ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT EXTERNAL ADAPTATION ISSUES 103sions and were therefore complacent about pushing for even higherperformance levels. Senior management chose to compare thesesame divisions to their external competitors in the same product/market space and found that they were underperforming by this criterion.For example, the pharmaceutical division outperformed theother chemical divisions but did poorly relative to other pharmaceuticalcompanies. But the tradition of being one family madeit hard to convince the pharma division managers to accept thetougher external standards.Many so-called culture change programs actually deal only withthis one element of the culture—the measurements to be applied tofuture performance. Thus, new chief executives come in and announcethat they will emphasize product quality, or bring costs undercontrol, or get the organization to be more customer oriented. Thissometimes sounds like a real change in mission but on closer examinationturns out to be merely a new focus on how to measure success.From this perspective it is clear that such new signals willchange only one element of the culture. If only the results signals arechanged, without concern for mission, goals, and means, very littleactual change may come about.Consensus on Means of MeasurementConsensus must be achieved both on the criteria and on the meansby which information is to be gathered. For example, at DEC duringits early years there developed a very open communication system,built around high levels of acquaintance and trust among themembers of the organization. This system was supported by a computerizedelectronic mail network, constant telephone communications,frequent visits, formal and informal surveys and sensingmeetings, and two- to three-day committee meetings in settingsaway from the office. Individual managers developed their own systemsof measurement and were trusted to report progress accurately.DEC operated on the powerful shared assumption that informationand truth were the lifeblood of the organization, and the company