Beyond values – exploring the twenty first century organization

Exploring the
21st century
organization
27
Beyond values – exploring the
twenty-first century
organization
John D. Burdett
Orxestra Consulting, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
The organization, under attack
One of the few institutions that has survived the ravages of time is the Roman
Catholic Church. The reasons for its longevity are an object lesson for any
enterprise seeking to outlive its founder: a compelling mission, adherence to a
well-defined set of beliefs, a strong focus on learning, an insightful appreciation
of how power is distributed, and an effective succession process.
The church has also gained immeasurably from an organization structure
where between the parish priest and the pope there are only two levels – the
bishop and the archbishop (or in some instances the cardinal). In addition,
empowerment is a notion well established within the management process as
evidenced by the fact that the parish priest has historically been given a great
deal of latitude regarding local, non-dogma related decisions.
Implicit in the 2,000-year history of the church is also the reality that – not
withstanding the fact that it took three centuries to admit that Galileo was right
– it has managed to either facilitate or (eventually) respond to societal change.
And yet the church, the one institution that has thrived through war, pestilence,
famine, and plague, is in trouble: its recruitment of young priests has reached
crisis proportions, sex scandals have diluted its moral authority, and, were
Catholics who practise birth control to stay away from mass, the church would
face financial ruin.
The fraying of the fabric that holds together the Roman Catholic Church is
just one example of how, as we approach the twenty-first century, even the most
enduring organizations are under attack. It is a broadside that has resulted in
half of the enterprises quoted, as little as a decade ago, on the New York Stock
Exchange being acquired, merged or broken-up by corporate predators. It is a
frontal attack that has seen millions of middle managers dubbed “surplus to
requirements”. And it is a sabre thrust that has resulted in long-held beliefs
about the practice of management being replaced by organizational forms and
approaches that a generation ago would have been received by, at best, bemused
silence.
What is involved is more than just an adjustment of the current
order
On 24 August 1346 there took place one of the most important battles of the
Middle Ages (Fuller, 1970, pp. 295-319). The English force, 8,500 strong, led by
Journal of Management
Development, Vol. 17 No. 1, 1998,
pp. 27-43. © MCB University Press,
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Edward III, faced a French army the core of which was “a galaxy of knights the
likes of which had never been seen before on one battlefield”. Headed by Philip
V, the French were, nevertheless, routed. Among those on the losing side who
took their last breath on the field of Crécy were a score of the nobility, 1,542
knights and squires, and upwards of 10,000 common soldiers. The English
losses were less than 200, all but two of whom were from the ranks.
The difference between the forces, apart from Philip’s inept handling of his
troops, was one of the finest weapons of war ever conceived: the English long-
bow. Made from a six-foot length of elm, the longbow fired arrows that were three
feet long. The force of a single arrow was so great that it could penetrate two
layers of mail armour. Far faster to load, having a greater range, and significantly
more powerful than the French crossbow, this unique weapon of destruction was
used by the Welsh and English archers to “harvest” the pride of France with little
less effort than had they been cutting down a field of ripe Kentish wheat.
History paints a picture that suggests about every 200 years a breakthrough
in technology comes along that rewrites the rules of the game; a breakthrough
so dramatic that nothing is ever the same again. The English longbow was one
such event: the stirrup, the printing press, steam power, and electricity similarly
transformed the society into which they were introduced.
None of the earlier technology-based social revolutions, however, can compare
with the impact of today’s transformational technology – the microchip – where,
by comparison to anything hitherto witnessed, the speed of change evoked is
breathtaking, and the social fallout, resultingly, potentially far more dramatic.
A phrase that has been added to every manager’s lexicon in the past decade
to better understand what is involved is paradigm shift. What is needed, it is
suggested, is a new way to see problems, challenges and, indeed, the business
environment.
But is a new frame of reference, in and of itself, enough? Arguably no! The
depth of change required demands that those charged with charting a passage
through hurricane-like seas do more than run up a new set of sails. What is
involved equates to a quantum shift in, not just learning, but how we learn; not
just in doing things differently, but questioning whether we should be doing many
of the things we currently believe in, at all; not just in drawing together more
information but in questioning how we know what it is (we think) we know.
A new era demands a new response
The response from those in roles of influence and leadership to an entirely new
management era has been predictable. Many have taken the position that, if
they ignore the signals that define tomorrow’s reality, “the problem” will
eventually go away. It is a posture that of necessity defines change as doing
more of what “we” have always done: tighter control, ever more aggressive
micro-management, and deeper cost cutting.
Insightful thinking, on the other hand, seems to offer three potential means to
better respond to the turmoil implied. The first: a belief that at the centre of
every storm there needs to be an area of calm, a premise that the more things

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change the more those immersed in change need to know what is important. It
is an approach that underscores the need to define, and manage through, a set
of well stated values.
The second approach emphasizes speed and simplicity, the anthem being –
“at all times keep it simple”. The thinking employed is one best captured under
the caption: “the 80 per cent solution”, the argument: complex theories and
elaborate solutions not only take too long to implement, but by the time the
solution has been implemented the opportunity has been lost or, equally likely,
the context has changed and the intended solution has become irrelevant.
The third approach defines both the need for, and the benefits of, systems
thinking; the rationale for systems thinking being that if one thing changes then
everything else, by implication, is also impacted. Thus, to introduce one process
without considering, and taking advantage of, the wider impact is short-sighted
and naïve.
In a world where the average manager is becoming overwhelmed by the rate
and nature of change each approach has validity. Indeed, each has its
champion. Max Dupree (1989), the son of the founder, and at the time of writing
his book Leadership is an Art, the CEO of Herman Millar (selected by Fortune
as one of the ten most admired companies in the USA), wrote: “Leaders need to
be concerned with the institutional value system which, after all, leads to the
principles and standards that guide the practice of people in the institution”
(Dupree, 1989, p. 14). Jack Welsh, the inspiration behind General Electric’s
recent success, is a strong advocate of speed and simplicity (Tichy and Charan,
1989). Systems thinking, meanwhile, is a rationale for charting the impact of
change suggested 400 years ago by, none other than, Leonardo da Vinci.
It is not intended that the three “change strategies” be presented as being
binary: it is not a case of one or the other. There is no suggestion, for example,
that Welsh is not a strong advocate of values (Slater, 1994, p. 113); in fact quite
the opposite is the case. Similarly, there is no reason to assume that the
executives within Herman Millar believe that holistic thinking is anything other
than important. As for Leonardo da Vinci, in addition to being a scientist, painter
and architect, he was also a brilliant engineer. And, as anyone who has seen his
designs for military machines, and his sketches of potential flying machines, will
attest to, at the core of his genius was, above all else, an elegant simplicity.
There is another important point worth drawing out: breakthrough
technology, a new order of things and an accelerated rate of change represent
both problem and opportunity. For those with the courage to go beyond
assumptions of “managing change”; for those who frame change as a dimension
of competitive advantage; for those – as Gareth Morgan so elegantly expresses
– prepared to ride the crest of change, living with and managing through
turbulence becomes the very essence of sustained leadership.
A need to manage paradox
The problem is that there are several perceived paradoxes that surface when
managers attempt to take a balanced approach to new opportunity;

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contradictions that make it easier to follow one path to the exclusion of the
others. Simplicity, for example, in some people’s minds, mitigates against
systems thinking. Similarly, speed of response can often be positioned as
working against values such as respect for the individual and/or an expressed
need to involve employees.
In reality many of the apparent contradictions are resolved by building an
appropriate context that allows different trains of thought to emerge
concurrently. Speed and systems thinking are both eminently possible, for
example, where those involved in making key decisions bring to the table a rich
experience base, a capacity for openness, and a high level of trust in their own
intuitive judgment.
The three approaches described go beyond philosophy. The speed and
simplicity directive is a natural point of introduction for processes such as
process re-engineering. A systems thinking mentality, on the other hand, is a
foil for interventions that extol the virtues of synergy and/or imply a strong
need for organizational learning. And a values philosophy is the perfect nesting
place for solutions espousing the merits of coaching as a means to move the
organization forward.
The problem: process re-engineering without considerations as to the
broader context is likely to create as many problems as are resolved;
organizational learning without a broad-based understanding of what is
involved serves only to confuse; and the executive who believes he/she can
change an organization one person at a time is destined to be sadly
disillusioned.
An integrated approach
What is needed is a means to pull together what would otherwise be discrete
interventions/processes; a conceptual frame of reference that recognizes the
need to complement a values orientation with speed of action; a container that
holds both an openness for breakthrough process and, at the same time,
reinforces the need for alignment; a culture that simultaneously provides
support for heightened levels of ambiguity while engendering focus; a business
platform that emphasizes leadership and concurrently provides a safe
environment for team and individual initiatives to flourish; an integrated
approach that underscores value creation as an overriding goal. (See Figure 1.)
Value creation is, of necessity, the implied mission of any organization. From
the customer’s standpoint, as defined by Michael Treacy (1995, pp. 19-20) in his
book, Discipline of Market Leaders, success through better delivering value
equates to giving more of what it is the customers value. Value creation,
however, must go beyond the concept of market value added (the company’s
market debt when compared to total capital tied up over the company’s life). Put
simply, value creation is sustainable only where the actions involved hold
meaning and worth for all of the stakeholders: employees, suppliers,
shareholders, customers, strategic partners and the local community.

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An integrated approach does not mean that the elements always, or of necessity
should, bind together comfortably. Pablo Picasso once remarked that he
preferred his pictures to be hung crooked (Huffingdon, 1989, p. 213). His reason:
the symmetry of the room in conjunction with the exact proportions of the
frame softened the passion and anger he wanted to convey through his work.
Conversely, the juxtaposition engendered by hanging the picture askew added
to the overall visual conflict and the sense of emotional discomfort, he felt the
viewer should confront. As a simple statement, it said much about Picasso the
man – a complex and cruel genius.
As homespun philosophy, Picasso’s words hold out the thought that far too
often managers have been more concerned about what fits comfortably together
– what is easy to manage – than of taking advantage of the tension derived from
rejecting the status quo, the learning engendered through asking new questions,
and the innovation drawn out of positive discord.
A return to our roots?
Submerged in the urgency of wide-scale organizational change is also a strong
argument to be made along the lines of: “as we dash headlong into the future, as
Figure 1.
SPEED
STRUCTURE
STRATEGIC
INTENT
SIMPLICITY
FINANCIAL
CONTROL
PROCESS RE-
ENGINEERING
TQM
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
MARKET
LEADERSHIP
FOCUS
EMPLOYEE
INVOLVEMENT
VALUE
CREATION
LEARNING

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we create new organizational forms, we must be careful that we don’t lose that
which is natural to our needs as individuals and as members of a team”.
Desmond Morris (1994, p. 68) in his wonderful book The Human Animal
presents a compelling case for the hunt and its planning as being pivotal to
man’s development. From the need to co-operate, early man developed
language; the chase built athleticism and stamina; the duration and danger
implicit in the hunt necessitated focus, strategy and teamwork; and, equally
important, the communal nature of the kill meant that man had to develop a
sharing mentality.
Morris expounds the belief that the loss of the hunt deprives modern man of
much of the meaning central to, and hard wired in, “his” hunter’s brain. He
further suggests that work has become the modern substitute for the primeval
chase – a substitute that for most contains little of the challenge, excitement and
teamwork that untold generations of self-selection designed us for.
The human ravages of the Industrial Revolution, compounded by the
institutionalization of scientific management, did much to destroy the
community spirit that existed when our forebears lived off the land. And where
any dignity did remain it was stripped away by the dehumanizing nature of the
post-Industrial Revolution work environment; a workplace designed, by intent,
for output with little thought as to the social cost; a centre of human endeavour
where the overriding ethos has been one based on fear.
The worship of output made the worker little more than an extension of the
production system – and a menial one at that. What is surprising is that
organizations formed on, and competing through, intellectual capital have, all-
too-often, bought into those same organizational assumptions – have become
wedded to mind sets drawn out of a world where the machine ruled.
Rebuilding a sense of mutuality
Where command and control is a way of life, lack of a sense of mutuality has
historically counted for naught – if the boss has the levers of power at his/her
disposal what else matters? However, when the team, as opposed to the
individual, becomes the basic building block of organization design; where self-
management comes to the fore; where simplicity, a focus on values, and systems
thinking become interwoven, mutual support, and shared assumptions become
an imperative.
The need for mutuality is even greater where the dynamics implied by the
term virtual corporation are engaged. Operating as if traditional boundaries –
international and functional – do not exist; continuously reforming to meet and,
at times, create customer opportunity; differentiated through access to, and the
creation of, knowledge; and communicating through real-time networking
capability, the virtual organizational state cannot exist unless the glue that ties
the disparate elements together is reflective of an overriding sense of
togetherness.
This is not to say that mutuality has been ignored in modern organizational
life – the continued presence of trade unions, for example, presents at least one

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reference point to the contrary. The dilemma is that the feelings of brotherhood
embodied in union membership are not a direct response to a striving for shared
sense of future purpose, or even social injustice (the raison d’être of unions), but
the result of a lingering lack of basic trust between management and front-line
employees.
In addition, one needs to look no further than the raft of entrepreneurial high-
tech start-ups spawned over the last decade to see both the value of and the
need for a sense of interdependence. When meritocracy is wedded to speed of
action, and value creation is dependent upon idea generation, traditional “boss
driven” rules of organization life fall by the wayside. The difficulty of
sustaining a sense of shared commitment becomes apparent, however, once the
newly minted firm reaches the point where established relationships become
overwhelmed by lack of organization, ill-defined roles, and shortfalls in process.
Or as one highly successful high-tech CEO puts it: “let chaos reign and then rein
in the chaos”.
Culture as a force for shared meaning
Perhaps the key to understanding what is meant by culture lies in exploring the
forces that bind primitive societies together; the chemistry that enables bands
of men and women to survive (and thrive) in the most difficult conditions
imaginable.
Anthropologist Frank Speck’s classical study of the Naskapi Indians in the
period immediately before the Second World War is a case in point (Speck, 1935).
The Naskapi ranged across a region bounded by the Hudson Bay, the
Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Described by Speck, when he first
encountered them, as being: “among the earth’s crudest peoples”, these semi-
nomadic groups lived out their lives in one of the planet’s most inhospitable
environments.
What Speck discovered is that, regardless of the fact that their technology
was limited to wood and bone, and despite living year-round in caribou-skin
tents, their existence had a richness that others had overlooked. Speck proposed
that the harshness of their environment had: “inspired the Naskapi to greater
resourcefulness than was to be discovered among their detractors”. The source
of that richness was to be found in their belief systems, the discipline drawn out
of tribal magic and the spiritual considerations that ruled their behaviour.
One example of the latter was the Naskapi practice of heating a caribou
shoulder blade over a fire until it cracked; the pattern in the cracking
determining the direction of the hunt. Known to anthropologists as
scapulimacy, the resulting strategy for the hunt meant that the direction taken
by the hunters was entirely random. The randomness in turn was an important
means to avoid exploitation of one part of the hunting territory which would, in
turn, cause “experienced” caribou to be infinitely more difficult to kill.
Further insight into this subtle thing called culture lies in the work of the
eminent anthropologist, A.F.C. Williams, whose extensive research led him to

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conclude that culture is the organization of diversity and not, as many have
suggested, the replication of uniformity.
William’s work is amplified in the confusing, yet apparently culturally
sustaining, caste system of India. At least 2,000 years old, and comprising 3,000
plus castes and over 25,000 sub-castes, this dysfunctional and highly divisive
system originated because of the need for an agrarian society to develop a
multitude of discrete occupational roles.
Regarded universally as a pernicious and social evil, the caste system has,
nevertheless, as seen by the anthropologist John Reader (1990, p. 185)
“functioned as a component of ecological equilibrium that has sustained India,
undisturbed, while waves of conquest and foreign empire ebbed and flowed
across the country throughout historical times. Technical innovations, ideas,
aspects of religion and art were absorbed or discarded as the case may be, but
India’s agricultural base and social traditions were largely unaffected, and its
ancient equilibrium seemed timeless”.
The basis for understanding the caste system lies in the Hindu willingness to
accept the status quo: an attitude drawn out of a belief in reincarnation. Only by
fulfilling the tasks given one in this life can one be reborn to a higher order.
The nature and meaning of culture can also be found in the work of Yir
Yoront, an anthropologist who lived with a group of Australian Aboriginals in
the 1930s (Sharp, 1952).
Yoront soon discovered that a major social transformation was taking place
within the tribe: traditional stone-cutting tools were being replaced by steel
axes. Distributed to the Aboriginals by well-meaning whites, the new axes
represented not only a technological revolution, but also a source of sweeping
cultural change.
Up until this time the Aboriginals continued to live their traditional self-
supporting existence in the bush. Part of that way of life embraced venerating
the older members of the tribe and respect for elders who knew how to find the
raw materials, and craft the stone tools, upon which survival of the group
depended. This meant, for example, that to have use of a stone axe, younger
members of the band had to ask an older male. In doing so he/she set in motion
all of the elements central to harmonious social order.
The introduction of steel axes, on the other hand, as recorded by Sharp
(1952): “led to a revolutionary confusion of sex, age, and kinship roles”. Sharp
went on to add: “The result [of stone axes] was the erection of a mental and
moral void which foreshadowed the collapse and the destruction of all Yir
Yoront culture, if not the extinction of the biological group itself”.
Culture and values
Most managers have been introduced to the concept of culture through the work
of Deal and Kennedy. In their landmark book, Corporate Cultures, first
published in 1982, the authors describe culture in the following terms: “Values
are the bedrock of any corporate culture”. They go on to add: “As the essence of
any company’s philosophy for achieving success, values provide a sense of

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common direction for all employees and guidelines for their day-to-day
behaviour” (Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p. 21).
The Deal and Kennedy approach – that culture is amplified largely through
values – was based on earlier work undertaken by McKinsey consultant Julian
Philips. The belief that values represent an important piece of the management
jigsaw has, however, long been part of informed management thinking.
Corporate values were, for example, integral to the work of Reg Revans, as far
back as the 1960s (Revans, 1982, p. 322). Appropriately referred to as the father
of action centered learning, Revans, in particular, developed a series of exercises
to explore congruency of values among a firm’s senior management.
The intense interest in organization culture during the early 1980s was, in
large measure, a by-product of developments that had been kicked-off a decade
earlier in strategic planning. The dilemma: although strategic planning had
evoked a sense of commercial focus, this was a far cry from having employees –
and particularly those at the customer interface – deliver that strategy. In fact,
all-too-often the “plan” either lay languishing in a drawer, or could not be
successfully introduced because assumptions built into the strategy ran
counter to the established beliefs that dominated within the business. To make
the strategy live meant, management theorists suggested, having a culture that
was receptive to the overtures contained within the strategy.
Coming back to Deal and Kennedy, they suggested that a focus on values
helped employees do their jobs better in two ways:
(1) A strong culture is a system of informal rules that spells out how people
are to behave most of the time.
(2) A strong culture enables people to feel better about what they do, so they
are more likely to work harder (Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p. 33).
Putting the manipulative undertones aside, it is interesting to note that Xerox,
IBM, and Sears, Roebuck all figured strongly as examples of “living the values”
in Deal and Kennedy’s studies. These, of course, were all businesses that shortly
thereafter found themselves in deep trouble.
A somewhat different view of culture was presented by Kotter and Heskett
(1992, pp. 4-5) in their book, Corporate Culture and Performance. The authors
highlight that (as seen from their viewpoint) culture should be seen as residing
on two levels:
(1) Deep – somewhat hidden – values shared by the group that persist over
time.
(2) One that is more visible – the behaviour that new employees are
encouraged to follow by their fellow employees.
In differentiating between values and overt behaviour, Kotter and Hoskett pave
the way for explaining why corporate-wide, “shared” values can be interpreted
differently in different parts of the organization (Kotter and Heskett, 1992,
pp. 4-5). To use the authors’ words: “Although we talk about culture in the

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singular, all firms have multiple cultures – usually associated with different
functional groupings or geographical locations”.
As might perhaps be expected, these definitions are a long way away from
the intended meaning of culture, as implied by the use of the term, in
anthropology.
Indeed, anthropologists have a far richer understanding of what is meant by
culture. Kluckholm and Kelly (1945, pp. 187-201), for example, describe culture
as: “that complex whole that includes artifacts, beliefs, art, all the habits
acquired by members of society, and all products of human activity”. The
authors make a number of additional points that those attempting to “change”
culture would do well to take to heart:
(1) Groups that share some historical continuity tend to share a common
interpretation of the outside world.
(2) Language is not merely an instrument of communication but a device for
categorizing experience.
(3) Every culture contains within it both content and design: meaning that
single “custom” cannot be isolated from the whole. Attempts to abolish
or modify elements of culture may, as a result, have repercussions in
areas of behaviour where they are least expected.
(4) Culture is never static, it is constantly being created and lost.
(5) Learning is, in large measure, the transmission of culture.
The need to take a systems view of culture is amplified by Edward T. Hall
(1976) in his book, Beyond Culture. Hall emphasizes the need for man to develop
models of the world as a means to handle the enormous complexity of life;
examples of the models we use being: language, philosophy, science, myth.
According to Hall, by using models, we see and test how things work and can
even predict how they will work in the future. The models we create, however,
are holistic: both overt and covert, conscious and subconscious. Hall (1976, pp.
12-13) states: “beneath the clearly perceived, highly explicit surface culture,
there lies a whole other world, which when understood will ultimately radically
change our view of human nature”.
Beyond values
The implications of culture, as seen from an anthropological viewpoint, are
profound. Even those seduced by the overt simplicity of organizational values
as a means to define culture need to bear in mind that the way the values are
presented may be at least as important as the message contained.
There is also concern that a values orientation, presented as a means to
orchestrate a common mind set and where the other critical elements of culture
are not taken into account, is unlikely to have lasting impact. Simplicity, without
consideration as to the holistic nature of the challenge on hand, is inevitably a
recipe for failure. And yet managers, in attempting to provide a behavioural
platform congruent with the organization’s strategic intent, focus on values

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with the clear expectation that somehow, magically, everything else will fall into
line. The reality is somewhat different: a car may well have a good engine but if
the transmission is damaged it still will not run.
In a more provocative vein, if culture is not a measure of uniformity but a
containing force for diversity, the term common culture, as applied to an
organization, would have to be considered an oxymoron. One conclusion to
draw is that an anthropologist could, with reason, suggest that the term culture,
as used by managers, is, at best, misleading. It is interesting to note, for
example, that few would perceive the Catholic Church as a culture but rather
would tend to describe it as a spiritual community spanning many cultures.
The problem is in part with the word culture. The word tall means different
things dependent upon the context within which it is used, i.e. when used to
describe a basketball team as compared to its implied meaning when describing
the man in the street. Similarly culture has a number of meanings dependent
upon the context. For the business executive it describes shared meaning
through adherence to a set of common values. For the anthropologist it means
the membrane surrounding, containing and defining the boundaries of
difference.
Within an organizational context the term culture is further diluted by the
reality that no organization exists in a vacuum. Thus an organization-wide
value such as integrity can mean different things dependent upon the wider
culture in which it is rooted. The belief that individuals will ignore the deeper
ethnic, geographical, racial and religious norms within which they live on a
day-to-day basis in favour of some abstract notion enunciated 3,000 miles away
is fraught with potential pitfalls. One is left with the reality that, although a
values orientation has certain benefits when describing a somewhat
homogeneous group of people, its worth diminishes once national boundaries
and different standards of behaviour are factored in.
This leaves those charged with leadership within a global context with a
level of complexity that although understood at an intuitive level is rarely raised
to an appropriate level of strategic dialogue.
And yes the language is important. Terms such as culture are too ambiguous
to add a great deal to the challenge implied in selling and delivering,
transnationally, a product with consistent levels of service and common
standards of quality – where value creation is, in large measure, a by-product of
shared learning and best practice. What is needed is a more robust way to look
at issues such as culture and values, a means to describe mutuality in such a
way that common understanding leads to meaningful action. One place to start
is with the notion of community.
Building a sense of community
A sense of the need for community can be drawn from the work of Douglas
Merchant and Ruth Ann Prange, both part of Corporate Human Resource
Planning at AT&T.

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Writing in the Fifth Discipline Field Book, Prange, in drawing from her own
experience, says: “I have come to feel that I can’t be a high-quality community
of one unless I pay attention to the community aspects of the organization
which I am part of” (Senge, 1994, p. 520). Merchant writing in the same text
says: “The challenge for the global corporations will be to develop a sense of
collective identity, spanning the planet, so that local decision makers in Tokyo,
Kiev, New Delhi – and Basking Ridge, New Jersey, as well – are willing to defer
their provincial self-interest to the interest of the global community” (Senge,
1994).
In a real sense, what executives have been referring to as culture building
has, in essence, been an attempt to build community all along. This does not
mean the difference is one, merely, of semantics. Language is an essential,
interpretive tool in articulating what success is and what it looks like. In
attempting to build culture, or, even more daunting, a common culture, from an
anthropological standpoint at least, managers have not only been attempting
the impossible, but have been doing so by expending significant opportunity
cost. Building community is possible, meaningful, attainable, and realistic – a
focus on culture is, at best, akin to trying to change the ecology of Lake Ontario.
This, of course, brings one to the question: What are the building blocks of
community building? Where does one start? Arguably, there are a number of
elements that need to considered. (See Figure 2.)
In that a model is, at best, a crude representation of reality any model is, of
necessity, incomplete. Each building block should, however, be considered as
essential – exclude or misalign one of the elements and the (inevitable)
dysfunctional stress will weaken the whole.
One way to explore the critical components of community building is by
posing a number of key questions – questions that are integral to the
management process whether discussed at an executive level or by teams
across the organization:
• Is there a well defined, compelling mission? Do those who are being
invited to join the community know why the community exists? Is the
mission framed by language that has emotional appeal? Does the
mission inspire? Is the language of the mission written such that it
speaks to the cathedral builder, not the stonemason? Does the mission
capture a sense of the value added for all of the stakeholders?
• Have those who are charting the course of the community defined how
they want the community to be perceived, both by those within the
community and those in the external marketplace? How does the
community want to present itself to the world? Is the current perception
aligned with the “defined” identity? If not, what steps are under way to
address the gap?
• Are there any easily understood and easy to interpret guiding principles
as to how the community should deal with the outside world, change,
crisis and/or opportunity? Have important canons that have historically

Exploring the
21st century
organization
39
guided the business/community changed? Eating fish on a Friday! Birth
control! Do members of the community know these guiding principles
have changed? For example, is employment continuity still part of the
organization’s psychological contract? Are “kick backs” to suppliers
unacceptable even in countries where it is integral to that country’s
culture? Before someone is dismissed does there always have to be an
Figure 2.
CONTEXT
the wider
culture,
history,
heroes,
societal
expectations,
language,
symbolism,
myth, story,
mental
models,
ethics,
morality.
MISSION
IDENTITY
VALUES
ASSUMPTIONS
BELIEFS
KNOWLEDGE
(how?)
INFORMATION/SKILLS
DELIVERY (where?)
community
CORE
COMPETENCY
basis of strategic
differentiation
captures the
sounds, images,
emotion and
language of
tomorrow's
success
VISION
(purpose: why do I exist?)
(how do I want to be perceived?)
(guiding principles)
(what has primacy?)
(dominant mind sets)

Journal of
Management
Development
17,1
40
opportunity for him/her to speak to the vice president of human
resources? Is it always the case that we will acquire only businesses that
are non-union?
• When faced with a range of potential directions or when the way
forward is unclear have members of the community been part of an
ongoing dialogue, within the organization, as to what has primacy? Is
quality for example more important than output? Should teamwork
dominate? Is the overt behaviour of senior managers aligned with the
values? Are important management processes such as compensation
and promotion clearly aligned with the values? What filters are in place
to ensure that new members of the community are comfortable with, and
capable of, acting in line with the values? What processes are in place to
separate those who fail to deliver behaviour congruent with the values?
• Are expectations clearly defined? Do members of the community know
what success looks like? In a corporate setting have issues such as
management style, the philosophy with regard to employee involvement,
the role of front-line employees in decision making been clearly
enunciated? Are the language, the metaphors, and the coaching
agenda(s), within the enterprise, aligned with the underlying
assumptions of success? Do front line employees know how business
success is measured? Are they included in discussion around successes
and/or failure outside the scope of their role?
• Is the amount of knowledge available to people within the community
aligned with the emerging needs of the community? How are success and
best practice shared? How does the community draw in knowledge from
the wider community which it is a part of?
• Are training and development available to ensure not only the ongoing
success of the community, but also that the talent is available to fuel
future and ongoing success? Are the teachers within the community
properly trained, respected and meaningfully rewarded?
• Do members of the community know what takes place where and the
logic behind those decisions?
• Are the singular elements of community building supportive of, and
aligned with, the core business competences of the enterprise. Does the
community provide an appropriate behavioural platform for delivery of
the strategy? In the case of a non-commercial community, is that which
the community offers strong enough to attract new members?
• Are the future state of the community – and the future reward for
members of the community – clearly outlined in a compelling vision? Is
the language of the vision such that it excites and draws community
members towards it?

Exploring the
21st century
organization
41
• Does the community have a realistic understanding of the context within
which it is operating? Are the community building blocks flexible/robust
enough to contain the range of cultures implied and the diversity
contained? Is the past recognized and honoured? Are heroes/heroines
and appropriate role models celebrated? Are powerful and enriching
stories kept alive? Is symbolism and its importance recognized?
Organizational versus personal values
Clearly values are an important and pivotal element of community building but
they are not, as has been suggested, the end of the story.
What is meant by values tends to confuse people and especially within an
organizational context. No one who has worked with a management team,
where exploring values is a critical element, for example, has not stumbled over
the issue of individual versus organizational values.
It is difficult to imagine an environment where significant lack of
misalignment between personal and organizational values results in anything
other than the community breaking apart. On the other hand a degree of
difference – as Picasso – may in fact be a healthy dimension of creative tension.
Two distinct approaches to describing values can be seen by comparing two
highly successful organizations. The first, Caterpillar, has built its whole
business and customer interface around “24-hour parts service anywhere in the
world”. The second, Medical Data Sciences (MDS), a Toronto-based
organization servicing the medical field, has delivered performance by focusing
on values such as: respect for the individual, caring and integrity.
A focus on individual values describes, in a way that employees across the
organization can readily relate to: “How should I behave?” A criticism of an
individual focus is that the customer and the market needs are less easily
discerned. MDS elegantly overcomes this dilemma by publishing core business
competences (how the organization creates value for the customer) right along-
side their values. General Electric also deals with the potential confusion in a
creative way: business characteristics down the left hand side of their value
statement, individual characteristics on the right.
It can be argued, however, that, as organizations move into more fluid forms,
where the building blocks of the organization are separated by time and space,
and where innovation becomes a core business competence, personal values
move to the fore. Where the product is knowledge the investment in learning is
extremely high. The talent pool demanded to fuel the growth and survival of
such enterprises is, of necessity, marketed by intellectual independence and a
demand for high quality of life. What is more, diversity becomes not an
administrative burden, but an element of competitive advantage. What binds
talented individuals to such organizations will depend in part on their buy-in
into the overall corporate values; even more important, however, will be a sense
of fit at a personal level, the degree of collaborative support from colleagues,
and the opportunity to balance work and family.

Journal of
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Development
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42
Traditional organizations such as the tobacco giants have found that, if they
offer a high level of financial and job security, individuals will be willing to
subvert their own feelings of self-worth to the apparent benefit of the enterprise.
Tomorrow’s knowledge-based organizations are liable to find that life is not
quite so easy.
Where do we go from here?
The BaMuti Pygmies recount the legend of a young boy who finds a bird
(Turner, 1962, pp. 82-8). When the boy heard the bird sing he thought it had the
most beautiful song in the forest. Because of this he took the bird home to feed
it. The boy’s father was angry that food had to be given to the bird but after
listening to the boy’s pleading he gave in. This happened three times. The first
two times the father gave in and fed the bird. The final time, however, the father
sent the boy away and killed the bird. In killing the bird the father also killed the
most beautiful song in the forest. The father also, immediately after killing the
bird, fell down dead.
The story tells much of what lives at the centre of a Pygmy community. The
legend captures the Pygmies’ love of song and describes how central it is to their
customs. The death of the father underscores how fragile life is and the extent
to which the Forest People’s existence is tied up with the forest. The legend also
poignantly captures much of the essence of Pygmy spirituality and the subtlety
of their beliefs.
One cannot read Team Zebra by Stephen Frangos and Stephen Bennett
(1993) – a book about the revitalization of Kodak’s black and white film business
– without feeling some of the same sense of community. Strangely enough song
was also part of the ritual at Kodak and one line of a rap song, written to
celebrate the success of one team member, contained the following lines:
It was so complex we could hardly see -a
A little patch of forest for all of the tree-a (Frangos and Bennett, 1993, pp. 132-3).
It may not be Academy Award-winning material but it does suggest that the
difference between the two groups, and the way they bonded as a community, is
not, perhaps, so great after all.
Jayne Goodall, the anthropologist, described a patrol by a chimpanzee group
in the following terms:
Perhaps the most striking aspect of patrolling behaviour is the silence of those taking part.
They avoid treading on dry leaves and rustling the vegetation. On one occasion vocal silence
was maintained for more than three hours. When patrolling chimpanzees return once more to
familiar areas, there is often an outburst of loud calling, drumming displays, hurling rocks,
and even some chasing and mild aggression between individuals. Possibly this noisy and
vigorous behaviour serves as an outlet for the suppressed tension and social excitement
engendered by journeying into unsafe areas (Goodall, 1986, pp. 490-1).
What those in leadership roles face is unprecedented, by way of scope,
challenge, and social responsibility, since the early Industrial Revolution. It is a
journey not of boss-ship but kinship. It is a journey that will take all of us

Exploring the
21st century
organization
43
emotionally into “unsafe areas”. And it is a journey where community becomes
not only desirable but essential.
The journey ahead, however, is unlike anything that man has experienced
before. The rate of change in our society is unprecedented. New technology is
changing not just how people communicate, but how we need to think. The
degree of turbulence necessitates, as a first step, that leaders focus on values,
approach problems with an elegant simplicity, and think holistically.
Leaders are also going to have to learn a new set of tools, are going to have to
learn how to sing from a new song sheet. How to orchestrate change, reframe
mental models, build high performance teams, develop breakthrough learning
processes, create new organizational forms, all stand at the top of the learning
agenda. Little will be possible, however, if the bonding needed to allow team
members to move into unsafe territory, is not firmly affixed – if community is
not central to the human chemistry. Leadership means we are all going to have
to learn how to heat up them bones!
References
Deal, T.E. and Kennedy, A.A. (1982), Corporate Cultures, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Dupree, M. (1989), Leadership is an Art, Dell Publishing, New York, NY.
Frangos, S.J. and Bennett, S. (1993), Team Zebra, Oliver Wight Publications.
Fuller, J.F.C. (1970), The Decisive Battles of the Western World, Granada Publishing, London.
Goodall, J. (1986), The Chimpanzees of Gombe, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Hall, E.T. (1976), Beyond Culture, Doubleday, Garden City, New York, NY.
Huffingdon, A.S. (1989), George Weidenfield and Nicholson.
Kluckholm, C. and Kelly, W.H. (1945), The Concept of Culture, The Science of Man and the World
in Crisis, Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Kotter, J.P. and Heskett, J.L. (1992), Corporate Culture and Performance, The Free Press, New
York, NY.
Morris, D. (1994), The Human Animal, BBC Books, London.
Reader, J. (1990), Man on Earth, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.
Revans, R. (1982), The Origins and Growth of Action Learning, Revans and Studentlitteratur.
Senge, P. (1994), The Fifth Discipline Field Book, Doubleday, Garden City, New York, NY.
Sharp, L. (1952), “Steel axes for stone-age Australians”, Human Organization, Vol. 11, pp. 17-22.
Speck, F.G. (1935), Naskapi. The Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula, University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK.
Slater, R. (1994), Get Better or Get Beaten: Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch, Irwin, Homewood,
IL.
Treacy, M. (1995), Discipline of Market Leaders, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Tichy, N. and Charan, R. (1989), “Speed, simplicity, and self-confidence: an interview with Jack
Welch”, Harvard Business Review, September-October, pp. 112-20.
Turner, C.M. (1962), The Forest People, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY.

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