In the Wonderland of Management Culture

At the outset, I would like to wish all my readers a very Happy and Prosperous year 2011. Let the year bring a culture of Performance and Prosperity.

Very often we hear about Management Culture. You might have come across many types of companies. They could be family owned organization, publically owned and professionally managed by a specific National or a Multinational organization. There is a common thread of success across all of them. I have heard many debates in my life. I feel lucky to work with all of them. I’m sharing with you what I have heard in different companies.

Let us take a family managed Organization first. The spirit of Entrepreneurship was buzzing all over the organization. Innovative ideas, new thoughts, execution at lightning speed, urge to implement all techniques, were some of the talk of the town. The Management always tried bench marking itself with the best possible in the world. They thought of best practices and how to exceed the expectation of shareholders. In the process, at times, the human feeling did not get the due weight age. But the organization prospered. A good example could be creation of a mammoth umpire by Mr. L.N. Mittal. I don’t remember having heard even a single time the world “Culture.”

Let us take a professionally managed organization. The organization run on best practices, it had time tested systems, decisions were taken based on well debated process. It had a sound management system. People were heard and Manager decided. Again rarely I heard the world “Culture.” One of the best example in this category could be Tata Steel.

The third category of company is a so called Multinational. The Multinational could be an Indian Multinational or a western managed Multinational. I have heard story of a very mediocre performing company in this category. This was one of the cases where I heard about the world “Culture” every now and then. Possibly the company had poverty of Management and performance and got satisfaction by using the world “Culture” all the time. A group of sycophant Managers aligned and echoed the “Culture” word synchronously. For them creating a niche for themselves at cost of anything was the sole goal. The result “ Non-Performance”. In MNC category we all have read and heard about GE and Jack Welcsh. I have not come across the world “ Culture” many time in Jack Welch book. The Performance under Jack Welch is a known fact now and being referred by management practitioner all over.

Based on the above examples, I think culture of the all organizations can be grouped in two categories namely a Performance Culture & a Non-Performance Culture. There is no classification on the basis of origin and management of the organization or any other factor. It is an amazing experience to be a part of performing organization. If you think you are a part of non-performance, sit down, introspect, and get into a performance focussed oganization. You will learn, enjoy and prosper. Performance brings prosperity and not the so called world “Culture”.