ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

ASSESSING CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 339• The contextual meaning of cultural assumptions can onlybe fully understood by members of the culture; hence, creatinga vehicle for their understanding is more importantthan for the researcher or consultant to obtain thatunderstanding.• Not all parts of a culture are relevant to any given issue theorganization may be facing; hence, attempting to study anentire culture in all of its facets is not only impractical butalso usually inappropriate.• Insiders are capable of understanding and making explicitthe shared tacit assumptions that make up the culture, butthey need outsider help in this process. The helper/consultantshould therefore operate primarily from a process-consultingmodel and should avoid, as much as possible, operating as anexpert on the content of any given group’s culture (Schein,1999a).• Some cultural assumptions will be perceived as helpingthe organization to achieve its strategic goals or resolvingits current issues, while others will be perceived as constraintsor barriers; hence it is important for the group members tohave a process that allows them to sort cultural assumptionsinto both of these categories.• Changes in organizational practices to solve the problemsthat initiated the culture analysis can usually be achievedby building on existing assumptions; that is, the culturedecipheringprocess often reveals that new practices notonly can be derived from the existing culture, but shouldbe—as the Alpha Power example shows.• If changes in the culture are discovered to be necessary,those changes will rarely involve the entire culture; itwill almost always be a matter of changing one or twoassumptions. Only rarely does the basic paradigm haveto change, but if it does, the organization faces a multiyearmajor change process of the sort described in ChapterSixteen.