MGT603 GDB 2 (2012) Solution

Thursday, January 12, 2012

MGT603 GDB 2 (2012) Solution

A strong culture is a big obstacle in new strategy implementation. Comment on this statement with solid reasoning.

MGT603 GDB 2 (2012) Solution

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Culture is formed by screening and selecting new employees who share the same values as your organization. However, culture evolves, it is not static. Both internal (hiring, staff turnover, etc) and
external (technology, competition, etc.) factors shape your culture. Your beliefs, vision, objectives and business practices may be compatible with culture. If this is the case, your culture becomes a valuable ally in strategy implementation. On the other hand, if there is conflict then you do not have a strategy-culture fit and you need to do something about it quickly.

Strong cultures promote successful strategy implementation while weak cultures do not. By strong culture, I mean there is a shared belief in practices, norms and other practices within the organization that helps energize everyone to do their jobs to promote successful strategy implementation.

Logical Reason and Example

For example, if your culture is built around listening to customers and empowering employees (both authority and responsibility), it promotes the execution of a strategy that supports superior customer service. In weak cultures, employees have no pride in ownership of work, work is sloppy, there are very few values and people form political groups within the organization. Such cultures provide little or no assistance to implement strategy.

Hence Changing a culture is the toughest of all management tasks. It takes time to change unhealthy culture and you may have to weed out obstacles to a healthy culture. This experience was a valuable lesson for me. In weak cultures, people do not take risks that is needed to succeed. They believe in moving cautiously, preferring to follow than lead.

Some time ago, I was working with a small business that in the software industry. They had been in business for a number of years before I was brought in. One of the things I noticed initially was that there was constant re-work; i.e. bulk of the developers’ time was spent in fixing bugs instead of new development work. Deliverables were always late. Customers who did receive the product found the software buggy. The organization’s reputation suffered as a result. To combat this we initiated a number of measures; from letting unprofitable customers go to introducing time tracking, etc. But we forgot the most fundamental aspect; to initiate a change in the culture.