LOC 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Bolman, Cyanoacrylate, Loose Coupling
11 Apr 2018
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Chapter 12 &13 Bolman & Deal
• Focus on building distinctive identity or community around a brand name
• Zappos Example
o Drink at interview
o They are told to joke around 20% of the time at work
o But very successful and have happy employees
• Symbols arise to sustain hope, belief, and faith
• Symbols are a metaphoric expression of psychic energy
• Tangibles shape our thoughts, emotions and actions
• Symbolic assumptions:
o What is most important is not what happens but what it means
o Activity and meaning are loosely coupled; events and actions have multiple
interpretations as people experience situations differently
o In the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, symbols arise to help people resolve
confusion, find direction, and anchor hope and faith
o Events and processes are often more important for what they express or signal
than for their intent or outcomes. Their emblematic form weaves a tapestry of
secular myths, heroes, and heroines, rituals, ceremonies, and stories to help people
find purpose and passion
o Culture forms the superglue that bonds as organization, unites people, and helps
an enterprise to accomplish desired goals
• Organizational Symbols:
o Culture is revealed and communicated through its symbols
▪ Targets bullseye admiration and emulation
• Myth, Vision, & Values:
o Myth: story behind the story
▪ Can transform workplace into a beloved institution
o Values:
▪ Values characterize what an organization stands for
▪ Traditions and sentiments
o Vision:
▪ Turns an organization’s core ideology or purpose into an image of the
future
• Ex: I have a dream speech
Primer on Organizational Culture
• Culture in organizations
• Schein: pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or
developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal
integration…
• Culture is the values and basic assumptions that operate at a deeper level
• Iceberg metaphor
• Culture is pre-conscious –able to recognize it but below our conscious awareness
• Artifacts are surface level representations of culture
o Ex: US Flag
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