ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

402 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP(1990) and Sterman (2000), systemic thinking in biology, systemicthinking in family therapy, and so on. The learning leader mustbelieve that the world is intrinsically complex, nonlinear, interconnected,and overdetermined in the sense that most things aremultiply caused.10. Commitment to Cultural Analysis forUnderstanding and Improving the WorldThe learning culture must understand the concept of culture andthe learning leader must be willing and able to work with culture,as will be illustrated in the following case example.Case Example: Saab CombitechAn excellent example of cultural intervention in the service oforganizational learning is the 1997 seminar run by Saab Combitech,the R&D arm of the Saab company and its leader Per Risberg.Combitech consisted of seven separate research units working withdifferent technologies such as developing complex training systems,military hardware, marine electronics, aerospace technology, andspace exploration technology. These units had created their ownsubcultures based on their tasks, technologies and the occupationsof their employees. The units were friendly to each other, but didnot understand each other well enough to discover how they couldall improve if they shared more of their technological and organizationalinsights.Risberg recruited me to help him design an intervention thatwould teach the hundred or so members of these groups about cultureand help them to become more familiar with each other’s cultures.The groups were required to read portions of my culture book beforethe seminar and to write me a letter in which they were to comparethemselves to DEC and Ciba-Geigy and write out some observationson their own culture.