The Corporate Culture Survival Guide

by Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein

Book Overview

By outlining the elements of corporate culture and laying down in plain terms how corporations can assess whether or not they have the "right" culture for their product and organization, this book shows readers how to institute real change. The guide is framed around the questions managers ask most often, such as "What is corporate culture?" and case studies illustrate how to dismantle a dysfunctional corporate culture.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787946990
• ISBN13: 9780787946999
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Teaches About Examining Corporate Cultures

Schein's book, Corporate Culture Survival Guide, is a classic on the subject. This book informs us on how to look beyond stated values and mission statements. One would have to take a lot of time and expend a lot of effort to get to the bottom of it, but it is possible to arrive at an understanding of what makes one corporate culture different than another. My favorite part of the book was where it deals with the lessons learned that get embedded into a culture, particularly a corporate culture. Every group has had challenges and has had to learn what works or doesn't work for them. On a subconscious level, these things become part of the bedrock of a corporate culture. When they are no longer true, when what once worked no longer does, it is no wonder that the culture cannot change readily. I think this book is valuable for anybody since we're all dealing with subcultures of some kind. Especially it is valuable for a consultant charged with making changes to an organization or for a change agent within a corporation.

Outstanding!

Like all of Edgar Schein's books, this contains extraordinary insight. I am recommending this to all of my clients.Dr. Michael BeitlerAuthor of "Strategic Organizational Change"

With all thy getting, get understanding

What an absolutely brillant book!How many people do you know spend time agonizing over something said or an action taken by someone in Senior Management ? How many people do you know who spend time wrestling with stated "values" in light of mixed messages from members of Senior Management ?Vex no more! Mr Schein does an fantastic job helping readers change their thought paradigms. How often do books like this come around ? IT is a classic, add it to your library which should already have Drucker, Juran, Deming, Crosby, Weinberg, Maxwell, Covey and Nadler works. Some may find this a bit difficult to read, but endure, focus your thoughts and reap the enormous benefits!!

"Learning about culture requires effort"

"I am writing again, to supplement my longer books of 1985 and 1992 (Organizational Culture and Leadership, first and second editions respectively), and to be more pointed in my argument. There is now abundant evidence that corporate culture makes a difference to corporate performance; we know that leaders increasingly need concepts and tools for working with culture in varied and subtle ways. If you want to take a serious rather than superficial look at culture in organizations, struggle through this book with me-and let the complexity inform you rather than turn you off...In each chapter, I provide the logic of the argument, but I also give you case material and practical suggestions for what you can do to test the ideas for yourself. I hope the chapter titles are self-explanatory; you should feel free to jump around to follow your own questions. I find that learning to see the world through culturally more sophisticated lenses is fun. You see more, and you understand more. I hope that you too discover that it is fun to have cultural insight" (from the Preface).In this context, Edgar Schein argues that "The bigger danger in trying to understand culture is to oversimplfy it in our minds". Therefore, according to Schein, instead of say that culture is 'the way we do things around here', 'the rites and rituals of our compay', 'the company climate', 'the reward system', 'our basic values', and so on, a better way to think about culture is to realize that it exists at several 'levels'. Thus, he firstly categorizes culture into three levels (more detailed discussion see Chapter Two): 1. 'Artifacts': These are visible organizational structures and processes (hard to decipher).2. 'Espoused Values': These are strategies, goals, and philosophies of an organization(espoused justifications).3. 'Shared Tacit Assumptions': These are unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings (ultimate source of values and action).Hence, after reviewing popular views on culture, he abstractly defines culture as the sum total of all the shared, taken-for-granted assumptions that a group has learned throughout its history. And to give a more realistic view of what culture covers, he outlines the areas in which cultural assumptions make a difference as below (more detailed discussion see Chapter Three). At this point, he argues that "cultural assumptions involve not only the internal workings of the organization but, more important, how the organization views itself in relation to its various environments". In other words, culture is deep, extensive, and complex. It covers all aspects of reality and human functioning. 1. External Survival Issues* Mission, strategy, goals* Means: structure, systems, processes* Measurement: error-detection and correction systems2. Internal Integration Issues* Common language and concepts* Group boundaries and identity * The nature of authority and relationships * Allocati

Practical perspective of corporate culture

I was familiar with Schein's earlier book, it having been a prescribed text in an MBA I was doing, so was intrigued with his directions since writing it. I found this book more useful from a practical perspective. In fact, Schein interlaces small sections called "Practical Implications" thoughout, the idea being to get the reader to think about the culture that they exist and work in. Schein makes it clear that corporate culture is a tough area to get clarity on, since we are deeply immersed in it, and not aware of culture's impact on us. It's hard to look at something from the outside (cultural analysis) when working on the inside. All well and good, a solid practical guide to corporate culture, however where I am finding practical use for Schein's work is in e-business. Schein proves very useful for factoring the cultural dimensions into e-business transformation. I believe that anyone attempting a transformation to become an e-business needs to thoroughly understand corporate culture - something not found in the e-business materials I have seen so far. Schein offers a way of looking at corporate culture that goes beyond the usual platitudes, and attempts to give the reader insights into real understanding. This book should be on the e-business change agent's shelf.