Reading culture
Culture models, diagnosis and structure.
A half day on reading and diagnosing organisational culture: healthy and toxic cultures, the major models, the Cultural Web and the role of structure.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 4 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Culture in Organisations
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders who need to diagnose culture before trying to change it
Overview
This programme offers a half day dive into how culture can be read, named and diagnosed. It begins with Schein's definition and the difference between strong and healthy cultures, drawing on Enron, toxic culture research and the psychological contract. It then compares the major lenses, from Hofstede, Handy and Trompenaars to Schein's three levels, the Competing Values Framework and Denison, before putting diagnosis into practice with Johnson and Scholes' Cultural Web. It closes with Conway's Law and the McKinsey 7S framework, showing how structures, approval chains and even seating plans are culture written down.
Aims
This programme aims to develop the diagnostic eye leaders need before any attempt at change, so they can read their organisation's assumptions, choose the right model, and see how structure and process quietly reinforce or undermine the culture they want.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Distinguish culture from climate and employer brand, and a strong culture from a healthy one, using Schein, the Enron case and the attributes of toxic culture.
- Apply the Cultural Web alongside models such as Hofstede, the Competing Values Framework and Denison to diagnose your own organisation's culture and paradigm.
- Assess how your structures, processes, space and digital tools signal trust or control, and explain why restructuring without culture work tends to fail.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Explain what organisational culture is, using Schein's definition, and distinguish it from climate and from employer brand.
- Distinguish a strong culture from a healthy one, and a positive culture from a merely comfortable one, using the Enron case.
- Describe Hofstede's dimensions, Handy's four culture types and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's seven dilemmas, and explain what each lens is built to show.
- Explain Schein's three levels of culture and why underlying assumptions, rather than espoused values, predict what people actually do.
- Describe the six elements of the Cultural Web and explain how they reinforce the paradigm at its centre.
- Explain how structure and culture shape each other, using Conway's Law and the McKinsey 7S framework.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01How things really get done hereOrganisational culture: positive and toxicBitesize2 modules
- 02Lenses on cultureCulture models: Hofstede, Schein and DenisonBitesize2 modules
- 03Reading the signsCultural web and diagnosing cultureBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Culture in Organisations topic, also sold whole as The way we do things here.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereExplore, 4 hours 30 minutes, £129
- The whole topicImmerse, The way we do things here, 8 hours 30 minutes, £249. Already own the Explore? You pay £120.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms