Managing Culture Clash

‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’

• What is culture?• Why is it useful? • Where does it come from?• How is it transmitted?• What about organisational

culture?

The beliefs of successful founders

are the basis of organisational culture

How culture is transmitted

The truth?

Not everyone can handle it!

When to walk away?

Alarm bells ring when

• ‘Professional’ disciplines are different• Control systems are different in kind• Underlying belief systems are contradictory

How not to take over

When organisations impose their culture wholesale, they lose valuable assets, from better ways of doing things to the hearts and minds of the staff they take over.

How to merge

• Tell new stories• Create new symbols• Create new rituals• Adapt existing routines• Harmonise controls• Harmonise structures• Recruit power brokers• Consider capsules and

allow time to merge