"Managing Organizational Culture" is a unique, highly participative, two-day workshop developed by GROVEWELL in 2003 for the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (SILR) of Cornell University.  It is part of the Core Curriculum for SILR's Leadership Certificate, the top level in the school's "Management Development" series; for details, click here.

Intended participants in this workshop are supervisors, directors, and managers at all levels who are concerned about, or who have been asked to help to change, the culture of their organization or organizational unit. 

"Managing Organizational Culture" is available directly from GROVEWELL for deliveries throughout North America and Europe. 
 

Course Overview and Outline
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The objective of this course is to provide managers with specific ideas about what they can do, and what they can influence colleagues and subordinates to do, in order to enable the day-to-day practices and procedures of their unit to be more in harmony with its culture.

To pave the way for that outcome, managers need an understanding of "culture," and specifically of "organizational culture."  As well, they need knowledge and techniques for diagnosing the culture of their unit.  Attaining these requires all of the first training day and part of the second.  The question of "what, therefore, to do" is addressed toward the end of the second training day.
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"Managing Organizational Culture" is delivered in five sections:
 

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Section I:  What Is Culture?  This question is answered through completion of the 3-hour business simulation, Randömia Balloon Factory.  For information about this simulation, click here.
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Section II:  What Is Organizational Culture?  Participants address culture in two of its manifestations: (a) Briefly, culture as applied to work and work relationships within the United States or Europe, and (b) More thoroughly, culture as applied to work and work relationships within an organization.

Central to Section II is GROVEWELL's Organizational Culture Estimator.  Part 1 is a 15-item questionnaire that enables each participant to obtain a quick assessment of his/her own unit's culture along five cultural "dimensions."  Part 2 enables each participant to seek, using the same dimensions, a more accurate evaluation of his/her unit's characteristics.  The objective of using the Estimator is to help course participants to become accustomed to thinking about organizational culture in a manner similar to the way anthropologists, interculturalists, sociologists, and organizational researchers have been doing for decades.

Section III: Diagnosing Organizational Culture.  This is the heart of the course.  Thought-provoking and progressively revealing, it's work is grounded in Edgar H. Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd Ed. (Jossey-Bass, 1992), still the most insightful -- yet jargon-free! -- book on organizational culture.  For more information on Dr. Schein, click here.

Guided by Dr. Schein's prescription, participants are led through four sequential steps:

• Describe the culture's artifacts.
• Identify the culture's espoused values.
• Identify the culture's underlying assumptions.
• Evaluate assumptions as aiding or hindering hoped-for practical improvements in their organization or unit.-

Section IV: Managing Organizational Culture.  The assumptions that aid hoped-for improvements are addressed first, the objective being to identify specific action steps that each participant can consciously apply within his or her unit so that the previously identified "aiding" assumptions will actually promote the hoped-for practical improvements.

The "hindering" assumptions are dealt with differently.  The question on everyone's mind, of course, is "How can these assumptions be changed?"  Participants are helped to recognize the enormous costs in terms of time, energy, money, and good will that are necessary for genuine culture change.  If one's organization is willing to take on these costs, then indeed those assumptions can be changed.  In most cases, however, this simply isn't practical.  Participants are encouraged to be realistic, addressing objectives that are within their power to attain.  So the focus of Section IV, as noted in the previous paragraph, is for participants to identify action steps that rely on "aiding" assumptions to promote genuine improvements.
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Section V: Final Activity and Commitments.  Guided by GROVEWELL's highly experienced senior facilitator, this section differs for each participant group.  At its heart is the intention of generating participant commitment to return to the office and actually apply the action steps generated during Section IV.
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Additional Information
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A one-page PDF description is at Grovewell.com/Lead/Managing.pdf.
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To obtain more information, or to acquire "Managing Organizational Culture" for delivery throughout North America or Europe, contact info@grovewell.com.
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For more details about the benefits and features of GROVEWELL's wide range of LEADERSHIP PROGRAMS, click on the various options below.

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