Organizational Behavior Culture and Conceptual Blocks

Unlike labor efficiency and product quality, the culture of a company cannot easily be quantified into statistics to bring about changes or improvements in a workplace. Just as the quality of a product can affect the future of a company's prospects, the type of culture a company has can affect its future performance as well.

As we grow up, we learn to do things in a particular way, act in a particular way, and respond to issues in a particular way. We learn these behaviors in our homes, schools, work places, and from our life experiences. These patterns of behavior become a part of us and are considered culture. Culture is a collective phenomenon that is shared by a group of people who are in a similar social environment, which distinguishes them from another group of people (Hofstede 5). Culture may vary by region and even within households of the same neighborhood; more importantly, it is learned rather than inherited. For example, where I grew up, it was considered highly inappropriate to use someone's name to address him or her. When I moved to the United States, it took me a month to be comfortable in addressing my teachers by their names. For the first month, I addressed them with "Sir" or "Ma'am," but as I watched my fellow students address teachers with their names freely, I became more confident in doing the same. I soon learned that it was inappropriate even in the United States to address others by their names, and that it was customary to add the salutation Mr. or Ms. in front of the name. The addition of that title made it respectable when addressing someone, although I didn't understand the concept at first as the name of the person was still used. I soon came to realize the importance of using titles when addressing someone. Although the above case is a benign example of different cultural behaviors, it nonetheless demonstrates a structure to these differences which can serve as a base for mutual understanding.

In an ever globalizing world, it is critical to understand these cultural differences, whether you want to cement transnational business relationships, lead teams of scientists from around the world, or introduce products to a new country. Companies and individuals who are unable to reconcile these different patterns of behavior can pay a heavy price through the loss of business or failed partnerships. As such, it is critical for companies and individuals alike to take into account how culture affects them, and how they can deal with different patterns of behavior in people from different parts of the world, and even within their own company. Understood properly, cultural differences and diversity can lead to large dividends for an individual or a company.

Culture plays a critical role in businesses, whether they are large or small. How a company deals with new issues, or comes up with new solutions or products, depends on the kind of culture it has. A company's culture manifests itself through symbols, rituals, values, and heroes. Symbols represent a very superficial aspect of a company's culture, while values represent a company's deepest manifestation of culture (Hofstede 7). The symbols of a company could be represented by a company's logo or slogan, a larger office, reserved parking space, or a particular type of chair. Although a symbol might be seen as a superficial element, a symbol conveys more than it represents; it conveys meaning to those parts of the organization (Hatch 669). A company logo, for example, could represent what the company stands for. The logo of FedEx Corporation not only represents the name of the company, it also conveys forward thinking and movement (the "FedEx Logo"). Values, on the other hand, are difficult to infer. If the owner or the president of the company attaches high importance to customer satisfaction, high customer satisfaction can be considered one of the values of a company.

I would consider one of the companies I previously worked for as having a healthy culture. I worked for a video gaming company that provided gamers with news, reviews, and gaming applications. This was a small company with 6 employees where everyone knew each other very well. Employee responsibilities ranged from site administration, public relations, news editing, content management, marketing, and application develoment. All employees were aware of their responsibilities and worked at their own pace without interference. We all knew that our work would directly affect the prospects of the company; as such, we were all well aware of how much of our work would translate into the company's bottom-line. Everyone at the workplace felt that they had a stake in the future of the company and worked together to ensure it. For example, an employee in the marketing department became aware of a content management system that would greatly improve the efficiency of the company's numerous gaming sites and improve the quality of user experience; he immediately discussed it with the president and different site administrators about the possibilities of implementing it. In a few weeks, the new content management system was implemented throughout the company's online properties. There was also little fear among employees that they might be overstepping their responsibilities and intruding into someone else's work. Employees also had a lot of independence in their work and worked at their own pace. Application developers would build software according to what they and the marketers believe would appeal to the gamers, instead of asking the owner for input or suggestions. In this way, employees had a lot of free hand in their work and were able to work creatively without being micro-managed by the president.

Denison and Fay stated that in order for an organization to be effective, it needed to have 4 cultural traits: involvement, adaptability, mission, and consistency (Denison and Fey 688). Of the four required traits, the company I worked with had two strong cultural traits; the company had strong consistency and involvement, while lacking adaptability and mission.

The company had a strong involvement trait where employees felt empowered, creativity was encouraged, and had a lot of independence was giving in carrying out the work. All the employees considered themselves to be equal partners in the company, even though they themselves didn't have any ownership in the firm. I recall numerous instances where some of the application writers would come up with a marketing idea that would greatly expand the viewership of the company's site, and they would take it upon themselves to implement the marketing idea, even though marketing is not their responsibility. They would interact with the company's marketers and consider possible campaigns that would increase viewership and popularity of the company's numerous sites. Another example was when one of the news editor hit upon the idea of providing game reviews to players. The idea was discussed and quickly accepted, and within weeks, the company started providing reviews for various games.

The company also had a strong consistency trait, where employees strongly agreed with the purpose and the direction the firm was going. If there was a new marketing plan, everyone would pitch in their ideas and coordinate with each other to make sure that the marketing plan was implemented properly and successfully.

Although it lacked a mission and a clear focus on where the company would like to be besides expanding its viewership, the company nonetheless had a very healthy work environment that fostered creativity among employees. It had a work force that was self-sufficient, trusting of the management and their co-workers, and was creative.
When I look back, I believe the company could have done a lot better if it had a very clear mission and stated goals. All the employees in the firm worked with a very vague mission, and the mission being the "preferred gaming portal for players". The company lacked clear benchmarks that would have enabled employees and the management to track the performance of the company. The only benchmarks that were paid attention were the number of visitors that the company's game portals had, the costs in maintaining portals and employees, and more importantly the revenues visitors generated. All other variables, such as user experience, quality of products, and performance of gaming portals in comparison to competitors, were ignored. If I could, I would have probably introduced new benchmarks and stated goals for all the employees to achieve.

I recall an individual from class who talked about the company he was working for as having a very unhealthy culture. Apparently, the firm this colleague worked for was owned by another company from a different country and was enforcing its culture unilaterally in its workplace. The management made unilateral decisions, stayed detached from its employees, and would not open up to suggestions, creating a schism between them and the employees. This unilateral enforcement and unyielding position caused the firm to close down some of its facilities, as the management was unaware of local regulations, and eventual removal of 300 employees.

This company to me represents the archetype of a firm with a very unhealthy culture. I am assuming that the company had a highly politicized culture and a very paranoid work force. The culture may be politicized due to the fact that the parent company was from a different country, and there were probably a lot of power struggles as the management tried to implement the work culture of its host nation without taking employees views into consideration. It also appears that there was opacity and a lack of direction from the top management on what the company's goals and objectives were. This can be inferred from the fact that the management was not aware of local regulation requirements and expected regulations of its own host nation to be sufficient in United States. It appears that the top management did not seem fitting to consult its middle management on implementing proper procedures that would meet local regulatory requirements.

Another example of an unhealthy culture would be that of post-merger Daimler-Chrysler. The differences in organizational culture of these two organizations led to the downfall of Chrysler and eventual annulment of marriage by Daimler-Benz (Weber and Camerer 401). Prior to the merger, Chrysler was one of the most profitable automakers in the United States, and the merger was billed as a "merger of equals." Unfortunately, the managements of both companies overlooked cultural differences of both corporations and only concerned themselves with synergies that would increase the profitability of both companies. The management of Daimler-Benz was more formal and structured, while that of Chrysler was very relaxed. After merging, Daimler-Benz tried to impose its culture on Chrysler, which led to wide-scale dissatisfaction among employees and caused key Chrysler executives and engineers to leave the company. This, in turn, led to a drop in the company's performance and layoffs in the firm, which were never anticipated prior to the merger.

In my opinion, a company has a healthy culture if it promotes free expression of ideas, implements the creative ideas of employees without overburdening them with bureaucracy, has negligible or non-existent visible hierarchal differences between management and employees, and active involvement of employees by the management regarding the direction of the company's future. If a company fulfills the above criteria, I would consider its work environment to be a healthy culture.

My rationales are based on the assumptions that if a company doesn't allow free expression, employees would be hesitant to speak their mind, fearing ridicule or dismissal of their ideas by their co-workers or bosses. This would, in turn, stifle innovation and prevent the company from thinking outside the box. Expression of free ideas isn't just enough; a company needs to put the ideas to work, rather than have them fade away after brain-storming sessions. As such, companies need to foster cross-department relationships that would allow someone who has a great idea in one department to interact with employees from other departments, without having to burden themselves with bureaucracy. For example, when researchers at Charles Schwab proposed software that would allow web trading for retail users, the management recognized the potential of the project and immediately assembled a team to assist the researchers in building the product. In order to avoid bureaucratic delays, the team answered directly to the company; and within 3 months, the team was able to create a commercial product.

Employees also need to believe that their contributions and views are taken into account in regards to the direction of the company, and that they have a stake in its future. In a study carried out by Mishra and Denison, they found that companies that had higher levels of employee involvement performed better (Denison and Mishra 213). For example, Medtronic fostered high levels of employee involvement in decision making, which created a strong sense of psychological ownership and commitment to the organization and its goals. These high levels of involvement translated to a near 90th percentile ranking in its industry compared to Detroit Edison, which had a 35th percentile ranking industry and very low levels of employee involvement. Lack of involvement of employees could result in high employee turnover rate, loss of customers, and even failure of the company. There also needs to be less visible differences between the management and employees, as it could foster greater understanding between them and reduce any perceived gaps the employees might feel they have with their bosses. For example, in a study conducted by Caulkins in Wales, he found that the English model of hierarchal divisions wasn't successful in Wales, even though Wales was part of Great Britain (Jordan 93). Caulkins found that the employees were uncomfortable with explicit employee divisions in the firm and with the highly visible use of a helicopter by the company's director to fly to and fro from home and the office. These visible gaps made the company seem unappealing and intimidating to the employees, and they were the reason for its lack of success in Wales. Although the above example was in Wales, its lesson could be applied in the United States. The elimination of these differences might not always be practical, but reduced visible differences can nonetheless lead to a healthy culture.

Conceptual blocking plays a huge role in today's organizational settings and everyday life. Conceptual blocking is a mindset that prevents people from seeing a problem from a unique perspective ("Habits that block creativity"). Conceptual blocks make problem solving difficult as it makes us think with a very restrictive criteria. Because of this, conceptual blocking leads to managers adopting solutions to problems that are a lot less desirable or overlooking ideas that would allow things to be done in an entirely different way. Reduction in conceptual blocking is heavily desired as it fosters outside-the-box thinking and leads to innovation. Conceptual blocks occur in every type of organization - small, medium, and large. Moreover, most managers do not realize that their ability to see or solve problems is being hindered by conceptual blocks.

Conceptual blocks can take many forms; they could be constancy, commitment, compression, and complacency. Each of these different types of blocks inhibits the ability of people in solving problems creatively. Constancy blocking can occur if a person looks at the problem too narrowly. For example, in Admiral Kimmel's case, the Admiral never considered that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor. In his mind, the problem was that the Japan was going to attack Philippines, Guam, or other islands in Pacific Ocean and would not attack Hawaii. Commitment blocking occurs when a person looks at a problem through past prism or life experiences and use those past experiences as a model in solving current problems. Compression problems occur when people make their own assumptions about their problems and create artificial constraints around it that inhibits their ability in solving the problem. Complacency blocking arises because people do not ask questions regarding their problems thinking that people will consider them to be less intelligent.

Conceptual blocking occurs because we are wired to doing things a particular way. Any problem that we come across is done in a systematic way that conforms to our educational skills or past experiences. So, an accountant who is auditing a company's records might overlook some inconsistencies and might instead just attempt to balance those accounts, instead of considering the fact that the company maybe cooking its books.

As we grow up we learn to do things a specific way, and as we acquire more education our ways doing things becomes more specific, rigid, and almost robotic in nature. It can be said that as an individual accumulates more education, his or her way of solving a problem would be akin to that of a scientific method. But unlike scientific method, most managers and individuals ill-define even the problem itself, and jump to the first hypothesis as the solution.

In order to overcome conceptual blocks, an individual must unlearn things before he can learn to do things in a different way. Some hospitals are solving their current problems through use of divergent thinking. Divergent thinking assists people overcome conceptual problems by searching for different approaches to solving a problem. For example, Georgia Baptist Healthcare saw itself as an airport whose sole function was to coordinate services to external organizations (Gautam 19). An airport doesn't own the terminals, the pilots, or the planes in it; it merely provides services to external organizations operating within it. By seeing itself as an airport, Georgia Baptist Healthcare was able to reduce its costs.

Whether it is coming across a problem in international business relationships or resolving issues domestically, conceptual blocking inhibits managers and employees alike in formulating solutions or coming up with new ways of doing things. For example, let's say the head of Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division hit a few conceptual blocks and couldn't understand why products created by his division like Zune media player and MSN TV was not successful. The conceptual blocks that may have prevented the division head from resolving the issue could have been constancy and artificial constraints. The Entertainment Division head might have had a vertical thinking problem where he narrows his problem too much, and doesn't consider alternative problems or issues that could have affected the performance of his division. For example, he might attribute the failure of Zune player to the overwhelming success of Apple's Ipod. While in fact, the problem might have been that the Zune player was poorly designed or had an operating system that was less than user-friendly. Artificial constraints could have also occurred if he wouldn't accept the fact or take into account that Zune player design was poorly built and unappealing to consumers.

I can recall various instances where conceptual blocking hindered me from coming up with creative solutions. In one particular instance, I was trying to install an online software system that required a lot of complicated procedures. After making sure that the server met all the requirements for setup, I created the required databases, edited the configuration files of the software, uploaded the required files to the server, created the required permissions, and did everything else that was asked in order to carry out a smooth installation. When I tried to install the application, I would get an internal server error. I figured it was an incorrectly assigned permission setting, so I reassigned the permission settings of various files. The problem still persisted, and I thought that I must have forgotten to assign permission to a specific file, or missed uploading a critical file. I looked over the installation manual for required permission settings, re-uploaded the files with new permission settings, and also double-checked to make sure I uploaded all the required installation files. I had similar problems in the past which were resolved through right permission settings, and I figured the current installation process must have had similar problems as well. I tried installing the application and still faced with the same internal server error. I figured on previous occasions the prescribed permission settings in the installation manual didn't always work during the installation, and that I might have to test a few different permission settings before I could get the online software installed. After testing of numerous permission settings, I was getting nowhere. After 4th, 5th, and 6th attempt, I thought I must have missed something very obvious that was stopping me from installing the application.

So, I decided to start fresh and completely deleted all the installation files of the application on the server. After carrying out all the steps required for the installation to the letter in the manual, I proceeded to install the application, and still came across the same internal server error. With the failure at 7th attempt, I figured there was an error on the server side instead of my side. I called up the server administrator, and shared my problem with him. He looked over the server and came across a few security problems and fixed them. Now, with the belief that the error was on server side, I proceeded to make a clean install but once again I faced with the same internal server error.

Disillusioned with my failure at eight attempts, I decided to just abandon the installation process and install a similar but far less desirable program. The installation process of the new program was successful, and I felt that the fault lied with the application program instead of my end or server side. Although the new program was successfully installed, it was nonetheless a poor substitute for the original application program. I decided to make one more attempt the next day and instead work on my other projects. While I was doing some maintenance work, I came across some weird characters that occurred repeatedly through some web pages. Upon further investigation, I came to know that these files were encoded in UTF-8 format than the required standard encoding; the differences in encoding of the files caused the web pages to display weird characters. When I discovered this, it hit upon me that while uploading files, some online applications require that they are uploaded in ASCII mode instead of Binary mode in the file transfer protocol program (ftp). I considered this information too elementary to be bothered with and never took it into account. I immediately checked the data transfer software program and found that the application was in binary mode. Realizing my mistake, I changed the mode and re-uploaded all the files, and proceeded with the installation of the program. Much to my relief, the installation went flawlessly, and the online software system was correctly installed.

In the above example, all four conceptual blocks can be applied which prevented me from obtaining a solution. One of the problems that I had was that of vertical thinking. I considered all problems that might have prevented the installation of the program, including issues with the online software program, an error on server side, wrong permission settings, and missing installation files. I never took into consideration that the error might have been due to an unrelated uploading software program. Perceptual stereotyping was another conceptual block I had. I saw my current problem as a variation of my past problems, and as such made numerous attempts to solve my current problem through past techniques. For example, on numerous occasions in the past, I had problems installing a program when I incorrectly assigned permission settings to required files. I assumed that the same issue applied to my current problem. I made four attempts at solving the problem using my past experiences with incorrect permission settings. In my mind I was sure that the problem I faced was nothing more than an incorrect permission setting, because my previous problems were permission related. I also had a compression blocking, which can be inferred by the fact that I defined my problem too narrowly. I considered the problem to be a case of incorrect security settings that prevented me from installing the application. I did not consider any problems at my end beyond missing any required installation files. Since I already uploaded all the required installation files and set the required permissions, I believed that the errors could not have occurred because of me. Finally, complacency was also a conceptual block that prevented me from resolving the problem. I was so busy with trying to solve the problem that I never took a seat back and evaluated what might the problem be. For most of the part, I was too busy trying to solve the problem. It wasn't until I moved on to other work that I was actually able to think about the issue without attempting to solve it first.
Going to creative workshops would help people in overcoming conceptual blocking. Asking questions on just about everything can also help overcome conceptual blocks (Adams 127). I remember getting tired of my younger cousins asking questions that I thought were annoying and should be considered just as facts. By asking questions, you force yourself to think why are certain things, a certain way. Ways people can overcome conceptual blocking include trying to put themselves in the problem. For example, in my case I could have considered myself as online software that was not able to install itself on the server. I could have generated questions on why the server wouldn't let me install myself or the list the reasons why the server wouldn't have wanted me to be on the server.

Managers can do a lot to promote foster creativity. For example, if a branch faced a problem regarding low customer satisfaction, maybe the employees of the firm could take turns pretending to be the customers and see how it felt like being a customer. Doing so, might give the employees a perspective on how customers view them. They could also come up with contradictory thinking as well. Since the customer satisfaction was low, maybe the employees could brainstorm on how they could further reduce their customer satisfaction. Doing so could provide them with a valuable list that is driving customer dissatisfaction with the branch.