Recognizing Organizational Culture in Managing Change
Structural changes can serve as the initial intervention for shifting culture.

• Ability to Influence: The extent to which organization members have an opportunity to
  influence decision making.
    
• Comfort with Ambiguity: The extent to which members are comfortable with uncertainty and
  risk taking.
    
• Achievement Orientation: The extent to which members are assertive, goal-directed, and
  achievement-oriented.
    
• Individualism versus Collectivism: The extent to which individual versus group loyalty exists.
    
• Egalitarianism: The extent to which equal opportunity exists for advancement.
    
• Time Orientation: The extent to which the organizational goal/mission is focused on values
  from the past, present, or future.
    
• Space Orientation: The extent to which the physical layout of the organization is public, private,
  or a mix of both.

The 35-item ICF survey was initially used to collect responses from organization members. Following the collection of survey data, an extensive number of interviews were carried out to provide more substantive information concerning organizational culture.
  
Goodwin Company
  
For several years, Goodwin Company, founded in 1922 by Thomas A. Goodwin, manufactured and sold its own line of household cleaning products. However, due to the competitiveness of the retail market, its focus shifted to contract packaging and distribution in the household, industrial, and automotive cleaning markets. Only the original product, Goodwin's Ammonia, maintains the Goodwin label. Still a family enterprise, Goodwin Company currently has approximately 300 employees and manufacturing and distribution facilities in Los Angeles,
California, and Atlanta, Georgia.
  
In response to concerns about increased labor costs and stagnant revenues, an organizational culture study was launched to determine the appropriate change strategy. Forty-three members of the organization, including managerial and clerical staff, completed the ICF survey and 13 one-on-one interviews were conducted.
  
The results revealed the following key findings:

• Ability to Influence: The data indicated that the ability of employees to propose and implement change in the company was low. The interviews suggested that marginal regard for input had caused the staff to become discouraged and had reduced motivation for process improvements.
    
• Individualism/Collectivism: Although Goodwin Company espoused teamwork as a core value, feedback from the management teams in California and Georgia indicated a low level of trust among management, which resulted in a lack of collaboration among the managers.
    
• Time Orientation: The data showed that employees viewed the company as focused on the past and present while lacking a strategic plan for the future.

Proposed Structural Changes
  
Given the results of the study, three recommendations were presented to the management team:

1. Establish a strategic management group that meets weekly to address business challenges, coordinate travel between facilities, and find common ground to build trust.
     
2. Give employees, customers, and suppliers a voice and increase their ability to influence policy and procedures. Initiate an electronic comment box for employees, and implement surveys on customer service and supplier satisfaction.
     
3. Establish a company vision and mission statement to encourage a sense of ownership, and incorporate management teams from Atlanta and Los Angeles to spearhead this effort. Relocate artifacts, such as company photos from the early years and bottles from the product lines of the 1930s and 1940s, to both facilities in order to acknowledge the company's history and longevity and encourage teamwork between members of the two offices.

Outcomes

The establishment of the strategic management team proved to be very beneficial. By having the management team travel between facilities, the group developed a better understanding of the challenges at both locations, and they began to build a baseline of trust. The resulting collaborative effort of the team yielded two new contracts. In addition, Goodwin Company was certified by a major chemical manufacturer as a top facility in the nation, which resulted in requests for manufacturing proposals that would not have been possible without improvements in cooperation among regional managers.
  
Challenges
  
Goodwin Company was able to correlate changes that emerged in response to the organizational culture study; however, not all of the recommendations produced the desired results. For example, the customer service surveys did not yield the expected outcomes due to a lack of customer response. Additional customer contact will likely be necessary for future surveys to be effective. And although the recommendation to create a vision, mission, and values statement was originally well received, the management team eventually backed off the project, deciding that the company vision should come from its CEO.
  
Patagonia
  
Patagonia's corporate headquarters are located in southern California and the company has overseas offices in Japan and France. Revenues in 2007 totaled $275 million and the firm currently has 1,300 employees worldwide, with 382 located in the corporate office. In 1966, founder Yvon Chouinard was dissatisfied with the conventional equipment used in adventure climbing and so he redesigned and manufactured almost every climbing tool to make each stronger, simpler, more functional, and environmentally friendly. From that operational base, Chouinard Equipment, which later became Patagonia, expanded to include outdoor and casual clothing and a line of underwear. The unique mission and focus of the organization was to make the best products, cause no unnecessary harm, and rely on the business model to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. Chouinard's management principles were captured in a self-published book, Let My People Go Surfing:The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.
  
Although the essence of Patagonia's initial philosophy has survived, increased growth and operational complexity have created challenges for the organization in its quest to remain committed to the mission. To better understand the underlying issues and develop a strategic direction, an organizational culture study was initiated. Using the ICF, 27 surveys were completed at the corporate office along with 15 one-on-one interviews with 4 senior managers and 11 mid-level managers from 8 departments.
  
Key Findings

• Ability to influence: The data showed that organization members felt they had a moderately high degree of opportunity to influence, but the inclusion of their input also led to a prolonged decision-making process.
    
• Comfort with ambiguity: Although the climate seemed to foster innovation and encourage risk taking, the lack of a systematic feedback process minimized the flow of ideas. In addition, the dilemma ofattending to what appear to be dichotomous goals-attaining a profitable return while maintaining acommitment to environmentally safe products-created a challenge.
    
• Individualism/Collectivism: Patagonia attempted to build community by establishing an on-site childcare center, comprehensive health insurance, and a family setting. However, the company employs a large number of unique and creative independent-minded people, and in supporting innovation, it created a sense of individualism, as well as a limited incentive for teamwork.

Although Patagonia has been successful, the study indicated that to remain competitive, the organization needed to address the duality of encouraging individual creativity and promoting a collaborative work environment, particularly as this duality related to the corporate mission. In addition, it appeared that information flow and decision-making efficiency needed to be addressed.

Outcomes

1. The human resources director was appointed to the senior management steering team to assist in the development of a strategic training initiative. Training courses were developed to provide skills directed toward facilitating performance management feedback, improving communication skills, and enhancing negotiation capability in dealing with suppliers.
     
2. A new employee training manual was created to better educate new hires regarding the organizational structure and the flow of product lines from development to sales. The purpose was to build teamwork and collaboration and to emphasize the company's core values related to quality, integrity, environmentalism, and the desire to not be bound by convention. In addition, Yvon Chouinard's book was presented to each hire with the hope of inculcating new members to the principles associated with the organization's mission.
     
3. All employees are now encouraged to participate in the Patagonia National Park protection program in Chile and Argentina to reinforce the importance of the mission statement and its meaning in their work. Employees receive a salary and all related expenses are paid by the organization during the three-week program.
     
4. The selection process for hiring new members was reviewed with a focus on measuring candidates' knowledge and skills, particularly their ability to work in a team.

Challenges