ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR MANAGED CULTURE CHANGE 327define your career in different terms and learn to work for lots of differentbosses.Along with new concepts would come new standards of evaluation.Whereas in the former structure you were evaluated largelyon the quality of your work, now you would have to estimate moreaccurately just how many days a given job would take, what qualitylevel could be achieved in that time, and what it would cost if youtried for the higher-quality standard you were used to.If standards do not shift, problems do not get solved. The computerdesigners at DEC who tried to develop products competitivewith the IBM PC never changed their standards for evaluatingwhat a customer expected. They overdesigned the products, buildingin far too many bells and whistles, and made them too expensive,thus failing to capture enough of the market to make themfinancially viable.Imitation and Identification Versus Scanning and Trial-and-ErrorLearning. There are basically two mechanisms by which we learnnew concepts, new meanings for old concepts, and new standardsof evaluation: either we learn through imitating a role model andpsychologically identifying with that person, or we keep inventingour own solutions until something works. The leader as changemanager has a choice as to which mechanism to encourage. Forexample, the leader can “walk the talk” in the sense of making himor herself a role model of the new behavior that is expected. As partof a training program, the leader can provide role models throughcase materials, films, role-plays, or simulations. One can bring inlearners who have acquired the new concepts and encourage othersto get to know how they did it. This mechanism works bestwhen (1) it is clear what the new way of working is to be and (2)the concepts to be taught are themselves clear. However, we sometimescan learn things through imitation that do not really fit intoour personality or our ongoing relationships. Once we are on ourown and the role models are no longer available, we often revert toour old behavior.