Cultural Web and Leadership

Because business environments change frequently, leaders do not invest enough time understanding cultural differences and their impact on corporate lives.

According to Bolman and Deal (2008) “Culture is both a product and a process. As a product, it embodies wisdom accumulated from experience. As a process, it is renewed and re-created as newcomers learn the old ways and eventually become teachers themselves” (p. 269). While corporate culture may seem elusive, employees, teams and organizations are greatly influenced by behavioural norms within their relevant groups. All are driven by the actor-observer bias. In other words, people are influenced by what other people are doing.

Indeed, leaders should consider corporate culture when steering employees, teams and organizations. As Flyvbjerg (2017) observes, they should take into account “… the wide range of cultural differences they confront, ranging from varying economic and religious ideologies to differing ethnicities and languages” (p. 102). Figure 1 shows the Cultural Web tool developed by Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992. This tool provides a lens through which corporate culture can be helpfully viewed.

Figure 1 The Cultural Web

As Chatman and Cha (2003) observed, “Once leaders embark on the path to using culture as a business tool, it is critical that they regularly review their own behaviour to understand the signals they are sending to members.” (p. 29) Here we propose an example of how leaders should analyse corporate culture by using the Cultural Web tool. But the Cultural Web does more than help think about corporate culture: it actually becomes a compass for leaders to steer transformations and integrations towards the culture leaders wish to become. Figure 2 illustrates how to use the Cultural Web tool when targeting corporate culture. 

Table 1

The Cultural Web, Merger and Acquisition (M&A) programme

To review, there are six fundamental elements of the Cultural Web: 1) Stories and Myths 2) Rituals and Routines 3) Symbols 4) Organizational Structure 5) Control Systems and 6) Power Structures. All are closely interconnected, and each plays its own important role in the cultural ecosystem. The web helps leaders understand the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations - and then take the necessary steps to create the culture they desire. Moreover, exploring gaps between the current culture and the desired one helps identify and properly address multiple subcultures. Further, the Cultural Web tool equips leaders with a broader repertoire of responses to business uncertainties, ambiguities and complexities.

As Bolman and Deal (2008) observe, “Our own cultural ways are often invisible to us because we see them simply as the ways things are — and ought to be” (p. 248). In other words, the Cultural Web helps leaders discover ‘business as usual’ phenomena and correct organizational psychological-optimism bias. Leaders who understand the importance of culture and the complexities of subculture can design cohesive and successful organizational ecosystems.

 References

Bolman L., Deal T. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 2008).

Chatman A. J., and Cha S. E. (2003) Leading by Leveraging Culture. California Management Review, 45(4).

Flyvbjerg, B. (2017) (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management, Oxford: Oxford University Press.