ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

WHAT LEADERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW CULTURE CHANGES 309more senior positions and thereby influence the main part of theorganization.For example, the Saturn division of General Motors and theNUMMI plant—a joint venture of GM and Toyota—were deliberatelygiven freedom to develop new assumptions about how toinvolve employees in the design and productions of cars and thuslearned what amount to some new cultural assumptions abouthuman relationships in a manufacturing plant context. Similarly,GM also acquired EDS (Electronic Data Systems) as a technologicalstimulus to organizational change. But in each of these cases wealso see that having an innovative subculture within the larger culturedoes not guarantee that the larger culture will reexamine orchange its culture. The innovative subculture helps in disconfirmingsome of the core assumptions, but again, unless there is sufficientanxiety or sense of crisis, the top management culture mayremain impervious to the very innovations they have created.The infusion of outsiders inevitably brings various cultural assumptionsinto conflict with each other, raising discomfort and anxietylevels. Leaders who use this change strategy therefore also haveto figure out how to manage the high levels of anxiety and conflictthat they have wittingly or unwittingly unleashed.Culture Change ThroughScandal and Explosion of MythsAs an organization matures, it develops a positive ideology and a setof myths about how it operates—what Argyris and Schön (1974,1978) have labeled espoused theories and what I have called the levelof espoused values in the culture model. At the same time, the organizationcontinues to operate by the shared tacit assumptions thathave worked in practice, which Argyris and Schon label theories-inuseand which more accurately reflect what actually goes on. Andit is not unlikely that the espoused theories, the announced valuesof the organization come to be, to varying degrees, out of line withthe actual assumptions that govern daily practice.