Disrupting Corporate Culture

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Endorsement
3. Half-Title
4. Title
5. Copyright
6. Contents
7. Acknowledgments
8. Introduction
9. Chapter 1 The 5 Myths of Culture
   1. Your Platform Is Already Burning
   2. Myth 1: Culture Starts at the Top
      1. Value Engineering and Self-Enhancement
      2. It’s What Good Leaders Do
      3. Problem 1: Leaders Overestimate Their Own Influence
      4. Problem 2: Complex Change Does Not Happen through Individual Influence
      5. Problem 3: For a Leader’s Beliefs to Take Hold in the Organization, They Have to Be There to Begin With
      6. Problem 4: Culture Is Not the Sum of Personalities (The Leaders’ or Anyone Else)
      7. Problem 5: Language Alone Does Not Change Culture
      8. Leadership and Culture: There Is a Connection
   3. Myth 2: Culture Is a Physical Thing
      1. Problem: Culture Doesn’t Exist – or Does It?
      2. Culture Doesn’t Make Us Do Anything
   4. Myth 3: One Company, One Culture
      1. Problem 1: Cultural Boundaries Overlap
      2. Problem 2: Region, Nation, and Language
      3. Problem 3: Network Size Limits Culture
   5. Myth 4: Culture Is What We Say We Care About
      1. Problem 1: Norms Aren’t the Whole Story
      2. The Problem with Culture as Values
      3. Problem 1: “Values” Means Different Things to Different People
      4. Problem 2: Values Are Expectations, Not Behaviors
      5. Problem 3: Values Need to Be Already Socialized to Be Adopted
      6. Problem 4: Some Values Are Compensations for Deeper Cultural Forces
      7. Problem 5: Values Cannot Be Instilled by Telling People What to Value
      8. Lived Culture
   6. Myth 5: Culture Is Employee Well-Being
      1. Problem 1: Attitudes and Opinions Are Not Culture
      2. Problem 2: How We Behave Does Not Reflect How We Feel (or Think)
      3. Problem 3: Measuring Items Out of Range
      4. The Gap between Myth and Science
   7. Notes
10. Chapter 2 What’s Wrong With Corporate Culture?
    1. The Great Reductions
       1. Reduction #1: The Problem in MBA Programs
          1. Outdated Theory, Problematic Assumptions, Leaps of Faith, and Anecdotes
          2. The Big Assumption: Culture Drives Business Performance
          3. Reducing Culture to a Dependent Variable
          4. Academic Myopia: Drawing From Too Few Wells
       2. Reduction #2: Dumbing Down for Business
          1. Reduction by Conflation: Culture as Employee Engagement and Well-Being
          2. Reduction by Compartmentalization: Culture as Employee Behavior
          3. Reduction by Coaching: Culture as What Leaders Should Do
    2. The Manager’s Dilemma
       1. A Better Way
    3. Notes
11. Chapter 3 Where Culture Comes From
    1. Deep Structure
       1. The Cognitive Science of Culture: Executive Summary
    2. Culture Comes From Grounded Meaningful Experience
       1. It’s “Meaningful” Because It Worked
       2. Culture in the Brain, the Body, and the World
          1. Evidence From Neuroscience
          2. Evidence From Developmental Psychology
          3. Physiological and Kinesthetic Evidence
          4. Evidence From Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology
          5. Socio-Cultural Evidence
    3. Culture Is Shared Knowledge
       1. Shared Dominant Logics: Transforming Experience into Basic Units of Culture
          1. Evidence for Schemas
          2. Shared Dominant Logics
       2. Making Sense: How SDLs Ground Culture
          1. From SDLs to Culture: Models for Making Sense
          2. Pervasive Forms: SDLs for Sense-Making and Structure
          3. We Think in Analogies
    4. Where Corporate Culture Comes From
       1. Doing Meaningful and Habitual Things: The Ground for Culture
          1. Professionalization
          2. Shared Task Solutions
          3. Differentiated Core Purpose
    5. Functionally Grounded Cultures
       1. The Reference System
          1. Practices and Adaptations
          2. Visible Culture
       2. Discrete Signatures
    6. Notes
12. Chapter 4 Invisible Hands, Invisible Walls
    1. The Reference System in Action
       1. New Company, Old Grounding
       2. Trailblazing
          1. Into the Unthought Known
          2. Finding Culture in Talk
       3. Unthought Knowns
          1. Ethnographic Action Research
          2. Quantitative Analysis
       4. Results
       5. How These SDLs Make Up the Reference System
          1. Patterns in Practice
          2. Adaptations
    2. The I3 Reference System
       1. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FIRST
          1. How Does It Show Up? (Practices and Adaptations)
          2. When Overlearned …
          3. Where Does This SDL Come From?
       2. RULES and CERTAINTY
          1. How Does It Show Up? (Practices and Adaptations)
          2. When Overlearned …
          3. Where Do These SDLs Come From?
       3. MAKING THE ABSTRACT TANGIBLE
          1. How Does It Show Up? (Practices and Adaptations)
          2. When Overlearned …
          3. Where Does This SDL Come From?
       4. FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE
          1. How Does It Show Up? (Practices and Adaptations)
          2. When Overlearned …
          3. Where Does This SDL Come From?
       5. ACTION
          1. How Does It Show Up? (Practices and Adaptations)
          2. When Overlearned …
          3. Where Does This SDL Come From?
    3. The Reference System Supports … Until It Doesn’t
       1. Cultures Are “Perfect” …
       2. … Until They’re Not
       3. Digital Values and Practices
    4. Notes
13. Chapter 5 Change the Practice, Change the Culture
    1. Reference Systems Hold Your Secrets
       1. Exploring One’s Reference System Is an Adaptive Challenge
    2. Changing Reference Systems: The Process Framework
       1. 1 : Define Principles (Values That Enable the Future)
       2. 2 : Gain Perspective (Seeing Dominant Logics and the Whole Reference System)
          1. Option 1: Full Research
          2. Option 2: Partial Research
          3. Option 3: Co-Creation (Reference System Reverse Engineering)
       3. 3 : Prioritize Practices
          1. Practice Areas
          2. Gaining Leverage: The Practice Prioritization Matrix
          3. Changing the I3s Reference System
          4. SDLs Targeted through Practices
       4. Getting More Radical: New Logics for a New Business
          1. Cultures Aren’t Blank Canvasses
          2. What Does Radical Inculcation Look Like? (It Looks Deliberately Developmental)
          3. What Is “Deliberately Developmental”?
          4. Deliberately Developmental Practices
    3. Changing Reference Systems: The Leadership Framework
       1. Holding Environments
          1. Creating Holding Environments
       2. Personal Leadership Orientations
    4. Notes
14. Epilogue: The Way Forward
15. References
16. Index