Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

WHAT IS CULTURE AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

The simplest way of thinking about culture is to liken it to personality and character in the individual. As we grow up, we learn certain ways of behaving, certain beliefs, and certain values that enable us to adapt to the external realities that face us and that give us some sense of identity and integration. As a group or organization grows and succeeds, it undergoes the same kind of growth and learning process. The initial beliefs and values of the group’s founders and leaders gradually become shared and taken for granted if the group is successful in fulfilling its mission or primary task, and if it learns how to manage itself internally. The group’s culture consists of its accumulated learning, and ...