HRM 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Jeffrey R. Immelt, Herb Kelleher
5 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Culture
• Corporate Culture…defied
o Ho thigs are doe aroud here
o Starts with a vision - usually of the founder or other strong executives -
reinforced over time
o Supported by processes, stories, rites, rituals, slogans, heroes, etc.
o Supported by values, beliefs, standards, etc.
o Itegrated ito a orgaizatio’s perforae aageet syste
o Very difficult to radically change a corporate culture once it is entrenched
• Cultural Leaders
o Cultural leaders articulate a vision for the organizational culture that employees
can believe in and connect with
o Cultural leaders encourage day-to-day activities that reinforce the cultural vision
o Corporate ultures ofte reflet the persoality of the fouder or other
important leaders
o Great cultural leaders:
o Thomas Edison, Jack Welch, and Jeff Immelt - General Electric
o Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard - HP
o Steve Jobs - Apple
o Herb Kelleher - Southwest Airlines
o Walt Disney - Disney
• Levels of Culture
o Visible: above water line
▪ Dress, office layout, slogans, websites, logos, etc.
o Invisible: below water line
▪ Deep alues ad eliefs suh as 3M’s We’re the ost ioatie plae
o earth or Johso & Johso’s alues aout the satity of the
opay’s relatioship ith patiets ad dotors Credo
o Culture Is Complicated
▪ It can have many layers
▪ It can fly in the face of local culture
▪ It can be really difficult to change once it is entrenched
▪ Great example: IBM
• IBM’s Cultural Trasforatio
o Lou Gerstner – formerly of McKinsey and American Express – CEO of IBM from
1993 – 2002
o "When I abolished the black-suit, black-tie, white-shirt dress code at IBM," he
said, "you'd hae thought I just sold the opay to the Russias.
o Total culture change – shift from over-thinking everything to not being perfect,
but delivering FAST!
o Biggest change: 100% of variable pay was based on how well the company was
doing – in order to foster teamwork across the company
• Adhocracy Culture
o External focus with the need to detect, interpret, and translate signals quickly
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
