urgent
please provide 3 multiple choice questions with correct answersfrom the article below.
Strategy and culture are among the primary levers at topleaders’ disposal in their never-ending quest to maintainorganizational viability and effectiveness. Strategy offers aformal logic for the company’s goals and orients people aroundthem. Culture expresses goals through values and beliefs and guidesactivity through shared assumptions and group norms. Strategyprovides clarity and focus for collective action and decisionmaking. It relies on plans and sets of choices to mobilize peopleand can often be enforced by both concrete rewards for achievinggoals and consequences for failing to do so. Ideally, it alsoincorporates adaptive elements that can scan and analyze theexternal environment and sense when changes are required tomaintain continuity and growth. Leadership goes hand-in-hand withstrategy formation, and most leaders understand the fundamentals.Culture, however, is a more elusive lever, because much of it isanchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. Forbetter and worse, culture and leadership are inextricably linked.Founders and influential leaders often set new cultures in motionand imprint values and assumptions that persist for decades. Overtime an organization’s leaders can also shape culture, through bothconscious and unconscious actions (sometimes with unintendedconsequences). The best leaders we have observed are fully aware ofthe multiple cultures within which they are embedded, can sensewhen change is required, and can deftly influence the process.Unfortunately, in our experience it is far more common for leadersseeking to build high-performing organizations to be confounded byculture. Indeed, many either let it go unmanaged or relegate it tothe HR function, where it becomes a secondary concern for thebusiness. They may lay out detailed, thoughtful plans for strategyand execution, but because they don’t understand culture’s powerand dynamics, their plans go off the rails. As someone once said,culture eats strategy for breakfast. It doesn’t have to be thatway. Our work suggests that culture can, in fact, be managed. Thefirst and most important step leaders can take to maximize itsvalue and minimize its risks is to become fully aware of how itworks. By integrating findings from more than 100 of the mostcommonly used social and behavioral models, we have identifiedeight styles that distinguish a culture and can be measured. (Wegratefully acknowledge the rich history of cultural studies—goingall the way back to the earliest explorations of human nature—onwhich our work builds.) Using this framework, leaders can model theimpact of culture on their business and assess its alignment withstrategy. We also suggest how culture can help them achieve changeand build organizations that thrive in even the most trying times.Defining Culture Culture is the tacit social order of anorganization: It shapes attitudes and behaviors in wide-ranging anddurable ways. Cultural norms define what is encouraged,discouraged, accepted, or rejected within a group. When properlyaligned with personal values, drives, and needs, culture canunleash tremendous amounts of energy toward a shared purpose andfoster an organization’s capacity to thrive. Culture can alsoevolve flexibly and autonomously in response to changingopportunities and demands. Whereas strategy is typically determinedby the C-suite, culture can fluidly blend the intentions of topleaders with the knowledge and experiences of frontline employees.The academic literature on the subject is vast. Our review of itrevealed many formal definitions of organizational culture and avariety of models and methods for assessing it. Numerous processesexist for creating and changing it. Agreement on specifics issparse across these definitions, models, and methods, but through asynthesis of seminal work by Edgar Schein, Shalom Schwartz, GeertHofstede, and other leading scholars, we have identified fourgenerally accepted attributes: Shared. Culture is a groupphenomenon. It cannot exist solely within a single person, nor isit simply the average of individual characteristics. It resides inshared behaviors, values, and assumptions and is most commonlyexperienced through the norms and expectations of a group—that is,the unwritten rules. Pervasive. Culture permeates multiple levelsand applies very broadly in an organization; sometimes it is evenconflated with the organization itself. It is manifest incollective behaviors, physical environments, group rituals, visiblesymbols, stories, and legends. Other aspects of culture are unseen,such as mindsets, motivations, unspoken assumptions, and what DavidRooke and William Torbert refer to as “action logics” (mentalmodels of how to interpret and respond to the world around you).Enduring. Culture can direct the thoughts and actions of groupmembers over the long term. It develops through critical events inthe collective life and learning of a group. Its endurance isexplained in part by the attraction-selection-attrition model firstintroduced by Benjamin Schneider: People are drawn to organizationswith characteristics similar to their own; organizations are morelikely to select individuals who seem to “fit in”; and over timethose who don’t fit in tend to leave. Thus culture becomes aself-reinforcing social pattern that grows increasingly resistantto change and outside influences. Implicit. An important and oftenoverlooked aspect of culture is that despite its subliminal nature,people are effectively hardwired to recognize and respond to itinstinctively. It acts as a kind of silent language. ShalomSchwartz and E.O. Wilson have shown through their research howevolutionary processes shaped human capacity; because the abilityto sense and respond to culture is universal, certain themes shouldbe expected to recur across the many models, definitions, andstudies in the field. That is exactly what we have discovered inour research over the past few decades. Eight Distinct CultureStyles Our review of the literature for commonalities and centralconcepts revealed two primary dimensions that apply regardless oforganization type, size, industry, or geography: peopleinteractions and response to change. Understanding a company’sculture requires determining where it falls along these twodimensions. People interactions. An organization’s orientationtoward people interactions and coordination will fall on a spectrumfrom highly independent to highly interdependent. Cultures thatlean toward the former place greater value on autonomy, individualaction, and competition. Those that lean toward the latteremphasize integration, managing relationships, and coordinatinggroup effort. People in such cultures tend to collaborate and tosee success through the lens of the group. Response to change.Whereas some cultures emphasize stability—prioritizing consistency,predictability, and maintenance of the status quo—others emphasizeflexibility, adaptability, and receptiveness to change. Those thatfavor stability tend to follow rules, use control structures suchas seniority-based staffing, reinforce hierarchy, and strive forefficiency. Those that favor flexibility tend to prioritizeinnovation, openness, diversity, and a longer-term orientation.(Kim Cameron, Robert Quinn, and Robert Ernest are among theresearchers who employ similar dimensions in their cultureframeworks.) By applying this fundamental insight about thedimensions of people interactions and response to change, we haveidentified eight styles that apply to both organizational culturesand individual leaders. Researchers at Spencer Stuart (includingtwo of this article’s authors) have interdependently studied andrefined this list of styles across both levels over the past twodecades. Caring focuses on relationships and mutual trust. Workenvironments are warm, collaborative, and welcoming places wherepeople help and support one another. Employees are united byloyalty; leaders emphasize sincerity, teamwork, and positiverelationships. Purpose is exemplified by idealism and altruism.Work environments are tolerant, compassionate places where peopletry to do good for the long-term future of the world. Employees areunited by a focus on sustainability and global communities; leadersemphasize shared ideals and contributing to a greater cause.Learning is characterized by exploration, expansiveness, andcreativity. Work environments are inventive and open-minded placeswhere people spark new ideas and explore alternatives. Employeesare united by curiosity; leaders emphasize innovation, knowledge,and adventure. Enjoyment is expressed through fun and excitement.Work environments are lighthearted places where people tend to dowhat makes them happy. Employees are united by playfulness andstimulation; leaders emphasize spontaneity and a sense of humor.Results is characterized by achievement and winning. Workenvironments are outcome-oriented and merit-based places wherepeople aspire to achieve top performance. Employees are united by adrive for capability and success; leaders emphasize goalaccomplishment. Authority is defined by strength, decisiveness, andboldness. Work environments are competitive places where peoplestrive to gain personal advantage. Employees are united by strongcontrol; leaders emphasize confidence and dominance. Safety isdefined by planning, caution, and preparedness. Work environmentsare predictable places where people are risk-conscious and thinkthings through carefully. Employees are united by a desire to feelprotected and anticipate change; leaders emphasize being realisticand planning ahead. Order is focused on respect, structure, andshared norms. Work environments are methodical places where peopletend to play by the rules and want to fit in. Employees are unitedby cooperation; leaders emphasize shared procedures andtime-honored customs. These eight styles fit into our integratedculture framework according to the degree to which they reflectindependence or interdependence (people interactions) andflexibility or stability (response to change). Styles that areadjacent in the framework, such as safety and order, frequentlycoexist within organizations and their people. In contrast, stylesthat are located across from each other, such as safety andlearning,are less likely to be found together and require moreorganizational energy to maintain simultaneously. Each style hasadvantages and disadvantages, and no style is inherently betterthan another. An organizational culture can be defined by theabsolute and relative strengths of each of the eight and by thedegree of employee agreement about which styles characterize theorganization. A powerful feature of this framework, whichdifferentiates it from other models, is that it can also be used todefine individuals’ styles and the values of leaders andemployees.
