Sherriton and Stern in their book 'Corporate Culture: Removing the Hidden Barriers to Team Success'. contest that corporate culture change is needed for successful implementation of formal teams.
However we ought to bear in mind the following:
- Senior managers trying to implement teams continue to act individually: they are concerned about control over the teams and concerned that consensus decision making is too time consuming. They often set a very bad example, for example, by protecting their turf.
- Team members are typically not used to working in teams. They often are uncomfortable and lack the communication skills to make the teams work effectively.
- Introduction of teams while downsizing or facing threats of downsizing creates forces that are antithetical to teams.
- Corporate culture is defined by four elements.
- Ritualized patterns of beliefs, values and behaviors.
- Management environment created by management styles, philosophies, what is said, done and rewarded.
- Management environment created by systems and procedures.
- Written and unwritten norms and procedures.
- Their book describes successful change in subcultures when top-level support was either absent or sporadic.
- They feel that each major functional organization such as marketing or R&D has its own subculture, as do divisions and other large units of the organization.
- Subcultures are influenced by the overall corporate culture, but subcultures are never the same as the overall culture.
- There is much more freedom to change a subculture than is commonly realized or acted upon
