I'm not sure if I'm quoting Rol or Keith to begin this, but from
their dialogue,
>Management's job is to create and mold
>the culture of an organization? How can they do that if they are part of
>and perhaps even created the culture?
How could they do it if they WEREN'T part of the culture?
Culture may be influenced "from the outside" but they don't get
changed from there. They only get changed from the inside.
I took over as CEO of an organisation many years ago. I took over
from the founding CEO. The problems of the company were the problems
that person - with his values, integrity, personality, etc - would
have. They were not the problems the company would have had if I'd
been the founder. (The problems would have been different.)
The owner, in my first review meeting said, "If you want to have an
impact here, you have to begin where you are. That is, you have to
be responsible for the past as if it was your own and you'd created
it." He was telling me that I had to get completely "inside" the
organisation and really have it expressed in and through me or that
it would reject me and my influence would be minor.
This incident changed my thinking about a CEO's (all management's)
relationship to their organisation and certainly helped me turn it
around rapidly without firing great numbers of people.
--
Michael McMaster : Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk
book cafe site : http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
Intelligence is the underlying organisational principle
of the universe. Heraclitus
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>