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February 2001
ORDER
HERE
EXECUTIVE BOOK SUMMARY: Culture.com
Peg Neuhauser, Ray Bender
and
Kirk Stromberg
Culture.com: Building Corporate Culture...
“Success depends, in
a very nonhierarchical way, upon
information flowing through the organization and coalescing
in the right place. This doesn’t happen by fiat. It’s a function
of culture. Culture is the software that drives an organization.”
--Richard Friedman,
Managing Director of Goldman
Sachs and Co., quoted in the book, Culture.com
Although
Culture.com sacrifices depth for breadth, all the buzzwords
and topics are here, accompanied by plenty of case studies. The speed
of dot.com competition Transitioning to e-business strategies.
Building teams. “Open book” communications. Capturing “brain power”
via knowledge management. Enhancing corporate IQ. Creating strategic
alliances. Leadership in the dot-com age.
The content sometimes
illustrates its own points about our culture’s
rapid obsolescence. Authors Peg Neuhauser, Ray Bender and
Kirk Stromberg completed much of their research in 1999
(judging from the footnotes) and published Culture.com in 2000.
In the cool fluorescent light of 2001, we read passages such as their
paean to Lucent’s departed CEO Rich McGinn, and are reminded
what a difference a day makes. Every chapter concludes with recommendations
for applying the information in your organization.
To the authors’ credit, they offer quarterly updates via their website.
The book does finish strong in later chapters devoted to fresher topics.
(Not to mention, the
book is on sale, and available through our website.)
Some new
characteristics of dot-com companies (and cultures) include:
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Lego teams: Teams are
clustered around events, not accounts.
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Moving from hoarding to
sharing information: the internet has replaced the water cooler and
cracker barrel as the forum for sharing unprecedented amounts of
information. It comes with an array of new implications, from legal
exposure caused by cyber “spam”, to protection of proprietary
information, to the reality and impact of “gripe” bulletin boards
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Keeping the
conversation going: Higher Corporate IQ is more about facilitating
conversation, and knowledge management is more about capturing that
conversation’s essence, than it is about technology.
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Learning to identify
what you don’t know: Both individually and corporately, it is key to
“getting smarter.”
Do
you and your organization:
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Combine learning
techniques? Just a few of techniques available include virtual (on-line)
training, on-site training, informal “five minute” learning,
mentoring, coaching, goal-specific learning proposals, team journals.
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Create the right kinds
of alliances? It is important to understand the differences between
alliances based on: transactions; performance contract; specialized
relationships; and partnerships.
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Address corporate
culture issues BEFORE the merger/acquisition takes place? With trillions
of dollars’worth of M&A activity taking place, the track record of
those without “cultural due diligence” is distressing.
CultureConnects
can help. We offer training support, strategic planning facilitation and
corporate culture assessment. Contact
us.
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