How
Culture Affects Information Sharing
in an Organization
By
Maribeth Achterberg
Editor's
Note:
The following is reprinted with permission from the November
30, 2001 issues of dmDirect.com. Maribeth Achterberg is an AOK
member and president of Verity
Management Solutions LLC, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
"That is the way
we do things around here."
Have you ever heard
that phrase when trying to affect positive change in your organization?
It really doesn't matter how far-reaching the scope of your change.
It doesn't matter if it is a technology implementation, a deferral
from the tried-and-true market strategy or simply a change in
a scheduled meeting. The ability of your organization to share
knowledge and information is predicated on the cultural temperament
of your organization and its pace of change. New technology and
the ability to analyze complex sets of information for the purpose
of decision support have introduced constant change into the
business environment. If the culture of an organization is not
taken into consideration, changing the manner in which information
is exchanged is an uphill climb.
 What Really Comprises an
Organizational Culture?
Culture is a multidimensional
enigma that envelops the organization. Every member of the organization
contributes to the culture in some manner. The history, style
of leadership, structural stability, level of work-force empowerment
and the ability to adapt to a changing environment all contribute
to the culture of an organization. Shaping the culture to face
changes in the marketplace and environment depends in part on
the ability for the organization's leadership to implement the
guiding vision and mission. Every action taken must align with
these vision and mission statements that express why the organization
exists and how it will corporately conduct itself.
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History and Background of
Organization
An organization's
history and background are the foundation that can be built upon
or a barrier to overcome. Some of the attributes to consider
are:
- The age of your
organization. Many well-established companies are slow to change.
If they have lasted for more than 50 years, then why do things
differently? Conversely, newer organizations tend to sway in
the winds of change and haven't established roots deep enough
to know how to react to new situations.
- The origins of
your organization. Is your firm a conglomeration of many other
smaller entities or a single-site manufacturing firm? There are
considerations attached to either scenario. It is important that
the history of your organization is known. When the pressure
of a change situation is applied, old social norms can pop up.
Understanding the origins assists in devising change management
strategies.
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Leadership Style
How the executives
and senior management interact with the rest of the organization
sets the tone of an organization's culture. Granted, these leaders
cannot single handedly change the culture. (Unless they fire
everyone and start from scratch, not a likely scenario.) However,
their leadership style dictates how they interact with their
direct reports and the general employee population. These interactions
send messages that have an impact on information sharing. Is
the CEO sharing information? Does the average employee know the
financial health of the company or the markets to be focused
upon? Leadership style typically breaks down into two main categories:
- Command and
Control
Task orientation tends to be the marquee of the command and control
leadership style. Micromanaging the direct reports by telling
them what to do, how to do it, when it should be done, by whom
and where it should take place exemplifies high task-related
behavior. There is only one-way communication with the exception
of clarifying questions to make sure the objective is understood
completely.
- Delegating/Empowering
Relationship orientation tends to be more facilitative and communicative.
This leadership style depends on the synergy of the group to
determine the best course of action. The behaviors exhibited
included facilitation, listening, supporting and mentoring the
other employees so that the best possible course of action can
be created together. Employee buy-in is of great importance to
this leadership style.
- Structural Stability
The ability
to withstand a change in organizational culture can be evident
through some of the traditional business measures of stability.
Financial strength, productivity and market focus are traditional
business measures that define the stability of an organization's
structure. However, twenty-first century business models recognize
some less tangible attributes of an organization's structure
that affect a change effort's success.
Are there functional
siloed reporting structures or does the business process dictate
who works for whom? Do the channels of communication flow freely
across functional areas? Can a manager from engineering communicate
a problem to a manager in marketing without involving the senior
managers from each area? It is important to have the strength
of common understanding across the organization to exemplify
its structural stability. If open communication threatens the
ability to produce, the organization is not stable. This means
being able to walk the walk and not just pay lip service to open
communication and business process-related organizational structures.
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Employee Empowerment Level
Just as the leadership
of the organization can have a task or relationship orientation,
so can the rest of the organization. Are the employees empowered
to make decisions in their day-to-day activities that affect
positive business results? The trickling down of decision-making
authority tends to strengthen the fiber of an organization. Granted,
this also means trickling down the accountability for success
as well. Well-trained, well-informed employees are essential
to the successful empowered organization. High empowerment and
high autonomy need to have well-defined guiding objectives.
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Adaptability or Agility
The only constant
in today's business environment is change. Successful organizations
seem to adapt to a change in market conditions seamlessly and
with minimal effort. How are they able to be so agile, so nimble?
The culture is ready for the unexpected. In fact, they expect
the unexpected! Unknowns are part of their day-to-day planning
and routines.
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Vision and Mission Statement
Implementation
An organization's
vision and mission should be articulated and available for the
entire organization to witness and internalize. A vision gets
everyone on the same page and shows where the organization's
future lies. A vision must be shared or an opportunity to buck
the system and cause strife presents itself. Work to cultivate
a shared vision. The mission statement tells the organization,
suppliers and customers who your company is and what its value
proposition is to them.
The statement, "Why,
because this is who we are, " provides the context in which
employees know how to operate and conduct business. The vision
and mission are two very important and foundational pieces of
guiding information that must be clearly communicated to the
entire organization and monitored for adherence to the principles
of your organization's beliefs and ethics. If you cannot share
them, then sharing other critical business items is highly doubtful.
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Assessing the Cultural Impact
on Information Sharing
As previously stated,
the ability of your organization to share knowledge and information
is predicated on the cultural temperament of your organization
and its pace of change. Every organization adapts to change.
It's the speed and flexibility to which this adaptation takes
place that determine success. Assessing the culture and understanding
how to approach knowledge sharing within the organizational structure
supports change efforts. (See Figure 1.)
Figure
1: Assessment of Corporate Culture
Assessing the organization
from a cultural perspective assists in designing change management
plans that address the human factors. Acceptance of new information
sharing processes and technology by the people who have to enact
the processes or utilize the technology is critical to successful
implementation. Therefore, understanding the culture from an
objective compilation of subjective information gathering begins
to map out the barriers to information sharing that can occur.
It also exposes the leverage points resident in the organization
that can positively impact information sharing as well.
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Outcomes
of the Cultural Impact
Assessing the corporate
culture will propel information-sharing efforts. How? By understanding
the context in which knowledge will be perceived and applied.
Depending on how favorable and conducive the culture of your
organization is to sharing information, the extremes of the knowledge-sharing
culture are either to share for the sake of sharing versus hoarding
knowledge and information to protect one's position.
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Information Sharing vs.
Information Hoarding
One would think
that information sharing is always better than hoarding information.
However, sharing information just for the sake of sharing must
have a business purpose at its root. For example, a CEO who decides
to publish the minutes of his senior staff meetings on the company
intranet to prove that the organization's culture is open will
appear to be sharing for the sake of sharing without a sound
business reason. Sharing information should support business
decision making or propel innovation. There must also be a structured
process by which to capture and use the information being uncovered.
Capturing the engineers' problem-solving conversation by the
water cooler so that others in the company can benefit from their
expertise is the benefit information-sharing activities should
return. The corporate culture that supports information sharing
is ahead of the one that does not. However, gaining business
benefit from the activity requires a structured approach to leverage
uncovered information.
Information hoarding
is the other extreme. Information and knowledge still represent
power. This is truer in today's economy than ever before. Organizations
are learning that employee interactions yield new knowledge and
information that can benefit their business in tangible ways.
Hoarding is not always a conscience act of holding back information.
Interestingly, it's not always the highly paid senior manager
that possesses the knowledge to meet the challenge of the day's
pressing issues. Quite often, it's the employee that is not invited
to the strategy session or even asked to contribute that has
the sought-after knowledge. Encouraging and providing an incentive
for those often overlooked people to share what they know will
show returns to the organization via an increased base of knowledge.
Hoarding information results from a lack of trust. If this sounds
too familiar, then focus on some strategies that will help leverage
your organization's culture to begin productive information sharing.
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Strategies to Leverage your
Organization's Culture
A complete cultural
overhaul may not be necessary to encourage information sharing.
In fact, trying to take on that task at the same time you are
trying to foster a sharing environment may be counter productive
to both efforts.
- Change Management
Comprehensive
change management requires a three-phase approach that takes
human dynamics and human needs into account. Each type of organizational
culture needs all three phases to institute a successful change
management plan. However, depending on the organizational assessment
results, one phase may receive more emphasis then the others.
The main objective of each of the three phases is:
Promotion Envision the future environment
with the information-sharing culture in place. Show the benefits
to operating in a knowledge-sharing environment and allow the
leadership to send encouraging, motivating messages. Create tension
between the environment of today and that of the future being
promoted. After the education and training phases are complete
and the new behaviors are in place on a day-to- day basis, offer
incentives to encourage continued practice.
Education Present the theory behind
the vision of the future being promoted to employees. Then the
"why" questions can be answered with sound reasoning
to build a foundation of understanding throughout the organization
Training Provide practical application of
processes, technologies and environments. Allow participants
to experience the new information-sharing environment in a "lab"
setting where clarifying questions can be asked and issues addressed
prior to integrating the new behavior into the everyday work
routines. New human behaviors and practices are being instituted;
therefore, the organization must provide the necessary support
to ensure success.
- Creating Collaborative
Environments
Define knowledge-sharing
communities that affect the high- value business processes and
target them for the first implementations of structured information
sharing. By designing the optimum collaborative community for
the organization's primary business needs, timely, accurate information
will be delivered in context.
- Leadership Modeling
Behavior
A significant
indicator of successfully promoting organizational change is
that the leadership models the desired behavior. In fact, the
first implementation of an information-sharing environment should
be among organizational leaders and from this group to the general
work force. Modeling this behavior helps reinforce the commitment
to changing a corporate behavior and shows the work force there
will be no negative repercussions to sharing information.
- Knowledge Sharing
Benchmark Comparisons
Capture
analytics of information-sharing actions to create best practices
for getting high-velocity work done. Then, benchmark your organization
against others in your industry to determine how you compare
to your competitors. This will allow you to analyze where the
marketplace is pushing your competition rather than where you
want to pull them to in the marketplace.
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Summary
Knowing yourself,
your limitations, weaknesses and strengths provides an advantage
when considering the ability to share and use information effectively.
The same is true with an organization made up of people. Knowing
the culture of the organization is an indicator of corporate
personality. Collectively, the organization's personality dictates
how it will adapt to a change in its environment. Once determined,
the correct change management path can be prescribed and information
sharing can propel the business value of uncovered knowledge
beyond expectations. The synergy experienced by a free flow of
relevant information has great impact on your organization's
ability to leverage its information assets.
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