Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

About the Authors xvii

Part 1 Defining Culture Change Leadership

Chapter 1 A New Metaphor for Culture Change Leadership 3

Chapter 2 What Do We Really Mean by “Leading,” “Culture,” and “Change”? 13

Part 2 Understanding and Assessing the Structure and Practice of Culture

Chapter 3 The Structure of Culture from the Outsider’s Perspective 35

Chapter 4 The Practice of Culture from the Insider’s Perspective 55

Chapter 5 Culture Assessment and Culture Typologies 71

Part 3 Culture Change Dynamics

Chapter 6 The Socio-dynamics of Transformational Change 95

Chapter 7 Culture Change Dynamics in a Mature Company: Alpha Power 123

Chapter 8 A Story of Planned Change and Some Unintended Cultural Consequences: Beta Corporation 147

Chapter 9 When Cultures Meet: Acquisitions, Mergers, Joint Ventures, and Other Multicultural Collaborations 161

Chapter 10 Culture Change Leadership Summary 183

Appendix Tools for Culture Change Planning 191

References 209

Index 213

THE DEFINITIVE RESOURCE ON MANAGING CULTURE CHANGE

Cultures that characterize today's organizations are made up of layers of subgroups and subcultures—all socio-technical systems that come together to influence productivity and performance. This revised Third Edition of The Corporate Culture Survival Guide enables "change champions" at all levels and in all sectors to understand and influence the parts of organizational culture that need to be preserved, evolved, or changed so that organizations can continue to cope with the volatility in markets in which they operate.

In this book Edgar Schein and Peter Schein, renowned experts on corporate culture, introduce stories and practical tools that will help change leaders assess existing cultures and lead change programs. With new case studies and an enhanced focus on key managerial competencies, this edition gives practitioners the knowledge they need to think critically about culture. Rather than simply providing a series of steps to follow, this guide outlines the key ideas in the theory of culture and provides examples of what successful culture change can look like.

Inside, you'll discover how organizational behaviors, values, and shared assumptions form the yarn with which culture is woven. The Corporate Culture Survival Guide explains exactly how culture change works in practice, focusing on both top-down change initiatives and bottom-up culture dynamics. It isn't always easy to identify what, exactly, needs to change within a wholly or partly dysfunctional organizational culture. Even the most enthusiastic change leaders can only enact change in processes they clearly understand. This substantially updated version of this classic guide provides content and context with which to better understand the levers of culture change that committed change champions can learn to employ.

In this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous ("VUCA") world, corporate culture is comparatively stable—it is not easily changed. While culture may shift alongside a strategic pivot or digital transformation, intentional efforts to reshape culture often stymie even the most resilient change makers.

In this new edition, the authors introduce powerful new concepts to highlight that culture has many elements, and that change is not a single linear process but a complex interweaving of changes that require systems thinking. Organizational culture is comprised of layers of technical, social, occupational norms within variable macroculture belief systems in which multi-national corporations operate. In order to lead an organization through culture change successfully, culture champions must be able to understand all the elements of the culture, identify where and why various elements need to be changed, and apply a change model that fits within the company's existing dynamic. The difficulty inherent in doing all that makes culture change a serious, but not insurmountable, problem.

The Corporate Culture Survival Guide has long been a go-to text for change leaders looking to create culture in a start-up, evolve culture alongside growth, and sometimes even change it in the mature organization. This updated edition guides readers through the complicated process of understanding corporate culture in the globalized, tech-saturated reality in which we now find ourselves. The authors demystify corporate culture through stories of change success and failure. Through these case studies framed around practical analytical approaches, the authors show how complex culture change can occur in the right circumstances, and with the right leadership.

Problems with existing corporate culture often come to light only in subtle moments of disjointedness in part of an organization and incongruity across an organization. These diffuse and hard-to-identify symptoms can seem innocuous, but they can also snowball, leading to issues with productivity, safety, high turnover, employee disengagement, and failure to innovate. The stories in this book enable readers to see, hear, and sense the often-hidden culture issues that may be holding their organizations back.

Authors and culture gurus Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein embrace the fact that every organization is unique, and every culture change initiative must reflect that uniqueness. Practical without being prescriptive, this book empowers executives, managers, and change agents at every level to think through corporate culture and lead their organizations toward change solutions that fit.