捣蛋鬼闹翻天电影:为什么要怀疑你的文化

组织文化很有力的影响着一个公司的业绩，至少我们是这样认为的。我经常听那些高管安慰我说，那些工程会完成的，因为“我们有执行文化”，或者是顾客们会被照顾好的，因为"我们有顾客是上帝的文化"。同时文化对于管理不足来说是合理化的。很多次我都听说有工程被搁置因为我们没有很果断的抉择，这完全就是"那只狗吃了我的作业"的管理等同物（这完全就是撒谎）。在

But the problem with all of these statements -- both positive and negative -- is that they don't really mean anything. Worse yet, they can't be translated into any kind of action. At best these declarations are vague generalizations; and at worst they are misleading stereotypes.

但是上面陈述的文化有一个问题就是我们并没有让它们产生实际的意义，不管是正面的还是负面的。更糟的是，我们从没有付诸于行动。好的就是这些声明十分的概括，而坏的就是给别人留下误导的刻板印象。

The truth is that most leaders don't know how to develop a useful picture of their organization's culture, which is why they resort to platitudes. However when managers can better articulate the behavioral patterns that constitute the culture, they can determine which behaviors facilitate results -- and which behaviors should be avoided.

事实就是有很多的领导者并不知道如何构造他们的组织文化，这也就是为什么他们变得迂腐的原因，但是当经理们能够很好的把组成文化的行为模式连接起来，他们又来决定哪些行为对结果有帮助，哪些行为应该被避免。

For example, a large automotive parts company had just completed a merger, and the senior team -- made up of leaders from both firms -- struggled with making decisions. They either took too long to decide, or the decisions just didn't stick. To fix this problem, the team asked themselves some simple questions about the decision-making culture: To what extent are decisions currently made by consensus or by the CEO (on a scale of 1-10)? On that same scale, how were decisions made at your heritage company? And on the same scale, where should the decision-making process be in the new company?

例如，一个大型的汽车零件公司刚刚完成了合并，来自两个公司的高层都争相着做决定，他们要么花很长时间去做决定，要么就是决定根本站不住脚，为了解决这个问题，整个团队有必要问自己一些关于决策制定文化方面的简单问题：由高层一致或者CEO作出的决定应该达到一个什么范围！在这个范围内，在你继承的公司里应该怎么样来做决定呢！在这个范围内，新公司对于这些决策又该怎么推进呢 ！

Each person on the team answered these questions separately, and a facilitator consolidated them as the basis for a group discussion. When looking at the answers, the team quickly realized that the previous companies had very different decision-making cultures (one was a slow process of building consensus, and the other used open, time-bound debate with final decisions made by the CEO). The team members also had very different expectations for how the process should work. By making these differences concrete and conscious, they were able to have a constructive dialogue that led to ground rules for decision-making.

对于这些问题，团队里的每个人回答都会不一样，一个领导者会总结一下然后作为整体的基本决定。当看到这些答案的时候，整个团队意识到两个公司以前的公司有着不同的决策制定文化（一个是缓慢的达成一致意见，而另一个是限时讨论然后由CEO作出决定），同时团队成员对于这些决定该怎样执行也有着不同的期望。通过使这些分歧变得具体明朗化，他们就能够做出一些建设性的谈话并且为决策制定作出一些规定！

Any management team can assess its culture by asking these kinds of simple questions across a range of organizational behaviors. For example: To what extent do we reward individual vs. team results? To what extent do we share information broadly or parcel it out narrowly? To what extent do we encourage or discourage risk?

任何一个管理团队都可以通过向一系列的组织行为问这几个简单的问题来评定自己的文化，例如：我们在奖励个人或者团队成绩的时候应该在一个什么样的范围?我们在分享大量信息或者掩盖信息的时候应该到一个什么样的程度？我们在鼓励或者阻止风险的时候应该到一个什么样的程度？

Asking these kinds of questions can smoke out the differences in expectations that people have about the organization. Not everyone experiences culture the same way, so a structured way to discuss those differences can increase alignment and the ability to take collective action. In practical terms, culture is not an intangible cloud that hangs over a company, but an outcome of the way people behave on multiple dimensions. Better understanding of these behavioral patterns -- and how each person experiences them -- makes it possible to decide whether to continue them or not.

通过问着几个问题，就可以了解到人们对组织不同的期望。当然不是所有的人都认为文化因该是这样的。按照固有的路子去讨论这些差异可以促进团结，增进集体的行动能力。说实话，文化并不是难以理解的悬在公司顶上云团，而是不同规模的人行为方式的结果。更好的理解这些行为模式以及人们对这些行为模式的看法有助于作出决定，决定这些模式是该继续呢还是该取缔 ！