporate culture seems to have been created, the T-shirts have been distributed among the employees but the attitude towards the job and the quality of the work has not been improved. So it's necessary to understand how to forse corporate culture to work for the benefit of the organization.
After the company's values are determined it is necessary to formalize them in the attributes. If this formalization is not made the "dilution" of values will occur with time and growth of the company. The more the company arranges regional divisions the faster this happens. As the founder of the company Honda Soichiro Honda said, "Activity without philosophy is a deadly weapon, philosophy without activity is empty words." The complex of measures for the management of corporate culture is precisely designed to ensure the unity of values within one company, regardless of its geographical disconnection. As the founder of the company Honda Soichiro Honda said, "Activity without philosophy is a deadly weapon, philosophy without activity is empty words."[55]
So, the next step is the preparation of working documents: corporate culture management strategies, introductory training programs for new employees, an annual corporate culture management plan. In terms of corporate culture management, it is necessary to put the leader's intentions into the form of specific, SMART-based tasks. SMART is an abbreviation that stands for the criterion of goals set's effectiveness: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.[56]
This diagnostic process should be repeated annually. The leader must pay attention to the emerging discrepancies between formal and informal cultures, i. e., the formal "culture of rules" can be supplemented by an informal "culture of success". He must not forget to identify and promote employees who can serve as role models that fully illustrate the use of corporate values.
Sometimes the creative leader has to change even a mature and once effective corporate culture: the external environment is changing, and to succeed it is necessary to adapt internal values. A new business strategy requires a new style of management and interaction, and, therefore, new professional qualities of employees.
To start the project of changes in the corporate culture, it is good to adhere to the traditional model of carrying out the changes of Kurt Lewin. First, it is necessary to "unfreeze" the existing situation: to ask important questions, to understand the answers, to conduct diagnostics, maybe even to force participants in future changes to express their open discontent with the established situation. This way the first "emotional" results will be obtained. On this basis, it will be possible to substantiate the urgent need for changes and inspire the team.
Then the stage of "movement" comes: emotional results (the realization that changes are necessary and sincere willingness to initiate them) should lead to rational actions. After this, it is necessary to "freeze" the results obtained, fixing them in the appropriate regulations and business processes.
The project of changing the corporate culture corresponding to such a three-stage model can be described in the form of a step-by-step algorithm.
Step 1: Preparation.
Carry out the diagnostics as described above, and also analyze the company's image, motivation, the loyalty of employees, leadership style in the company. Learn the old organizational culture, understand what its attractiveness and strength are. Many of the existing processes can be adapted to new tasks, and the innovations can be translated into a language understandable to the employees of the company. That leads them to a common denominator with the old corporate values.
Step 2: Choosing a strategy for making changes.
There are three main strategies for managing change:
1) "Top-down" or "directive" changes;
2) Changes "from the bottom up";
3) Changes "with participation".
In the first strategy, as it is clear from the title, the change is implemented by the top manager, and the subordinates only have to accept them, even if it did not work out. Obviously, the choice of such a strategy is fraught with a large number of open conflicts and hidden grievances.
When implementing a bottom-up strategy, changes are planned by local teams of ordinary employees. This strategy lacks the disadvantages of the previous one: people do not just fulfill orders but they are given the opportunity to show initiative. However, there is a danger that the process will become chaotic and its participants will gradually release the strategic priorities of the company from the field of vision.
As for "participation" strategy it is implemented as follows: at the top management level a professional project change management team is allocated but ordinary employees also participate in it as experts. This strategy is good both from the psychological and from the rational point of view because people are willing to work more when they feel themselves "co-authors" and their expertise helps them to differentiate each aspect.
Step 3: Creating a strategic vector.
At this stage, it is necessary to develop a "core corporate culture": the mission of the company, its long-term strategy, values. To carry out "audit" of the corporate strategy it is possible to use 7S McKinsey.[57]
■ Strategy: A vision of how limited resources will be used to achieve long-term goals.
■ Structure: the organizational structure of the company.
■ Systems: systems for planning, decision making, quality management, personnel management, etc.
■ Staff composition: description of personnel, demographic characteristics.
■ Skills: a list of key competencies of staff.
■ Style of management: the nature of management actions, to some extent authoritarian, democratic, etc.
■ Shared values: corporate philosophy.
The 7S model fully illustrates the interdependence of corporate culture, business strategy and management style and can serve as a way to understand the development or modernization of an organization.
Step 4: Creating a working plan.
The plan should be as detailed as possible. The diagnosis of corporate culture, monitoring of the results, the necessary pieces of trainings and conferences must be included into it. It is necessary to put all activities on the Gantt chart (it’ll help to understand the sequence of stages), to describe the result of each stage, to assign terms and performers, to make a list of risks. The creative leader must remember that the plan is a means of communication and all interested parties must get mutual agreements at the stage of its development.
Step 5: Working out a bundle "CC vs. HRM".
The human resources management system includes a formalized profile of ideal candidates for company vacancies, a description of the company's personnel policy, personnel assessment strategies, a pay system, personnel training systems, career management systems, loyalty measurement systems and employee satisfaction.
Corporate culture is closely connected with all these subsystems of personnel management: it determines them.
If among the key values of the company "training, improvement, self-development" is mentioned there the emphasis on the learner's training, the focus on professional development should be placed. Career management systems and staff assessment should also be oriented toward learning values in this case.
If the company's values are fixed upon the closeness of management to production and the priority of the quality it will be prudent to introduce the number of business trips to regions and the activity according to the quality groups as a criterion for assessment of the manager.
Step 6: Creating an internal PR strategy.
The internal PR action plan may include compiling and filling a portfolio of corporate "myths": stories about how the company's employees demonstrated the desired behavior and achieved success. It's great if a PR specialist comes up with a corporate game, such as in the American company AT & T: each employee receives a set of colored cards that personify the company's values, and can either hand them to other employees if he believes that they demonstrated behavior that corresponds to a particular value, or collect cards and attach them to the locker door with personal items.
In addition, the specialist participates in the choice of the corporate code/charter format, filling it with specific content. He develops new channels for communication with employees (corporate newspaper, the section in the intranet) and plans of events in support of a new corporate culture: seminars, conferences, coaching sessions, “round tables” and “quality circles”.
The choice of a new training format can be a signal of the changes that have come about: for example, brainstorming "without ties" instead of a conference where only members of the presidium speak. To take root in the company the corporate culture should be declared at the highest level. If the leader demonstrates an indulgent, indifferent attitude to innovations, gives a negative personal example, his subordinates are unlikely to accept changes no matter how good the internal PR is organized.
Step 7: Visualization of values.
There is no need to be in a hurry with the development of corporate symbols, logos and so on. Let the key employees of the company become "co-authors" of corporate symbols: personal involvement of employees in the development process allows achieving their loyalty to the result.
Step 8: Evaluation of intermediate results.
It is necessary to understand how deeply rooted the company's new corporate culture is. The creative leader must not forget that key regional employees are the promoters of corporate culture in remote branches of the company and they need to be involved in all strategic activities of the head office. He must provide them with documents and "visualizers" that formalize the corporate culture and help to promote it.
When planning a project of changes the creative leader must remember that the real management of corporate culture requires a free will. This is not a victorious sprint race, but a marathon that requires perseverance, patience and a clear plan of action.
Дата: 2019-03-05, просмотров: 187.