ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

74 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADERSHIPwonder if we should collect some other suggestions before we decidewhat to do?” or “How do the rest of you feel about Joe’s suggestion?”Again, a norm is being established—that one does not have toplunge into action but can consider alternatives. A fourth possibilityis to plunge ahead into action. The suggestion is made to introduceourselves, and the next person to speak launches into anintroduction. This response not only gets the group moving but mayset two precedents: (1) that suggestions should be responded to and(2) that Joe is the one who can get us moving. Finally, the group mayignore the suggestion yet come back to it later, demonstrating thatwhat may have felt like a plop at the time was not forgotten.Norms are thus formed when an individual takes a position andthe rest of the group deals with that position by either letting itstand (by remaining silent), actively approving it, processing it, orrejecting it. Three sets of consequences are always observed: (1) thepersonal consequences for the member who made the suggestion(he may gain or lose influence, disclose himself to others, develop afriend or enemy, and so on); (2) the interpersonal consequences forthose members immediately involved in the interplay; and (3) thenormative consequences for the group as a whole. So here again wehave a situation in which an individual has to act, but the subsequentshared reaction turns the event into a group product. It is thejoint witnessing of the event and the reaction that makes it a groupproduct.The early life of the group is filled with thousands of such eventsand the responses to them. At the cognitive level, they deal with theeffort to define working procedures to fulfill the primary task—tolearn. Prior assumptions about how to learn will operate initially tobias the group’s effort, and limits will be set by the staff member inthe form of calling attention to the consequences of behavior consideredclearly detrimental to learning—behavior such as failure toattend meetings, frequent interruptions, personally hostile attacks,and the like. At the emotional level, such events deal with the problemof authority and influence. The most critical of such events willbe ones that overtly test or challenge the staff member’s authority.