Monday day 11/2: I really do appreciate the Schein text. What he writes resonates with me – about 95% of the time. Fro this remaining 5%, I feel he can over complicate his point by dividing things up into lists/groupings… I don’t have the text in front of me as I’m typing this so trying to go from memory. At times he’s just a bit hokey. Let me try to make myself clearer. It’s when Schein provides lists of items as if they’re the only possibilities that exist. As I read these lists or tables he includes things like:
- Assumptions
- Categories
- Evolutions…
- Dimensions
- Etc.. *(typographies)
I think I’ll need to come back to this with the book in front of me.
Tuesday day 11/3: Okay. I felt like a heal last night when I was reading Chapter 10. Its like he heard what I was frustrated by and decided to defend his use of the terms bulleted above! He explained how assumptions can be grouped into categories to form typographies which are theories to help us understand things. That sentence I just wrote is a bit convoluted – but I think that’s the premise of what Schein’s use of the terms explains.
When I was reacting to Jennifer’s blog, I found myself describing how ‘on the outside’ of my team’s culture I’ve felt most of this year at work. As my job was dissolved back in January, I’ve extended my employment through mid-December as a project manager on 3 different temporary projects in different departments. I’ve much enjoyed each role and the challenge/excitement that always comes within a new job’s learning curve. One of the issues such temp work evokes in me however is a feeling of not being part of the permanent team. I’ve realized it’s a big deal for me to feel part of things. To help motivate my teammates. To suggest things for the group to do. To feel valued and important. Its good to know what’s important to me in a work environment. I look forward to finding that in whatever my next job is. And what I’m realizing now is that part of why I feel external is because in each of these three short-term temporary projects, I didn’t understand the culture – there wasn’t time to have it ingrained in me.
Whenever I find my next role, I want to proactively enter it with my eyes open to uncover the cultural artifacts initially, recognize them for what they are, and then ask questions (as appropriate) to see how I can uncover the underlying assumptions that create its culture.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI think you've touched on a key point of organizational culture, which is that it takes time to learn a particular culture or subculture. I will be the first person to admit that change is difficult for me, so I have always struggled with the first days/weeks at a new job, new semester in school, etc. Even if people are friendly and the work seems interesting, it takes time to absorb the culture of the environment you will be working in. As you said, a person is going to feel like an outsider for a while, no matter how well everything is going.
In my mind, learning a new culture is developing a new comfort zone for myself. Change is always difficult for me because I hate leaving a comfort zone, even if I know I am moving on to something better. I remember back to my last day at a job I hated, and I still cried at the end of the day because I was anxious and nervous about leaving a known, comfortable environment for something new, unknown, with lots of questions, and where no one knew me yet. I think as we learn a new culture we are also involved with proving ourselves to others and allowing them to know us, which is another form of stress.
Looking back on all my years of school, the beginning of each year/semester was always a period of anxiety for me because I had to get used to new teachers, new expectations, new routines, etc. After spending an entire semester "figuring out" a professor, I had to start all over again with a new professor. I guess classrooms have cultures just as work environments do.
I like the idea of "absorbing" a culture because it implies that it is a slow, gradual process. As you mentioned, we sometimes have to learn new cultures within different subgroups at work, such as when we move to a different department or different position. At my current job, a few of us were moved from offices at one end of the building to the complete opposite end of the building. It would seem that this would not be a major change, since our jobs remained the same, but working in an area where we interacted with different people, and rarely saw the former office neighbors, definitely impacted the feeling of culture. It is amazing that, at a relatively small company, there are even different cultures at different ends of the building. I always try to encourage new employees to be patient as they get to know the people and the company, and also encourage the long-time employees to be welcoming and friendly to the new associates. Sometimes I even see subcultures between those who have worked at the company for many years compared with those who are newer. It really is fascinating to watch the different subcultures develop and interact with one another to form the larger culture.