ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

128 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADERSHIPPunishments, like rewards, will have local meanings in differentorganizations. At several high-tech companies that have clearespoused values about not laying people off, people can lose the particulartask they are working on and become “boat people” or “wanderthe halls” while looking for another job within the organization.They will be carried on the payroll indefinitely, but it is clear thatthey have been punished. Often the signals are subtle, but colleaguesknow when someone is in the “doghouse” or in the “penaltybox.” Actual loss of bonuses or the failure to get a raise may follow,but the initial punishment is clear enough already.In fact, for newcomers in organizations, deciphering when onehas been rewarded and when one has been punished is one of themost difficult tasks because the signals are so often ambiguous froman outsider’s point of view. Being yelled at by the boss may be areward, being ignored may be a punishment, and only someone fartheralong in the understanding of the culture can reassure theyelled-at newcomer that she or he is, in fact, doing well. At manycompanies, teamwork is espoused as a major characteristic of howwork gets done, but only after some time does a newcomer learnwhat teamwork means at a given company. Being open and confrontationalin meetings can be rewarded or punished, depending onsuch meanings.One dramatic example was revealed in a cultural analysis ofAmoco some years before it was acquired by British Petroleum.Amoco’s managers and engineers called it a “blaming culture” inwhich the norm was that if something went wrong on a project, onehad to identify who was responsible as quickly as possible. Who wasmore important than why, but the really destructive aspect was thatthe person who was blamed was not necessarily punished in anyovert way, and often was not even told that others considered himor her responsible. Instead, it was noted in the memory of seniormanagers as a reason to be less trustful of this person, leading tocareer limitation. People who were not given good assignments orpromotions might never find out just why they were not. Consequently,it was viewed as essential to distance oneself as quickly as