What is Organisational Culture?

Organizational Culture as Defined by Schein
Robert Chenault, Student (University), United States, Member
Schein describes organization culture as "a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. Cultural norms are often referred to as, "the way we do things around here."
In terms of changing culture, efforts should be directed at creating norms that allow for individual preference while supporting the desired behavior.
One of the biggest challenges in successful cultural change is to identify key behaviors that are critical for organizational success. The cultural change effort should then be directed at making that behavior a norm.

Mindset versus Culture
Ronald Liebman, CxO / Board, United States, Member
Trice & Beyer's discussion is excellent, but much of what others pass off as "culture change" these days is not. Rather, it is more often just shifts in espoused values (see Schein). We should not conflate tactics with strategies. (Even T & B were somewhat guilty of this).
True culture change is more often generational than not. If people's most basic cultural assumptions and references are treated as relatively fixed (but not necessarily alike -- see Haidt), we might redefine a quality culture as one that continually expands an organization's value to its customers by giving expression to the values of its employees.
This turns the problem around and yields a different -- but in some ways more interesting -- set of solutions.

ABC: Attitude, Behavior and Culture
Kouwenhoven, Coach, Netherlands, Member
We define Culture as the collective Attitude and Behavior in an organization.
In any organizational change initiative (project/programme) we define the 'new' desired behavior. Not by imposing more rules. We engage all stakeholders and focus on the underlying attitude which leads towards the behavior. We create awareness on the attitude by looking at and addressing the behavior. So by engaging all stakeholders and by rewarding the 'new' desired behavior.
The people involved in time (6 months) change their organizational culture.

What is Culture? What is Organizational Culture?
Jaap de Jonge, Editor, Netherlands
Culture is a concept that is briefly explained as "the way we do things around here". However it is impossible to define the term precisely. Here are a few further observations around the definition of culture:

• CULTURE is the common understanding/agreement about the VALUES (what we feel that matters), the NORMS (what we find necessary to realize these values in practice), the SANCTIONS (what will happen if the norms are not obeyed), and the resulting ATTITUDES and BEHAVIORS in some community.
• Such "community" could for example be all people of a nation, a religious or organizational group, or just a group sharing certain interests. People tend to belong to more than one culture.
• The above "common understanding" can be (partly) recorded explicitly (i.e., in written form), but is more often felt implicitly, unconsciously and tacit among the members of the group.
• There are at least 3 levels on which culture presents itself (Schein).
• There are at least 4 typical corporate culture types (Handy).
• There are at least 5 cultural dimensions (Hofstede), determining how people feel about culture internationally.
• There are at least 8 considerations to keep in mind when changing an organizational culture (Trice and Beyer), because doing so is really difficult.
• There are at least 4 reasons why one should change an organizational culture slowly.

What is Organizational Culture?
William E. Linzey, Business Consultant, United States, Member
The way I address this in organizations is by asking one question: "Who would you hire to work here?" 100% of the time the answer is based on skills, and not on culture.
This is a clear indicator the company has a culture statement/beliefs and yet they DO NOT PRACTICE IT in their hiring process and they go against their culture.
This leads to a redefinition of their culture through the perspective of "whom do you want in your room" and going beyond skill sets which are abundant.
Now, once the perceived culture is changed to an actual culture statement, changes must occur, some organically and some more purposeful.