Nama : Ita Purwita Sundari

NIM : 29114876

What is an Organizations Culture

Culture is a unique characteristic of any organization. While the phenomenon of organizational
culture is dificult to defne succinctly, understanding it can help a manager predict how his or her
organization is likely to respond to diferent situations; to assess the difficulties that the organization
might experience as it confronts a changing future; and to identify the priority issues for the
leadership to address as they prepare the organization to compete for the future

The frst is to direct signifcant efort toward understanding the present cultures antecedents
the initial evolution of the organizations culture that came from successfully solving particular
problems.
With this understanding as a foundation, the second thing that managers can do is to fnd or
create a set of new problems that the organization must confront repeatedly and successfully.
These problems must demand a different pattern of response, which pattern ultimately will
constitute the basis of a changed culture.

The Antecedents of Culture

Essentially, there was a time in every organizations history when its members frst encountered a
problem or a challenge that they needed to resolve. That challenge might have been, How do we
develop a new product? It might have been, How do we deal with this customers complaint? or

Culture as a Tool of the General Manager

Strong culture is one of the most powerful tools that a skilled manager can wield. As his or her
organization grows, it soon becomes impossible for the general manager personally to be involved in
every important decision, such as who to hire or promote, when to kill an ageing product line, or
whether to bid or not bid on a particular order. The most the manager can hope for is that all of the
people making decisions in the organization will make them in a way that is consistent with the goals of
the company. The sum of the many autonomous decisions made by various employees must have the
cumulative efect of taking the organization where the manager wants it to go. The only way this can
happen is if the organization has developed clear priorities that employees instinctively employ as
criteria in their dispersed decision-making activities. In other words, strong culture is essential to
consistent decision-making as the organizations size and scope expand

Culture, Capabilities and Disabilities

The general managers dilemma is that while culture is a powerful tool for consistently pursuing a
particular set of goals, culture can constitute a disability at times when change is critical to addressing
new competitive or technological challenges from unexpected directions. Pursuit of a diferent strategy
often requires ways of working and criteria for making decisions that are not in agreement with the
beliefs that the members of the organization developed through prior successful work. This means that

the organizations culture, which constitutes a powerful capability in addressing certain types of
problems, can constitute an equally powerful disability in addressing others. This is true even
though the same people, working in another organizations context, might be perfectly capable as
individuals of succeeding at the new strategy

When Understanding an Organizations Culture Is Particularly Important

Schein discusses four specifc instances in which it is extremely important for a manager to
understand an organizations culture in a rigorous, detailed way. These include: 1) when he or she frst
joins a new organization as a manager; 2) when one company acquires another; 3) when the manager is
coordinating the efforts of different functional groups within his or her organization; and 4) when the
manager is confronting the need to fundamentally change the companys strategic direction, and
by implication, its culture
Schein offers four other ways to develop a deeper understanding of a groups culture when
joining it from outside.
First, he observes that most groups have boundaries, and that as culture becomes welldefned, consensus develops about who is included in the group and who is not.
Understanding the de facto rules for inclusion often reveal many of the important cultural
aspects of a particular group. A way of determining a groups core assumptions and
values is to ask present members what they really look for in new members and to examine
carefully the career histories of present members, to detect what accounts for their inclusion
in the group, writes Schein.
A second way to understand a groups culture is to study the power structure of the
organization. Based on its cultural assumptions, an organization must develop a consensus
on the criteria and rules that determine how a person can obtain, maintain, and lose
power.
Third, Schein notes that one of the most important characteristics of a culture is its reward
and punishment system. Once one has identifed what kinds of behavior are heroic
and what kinds of behavior are sinful, one can begin to infer the beliefs and assumptions
that lie behind those evaluations.

The fourth way is to examine the sorts of problems the organization has repeatedly
confronted and successfully addressed in the past. The problems in many ways are the
mirror image of the culture. The culture is the organizations response to the problems that
it has confronted.

Evaluating Culture in Mergers and Acquisitions

In order to achieve a successful match with an acquired frm, the managers of the acquiring
company must frst have a clear understanding of their own cultureand the capabilities and
disabilities that this culture constitutesbefore looking for other companies to acquire or with
which to merge.

The Role of Cultural Differences in Managing Cross-Functional Processes

Schein encourages managers to view communication breakdowns as symptoms of a deeper root
cause: real diferences in how people perceive and understand the phenomena they encounter,
because of their membership in diferent cultural units. Most communication breakdowns
between people result from their lack of awareness that they are making basically diferent
assumptions in the frst place.

When Strategic and Cultural Change are Required

Managing culture is a complex and vital part of the work of general manager. It can be one of
the most powerful tools that a manager can employ in their eforts to get the diverse and
dispersed set of people that comprise most organizations to work together in a coherent,
consistent and purposeful way. Culture can also be one of the most vexing barriers to
managing change in an organization. An increasing number of people in the worlds of
management and academia have found Edgar Scheins model of culturewhat it is and where
it comes fromto be a managerially useful, intellectually consistent way to frame their work

USING

BUSINESS

STRATEGY TO DRIVE LEADERSHIP

DEVELOPMENT

The model is based on asking the right questions to create a dialog so

that HR and other members of the organization's leadership team have a
common understanding
about what is needed to move forward. At this
point, asking the right questions is critical, not having the right answers.
The checklist that follows can help get you started.
1. Identify the key business strategies for success. By starting with the
business issues, you get a clear line of sight to the organization's
business priorities and future needs. You also gain higher credibility as
a strategic business partner. Review the organization's priorities and
business plans. Here are a couple of key questions to stimulate the
dialogue to get the big picture from the top leadership:
What are the major business challenges?
What changes do you anticipate in future
provided?

markets

and products

2. Articulate the key human

strategies that support
the busi- ness
direction. Get your leaders involved in a dialogue so that they clarify in
their own minds how valuable and necessary it is to have a
leadership-development plan. Work with your leadership to identify
the positions
or management areas that are most critical for
developing bench strength. Begin working with leaders in the most
critical areas of need. Start with the following questions:
What are the core values on which to build the leadership capability?
What are the critical competencies for future success- technical,
organizational, and managerial?
3. Work with your leadership team to come to agreement on the leadership
criteria needed for leaders of your organiza- tion to be successful in the
future.
Based on the key issues in your
organization
and the
organization's values, there are a number of success criteria that may
be important
to your leadership-development planning. Exhibit 1lists
some leadership criteria that typically are critical.

All current and potential leaders in the organization need a clear definition
of the business strategy and what competencies are expected to achieve this
success. The better the understanding these individuals
have of what is
required and expected to be successful in the organization, the higher the
probability that their development efforts will hit the goal.

Use the criteria to identify and evaluate high-potential employees for

targeted development.
Seek nominations fromcurrent leadership and incumbents

The business strategy to address this situation includes:

reducing costs to stay within budget
identifying inefficiencies and overlaps
streamlining processes within and across departments
implementing new ideas for better operations, product improvement,
and new products and markets

A Proposal in Strengthening 5 Elements of Corporate Value, through Cultural and

Transformational Leadership Programs
As an effort in succeeding transformation at PT. Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero)
Base on the Denison Model, organization culture could be a source of
competitive advantage if it posses four cultural traits, which are: involvement,
consistency, adaptability, and mission.These four traits have shown to
relate to organizational effectiveness (Denison et.al, 2006).
Detailed
explanation of the four traits could be seen as follow:
Adaptability: Able to translate business environment demands into
action. Measured by three indexes: creating change, customer focus,
organizational learning.
Mission: Able to define a meningful long-term direction for the
organization. Measured by three indexes: strategic diretion & intent, goals
& objectives, vision.
Consistency: Able to define the values and owns a system that are
the basis of a strong culture. Measured by three indexes: core values,
agreement, coordination & integration.
Involvement:
Building
employees
capability,
ownership,
and
responsibility. Measured by: empowerement, team orientation, capability
development.

Styles and beavior of transformational leader

Transformational
style
Idealized Behavior

Leader Behavior
-

Inspirational
Motivation

Intellectual
stimulation

Individualized
consideration

Idealized attributes

Talk about their most important values and

beliefs
Specify the importance of having a strong
sense of purpose
Consider the moral and ethical consequences
of decisions
Champion exciting new possibilities
Talk about the importance of trusting each other
Talk optimistically about the future
Talk enthusiastically about what needs to be
accomplished
Articulate a compelling vision of the future
Express confidence that goals will be achieved
Provide an exciting image of what is essential to
Re-examine critical assumptions to question
whether they are appropriate
Seek
differing
perspectives
when
solving problems
Get others to look at problems from many
different angles
Suggest new ways of looking at how to
complete assignments
Encourage non-traditional thinking to deal with
traditional problems
Spend time teaching and coaching
Treat others as individuals rather than just as
members of the group
Consider individuals as having different needs,
abilities
Help others to develop their strengths Instill pride in others for being associated with
them
Go beyond their self-interests for the good of
the group
Act in ways that build others respect
Display a sense of power and competence