Okay, My Organization Has A Culture. Now What?

 

As most of GTIM nation knows, my third book as well as the webinar I did with the help of ProjectManagement.com involves significant research in the area of ProjectManagement.com’s July theme of Organizational Culture (and, no, I did not bribe Cameron to set this particular theme). In going back over my notes, a couple of things popped that I hold to be rather fascinating about this topic, so I’d like to pass them along.

First off, I’d like to give a call-out to Michael Maccoby’s book The Gamesman (Simon and Schuster, 1977), which I’ve referenced often and will, no doubt, refer to in the future. To take a hydraulic press and metaphorically condense his main point, Dr. Maccoby asserted that there are four types of workers in a given organization:

• The Craftsman doesn’t really care for whom he works, but cares deeply about the output.
• The Company Man tends to take on the persona of the group or team around him.
• The Jungle Fighter gets ahead through calumny and deceit.
• The Gamesman doesn’t see his salary as a roof over his head or food on the table. Rather, he sees it (and other perks) as tokens in some immense game he’s playing. Because of this approach, the Gamesman is both far more likely to master the finer points of the industry he’s participating in, and is more willing to take risks. Generally speaking, this combination tends to make this archetype more successful than the others.

Interestingly enough, psychologist Richard Bartle performed an analysis of people who play massive multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG), and also proposed (wouldn’t you just know it?) a four-tier archetypal pattern of those players. Bartle named his categories after the suits in a deck of cards, so:

• Hearts are those people who play in order to socialize and interact with other players.
• Spades are the explorers of the virtual worlds, digging around to find things of interest or value.
• Diamonds tend to perform the game’s stated objectives or scripted adventures, and reap the rewards for doing so.
• Clubs are there to fight.

And, of course, for those of my readers who have had their Meyers-Briggs type assessed, you are aware that they also use a four-axis evaluation method to determine your type. With all of these people who are way smarter than I am using structures based on four archetypes, who am I to differ?

In order to even address the topic of organizational culture intelligently, we must come up with some sort of basis to actually quantify it. Recall the axiom that that which cannot be measured cannot be managed. I’m going to base my four-tiered architecture on Dr. Maccoby’s assertions, and simply expand them. Here’s my thinking: if Dr. Maccoby is largely right (and I think he is), it stands to reason that organizations comprised of Craftsmen, Jungle Fighters, Company Men, and Gamesmen will tend to take on the aspects of which category holds the most personnel. For example,

• If the organization is dominated by Craftsmen, it will tend to turn out high-quality goods and services, but is vulnerable to being outperformed in market share to organizations that use newer technology to approach such Craftsmen’s quality but at lower prices.
• The organization with a plurality of Jungle Fighters will expend more energy than others harming their competition, the most obvious example being those companies that spend money on politicians willing to pass laws or regulations that raise barriers to entry in a given industry. Another sure-fire tell that you’re working for a bunch of Jungle Fighters is that the organization values loyalty above competence or even success. Craftsmen or Gamesmen trapped in such a situation will see their insightful, sincerely advanced recommendations that just happen to have even the mildest of contradicting-the-status-quo aspects viewed as treachery, or rebellion.
• Gamesmen-dominated companies are extremely dynamic and versatile, and are probably more likely to succeed, especially in newer industries. They are also more likely to fail spectacularly.

“Wait!” I can hear GTIM Nation say, “What about organizations controlled by …”  Then I hear the voices trail off as everybody realizes that Company Men can’t, by definition, dominate an organization, as they tend to assume the persona of the team around them. If you believe that your company’s CEO is, in fact, a Company Man, it simply means that there is a power behind that throne, another person (or persons) making the key decisions that are passed through such a one. And those people are absolutely not Company Men.

So, now that we have a guide to types of Organizational Cultures, what are the major implications? For starters, keep in mind that it’s entirely possible that a plurality (or even majority) of the organizations within a given industry can exhibit the same macro-culture. Easy examples include technology and dot.com orgs, which are notorious for being headed by unconventional, innovative thinkers, i.e., Gamesmen. Commodities-based companies, such as grocery stores or automobile service stations, are notable for quickly eliminating non-Craftsmen, since low quality goods or services for a given cost can’t survive much competition. Jungle Fighter-led organizations can only flourish in areas where performance is subjective, even speculative, such as media companies and political action committees.

I believe that most project-oriented orgs can and do allow for widely varied mixes of the four archetypes, making generalizations about them difficult. However, I think it’s fairly safe to say that

• Gamesmen get the projects in the door,
• Craftsmen deliver the scope on-time, on-budget (implication: most PMs will gravitate towards this archetype),
• Company Men will mirror the behavior of whichever of the above two types are most prevalent or influential, and
• Jungle Fighters will attempt to take credit for others’ successes, and deflect responsibility for their own failures. To whatever extent the said organization adheres to a meritocratic structure will directly influence how successful and common this type becomes. (Proof: the United States Chess Federation is virtually pure meritocracy, and Jungle Fighter tactics are utterly useless there.)

As for useful tactics in surviving in these environs, I can provide, with a high level of confidence, the following guidance…

Oooops! I ran out of blog pixel ink. Tune in next week, to further the discussion on My Organization Has A Culture. Now What?