Corporate Culture Handbook

The Corporate Culture Handbook, By Gabrielle O’Donovan,
Published Liffey Press, 2006, ISBN 1-904148-97-2

Today, more than ever, the biggest requirement of the CEO is to drive change. The biggest change issue to emerge in this new millennium is corporate culture management. Therefore, many organisations are moving away from piece-meal change projects which target inert structures alone, to driving organization-wide programmes which manage the human landscape also. As a result, HR eaders need to rethink the role they play in supporting the CEO with their remit, ensuring that this includes the
facilitation of culture change.

To this book, Gabrielle O’Donovan brings her experience of having implemented a bankwide culture change programme for HSBC Holdings Hong Kong. ‘Together, We Win!’ Won the Customer Service Grand Award 2003 and an ASTD Excellence in Practice Award in 2005.

She outlines the business case for corporate culture management, puts forward a fieldproven
strategic implementation plan and presents pioneering work on the measurement of a culture change programme. One of O’Donovan’s key tenets is her belief that employees must be active participants in shaping their culture, “not mere passive responders to external mechanisms as suggested in traditional
models of corporate culture.”

In taking this stance, O’Donovan pitches her tent clearly in the camp of Ed Schien of MIT Sloan School of Management rather than align herself with Dr Terrence Deal of Harvard and Allan Kennedy of McKinsey. The models of these three thought-leaders are amongst the most influential in understanding corporate
change. By sharing Schein’s position, O’Donovan adopts a model which argues that members of any community of employees are internally directed and have a need to control their own destinies. Deal and Kennedy, on the other hand, reflect the view that people are externally directed, merely responding to
forces around them.

O’Donovan also points to a new typology of cultures that employs a moral perspective. She argues that organisational credibility and reputation must be based on a history of ethical conduct, the author argues, not on a carefully crafted marketing campaign.

Schein has previously pointed out that creative, entrepreneurial types, who build a strong company culture and value systems, are often rocked to the core when a changed economic environment demands that a new type of company comes into being. He cites the fate of Digital as a powerful example of what can happen when a corporate culture doesn’t adapt quickly enough to change.

“Ask any ex-Digital employees and they will tell you what a fabulous company it was to work in, with an ethos of treating all staff as adult decision-makers. This very strong value system has survived the Digital entity, following its takeover by Compaq. To the founders of a company, culture is sacrosanct, but there comes a very critical transition point when the entrepreneurial stance needs to shift to a marketing and economics position. Some founders have ruined their own companies by sticking to their original value system even though it’s no longer relevant.”

Challenging the notion that every corporation deserves to live forever, Schein has long taken the view that some organisations are destined for extinction, after their core culture has become irrelevant. He has said that “Social values and careers are also affecting the evolution of companies.”

Bringing Schein’s insights bang up-to-date, with this book, O’Donovan has assured that corporate leaders and HR practitioners alike will be able to identify the drivers, expressions and reflections of their prevailing corporate culture and understand what needs to change to nurture and manage corporate change. Throughout the book, new ideas, techniques and models are presented in clear language
that is easy to grasp and turn into action.

Pleasingly for practitioners, only the first third of O’Donovan’s book explores the theory behind corporate culture and cultural change. The rest of the book lives up to the billing of her sub-title: “How to Plan, Implement and Measure a Successful Culture Change Programme”. The tome is avowedly a handbook,
rather than an extensive or elaborate academic analysis. In the section entitled ‘Theory into Practice’ suggests that “for a workforce to rediscover their core purpose and vision, the leadership must go back to the drawing board to discover why the workforce exists in the first place and… where they are going.”

O’Donovan takes us from the drawing board to creating the vision to designing a programme for change, using a stepped series of incisive tasks, chunked down into usable units that could have a significant impact on managing change.
 
A significant contribution to the portfolio of skills available to HR practitioners in organisations of all sizes.

Guy Flouch