Assignment
Once again, we can use our discussion as a place to try integrating separate topics. In this case we will integrate organizational culture and change. Note that the Ralph Sink article and Netfix slide deck are relevant to these challenging and important issues.
1. Suppose you wanted to change your organization's culture. What sort of resistance would you expect from employees? How would you deal with this resistance? To what extent is culture manageable? Changeable?
2. Moving from cultural change (Question 1) to general change, answer the following questions. Can organizations stop resistance to change? If so, how? Does organizational culture have a role in significant change? Explain the interaction between culture and change?
3. At the end of Chapter 15, the second cautionary note (page 577) suggests that a dysfunctional personality manifested by a Chief Executive may create the same dysfunctional culture for the organization. Thinking about any organization in your past, have you seen evidence that a key leader has been partially responsible for one or more of the listed dysfunctional symptoms? Or conversely, have you seen a CEO who has been responsible for the symptoms of a strong and functional culture? Did this influence come through artifacts, values, or assumptions (page 592) and/or through any of the five leader roles identified by Edgar Schein (pages 601-604)? Explain in detail.