Organizational Culture and Leadership (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) [Paperback]

Edgar H. Schein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0787975974 | ISBN-13: 978-0787975975 | Edition: 3

In this third edition of his classic book, Edgar Schein shows how to transform the abstract concept of culture into a practical tool that managers and students can use to understand the dynamics of organizations and change. Organizational pioneer Schein updates his influential understanding of culture--what it is, how it is created, how it evolves, and how it can be changed. Focusing on today's business realities, Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture, offers new information on the topic of occupational cultures, and demonstrates the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve organizational goals. He also tackles the complex question of how an existing culture can be changed--one of the toughest challenges of leadership. The result is a vital resource for understanding and practicing organizational effectiveness.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This easy-to-read, practical guide is packed full of ideas, tools and techniques for influencing culture…” (Health Service Journal, 21st October 2004)

"Professional groups maintain their authority by…having specialised language, rituals and rules (Schein, 1992)." (Nursing Times, September 2006)

From the Back Cover

In this third edition of his classic book, Edgar Schein shows how to transform the abstract concept of culture into a practical tool that managers and students can use to understand the dynamics of organizations and change.

Organizational pioneer Schein updates his influential understanding of culture–what it is, how it is created, how it evolves, and how it can be changed. Focusing on today’s business realities, Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture, offers new information on the topic of occupational cultures, and demonstrates the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve organizational goals. He also tackles the complex question of how an existing culture can be changed–one of the toughest challenges of leadership. The result is a vital resource for understanding and practicing organizational effectiveness.

Praise for Prior Editions of

"Worth reading again and again and again."
–Booklist

"An organizational development pioneer uses an anthropological approach to address a leader’s role in shaping group and organizational dynamics."
–Knowledge Management

"[Schein] is, to use an overworked word, a guru, the recognized expert in the field."
–Inside Business

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 3 edition (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787975974
• ISBN-13: 978-0787975975
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.3 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Primarily academically useful rather than practically useful October 21, 2005

By Lars Bergstrom VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Containing a thorough background treatment of how to think about and measure culture along with a series of case studies, this book is a fairly comprehensive tome on the topic of culture. The analyses of both DEC and a major drug company really helped to drive home the depth of analysis required and the complexity of creating an action plan to change culture in a large organization.

However, what I was hoping to get out of this book was a framework not only for understanding culture, but also for affecting change within a smaller organization. This book fell short in that part, and seemed to imply that the best course of action is to:

1) Find a strong leader to take us through a crisis who makes sure that we follow their ways. Success will cause adoption.

2) Hire a consultant to study us on-site for an extended period of time, after which they will suggest major restructurings.

3) Split up groups and reform under leaders who have the attributes you want to encourage.

I was hoping for some form of prescription for bottoms-up, incremental change or something else similar as well as a more accessible set of tools for analysis, but didn't get that. Again, quite the comprehensive book on the background of culture - I feel much better educated on the subject. However, it didn't leave me with any new ideas on how to safely encourage specific cultural changes.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An educational experience February 19, 2006

By Thomas Kull

Format:Paperback

For novices to org. culture, this book takes you on a thorough journey into the corners of what constitutes an organization's culture. My favorite take-away is that Schein made an abstract concept much more concrete. He creates a nice framework to view org. culture, gives examples continuously and provides many nuggets of knowledge. Plenty of useful references are given as well.

Perhaps because of my specific research, I unfortunately found myself with sporadic tabs through the book to catch the aforementioned nuggets. My unfulfilled hope was to find a more meaningful figure in which to place all the various interactions and cultural process (but perhaps that's for us other researchers to do). More up-to-date examples would also be useful.

In the end, a great read and even better reference book (but you'll have to do the organizing).

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How to get leadership in proper alignment with organizational development July 11, 2007

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I first read Organizational Culture and Leadership more than a decade ago and recently re-read it after reading Organizational Development, edited by Joan V. Gallos and to which Edgar H. Schein provided the Foreword ("Observations on the State of Organization Development") and to which he contributed two articles, "Facilitate Process Interventions: Task Processes in Groups" and "So How Can You Assess Your Corporate Culture?" As Schein notes in the Foreword, the core of organization development (OD) has a number of elements that include "a concern with process, a focus on change, and an implicit as well as explicit concern for organizational effectiveness." I know of no one who has made more and more valuable contributions to the field of OD than has Schein. He is OD's pre-eminent knowledge leader.

He organizes the material in Organizational Culture and Leadership within three Parts:

Organizational Culture and Leadership Defined

Excerpt: "When one brings culture to the level of an organization and even down to groups within the organization, one can see clearly how culture is created, embedded, evolved, and ultimately manipulated, and, at the same time, how culture constrains, stabilizes, and provides structure and meaning to the group members. These dynamic processes of culture creation and management are the essence of leadership and make one realize that leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin...Leadership [must possess the ability and willingness] to step outside the culture that created the leader and start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive. This ability to perceive the limitations of one's own culture and to evolve the culture adaptively is the essence and ultimate challenge of leadership." (Page 2)

Comment: I am again reminded of James O'Toole's apt characterization of a common barrier to change, "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." This is precisely what Jack Welch encountered after he Reginald Jones selected him to be the next CEO of GE. Jones urged him to "blow up" the organization. Schein's point is that although a culture may define leadership, there are situations in which a CEO must re-define the terms and conditions of the leadership needed if the culture itself is to be transformed, as was GE's and as was IBM's after Lou Gerstner became its CEO.

The Dimensions of Culture

Excerpt: "If culture consists of shared basic assumptions, we still need to specify: assumptions about what? The concept of organizational or occupational cultures reflects the ultimate problems that every group faces: dealing with its external environment...Culture is pervasive and ultimately embraces everything that a group is concerned about and must deal with. Beyond these external and internal problems, cultural assumptions reflect deeper issues about the nature of truth, time, space, human nature, and human relationships." (Page 85)

Comment: Here again, Schein stresses the importance of determining with meticulous care what a given culture's shared assumptions are, and then subjecting each to rigorous scrutiny. One of several reasons why so many organizations struggle (with mixed results) to deal with their external environment is the fact that their perspective is limited, if not myopic. Whatever organizational development these organizations achieve is by nature internal only and therefore self-limiting. Henry Chesbrough has much of value to say about open business business models, those that "create value by leveraging many more ideas, due to their inclusion of a variety of external concepts. Open models can also enable greater value capture, by using a key asset, resource, or position not only in the company's own business model but also in other companies businesses."

The Leadership Role in Culture Building, Embedding, and Evolving

Excerpt: "To fully understand the relationship of leadership to culture, we also have to take a developmental view of organizational growth. [Schein covers] the role of leadership in beginning the formation of an organizational culture in Chapter Twelve...[He then describes in Chapter Fifteen] ten different mechanisms or processes that cause cultures to change, and [points out] the role that leaders can and should play in using these processes to skew cultural evolution to their purposes. All of these are natural processes that should be distinguished from what [he calls] managed change, the process by which leaders set out to solve specific organizational problems that may or may not involve cultural elements." (Pages 223-224)

Comment: In the aforementioned Foreword to Organizational Development, Schein suggests that process "is as important as content, and sometimes more important." When identifying and then discussing ten culture change mechanisms in Chapter Fifteen, the focus is indeed on process and Schein notes that the role of the leader in "managing" culture differs at different stages of organizational evolution. For example, during an organization's Founding and Early Growth stage, the main cultural thrust comes from the founders and their assumptions. Hence the appropriateness of incremental change through general and specific evolution, insight, and promotion of "hybrids" within the given culture. Midlife and Maturity/Decline require different culture change mechanisms. Obviously, each stage also has different leadership requirements.

I provide these brief excerpts as well as comments of my own to assist those who read this review to gain at least a sense of the nature and extent of Schein's coverage of an admittedly complicated, indeed formidable challenge: how to get leadership in proper alignment with organizational development to achieve and then sustain an appropriate environment by taking into full account elements that include "a concern with process, a focus on change, and an implicit as well as explicit concern for organizational effectiveness."

What Edgar H. Schein offers is a brilliant achievement.