OBSERVABLE ASPECTS OF CULTURE

If an outsider were to come into your organization, what would he or she see? What would appear striking and characteristic of your organization?

1. List some specific structures and processes, behaviors, and dress and personal appearance factors an outsider might find striking.
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2. What cultural artifacts (stories, rituals, symbols, language) are especially representative of your organization’s underlying culture?
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UNOBSERVABLE ASPECTS OF CULTURE

What aspects of the culture would be less visible to an outside observer? What values, norms, and assumptions are hidden beneath the surface?

1. List the core values, the primary or dominant values that are accepted throughout your organization.
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2. What are the basic underlying assumptions of your organization, the taken-for-granted beliefs and philosophies that are so ingrained that members act on them in a given situation without questioning the validity of their own actions?
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CATEGORIZING YOUR CULTURE

1. Which type of culture does your organization most resemble according to the competing values framework (clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, market)?
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2. Perhaps your organization’s culture more closely resembles one of the other types of cultures discussed in the chapter (positive, communal, fragmented, mercenary, networked, ethical, spiritual).
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3. Or possibly you would categorize your organization’s culture in terms different from any of the following categories described:
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THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT YOUR CULTURE

1. What aspects of your organization’s culture have enabled it to be successful?
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2. What aspects of your organization’s culture have constrained or inhibited it from succeeding?
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