Example, entrepreneurship....
One of the major challenges facing many
organizations is to convert a bureaucratic culture into an
entrepreneurial culture. In a bureaucracy, people are given a set of
resources and manage them as best they can. They think in terms of
following procedures and performing tasks. Bureaucrats get ahead by
building empires.
In an entrepreneurial culture, the
opposite is true. Entrepreneurs run lines of business, and find ways to
serve their customers by acquiring whatever resources are needed. They
focus on delivering products (i.e., results), and are empowered to
perform any tasks and utilize any processes needed to get the job done.
Entrepreneurs abhor overhead (the bureaucrat's empire), and always try
to do the most with the least.
By the way, moving to an entrepreneurial
culture does not mean eliminating the "safety net" that attracted people
to work for large organizations in the first place. It does not mean
putting your personal assets or income at risk, or losing your job the
minute business turns down.
Entrepreneurship means continually
thinking about what it takes to keep your group competitive and your
customers happy, and behaving with the same initiative and caring as if
the business were your own. (Note that this presumes an ethical company
that cares about its people.)
While you can't demand that people care
about the business, the specific behaviors of entrepreneurs can be
described as part of an organizational culture.
For example, leaders might say, "We
proactively seek new opportunities to better serve our customers by
improving existing products and developing our capability to deliver new
products."
And by adopting new behaviors, people
naturally learn to see their jobs in a new light.
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