Organizational Culture and Positioning 69 power and its culture (Gray and Karp, 1994). Change is made even more complex where the perspective and involvement of the family impose the same values and the same cultures rather than shift to match the changing environment.
The preservation of the cultural elements that give fulfilment and uniqueness to an organization has to be weighed alongside the need to make the transition, running ‘the risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water’ (ibid., 28). The process of change therefore requires under- standing and care. New policies are not retained if they conflict with the dominant group’s central core of beliefs or conversely the dominant group will explain failing policies as ‘poor implementation or bad luck’
(Morgan, 1986: 909). This can create a constant rejection of change and promote an endless cycle of mirroring the past rather than moving towards the future: ‘The task of strategic management is organization making – to create and maintain systems of shared meaning that facili- tate organized action’ (Smircich and Stubbart, 1985: 724). Shared mean- ing suggests a shift in culture and perhaps the acquirement of a new personality.
Change is a holistic approach rather than an isolated event: ‘To see problems integratively is to see them as whole, related to larger wholes, and thus challenging established practices – rather than walling off a piece of experience and preventing it from being touched or affected by any new experiences’ (Kanter, 1985: 27). Stability and change them- selves are part of the culture of an organization (Hatch, 1993). This suggests that some organizations are born to die with the seeds of their own destruction lying in their cultural conservatism and inability to change, reminiscent of the strategic architecture or DNA (Kiernan, 1993) that makes up the organizational personality as mentioned in the previous chapter.
Van de Ven and Poole (1995) identify four major schools of thought about the nature of change: life-cycle; evolution; teleological; and dia- lectic. Life-cycle change is through mediation with an organization’s culture, evolutionary change a cycle of random variation, and teleological change through ‘best fit’ selection. The former three theories are more emergent than the latter dialectic theory. Dialectic theory represents shifts through confrontation characterized as the outcome of conflict between forces of stability on the one hand, and change on the other (ibid., 1995). The nature of organizational change seems to reflect the same challenges as individuals adapting to circumstances and environ- ments in the evolution of their lives. Kanter believes that ‘talk is cheap’
(Abernathy, 1998: 44) and suggests that the ability to change is enhanced by a sense of destination and a consistency of policies, prac- tices, systems and structures. She characterizes a change-adept organiza- tion as an innovator, ‘learning’ professional and a collaborator. This suggests that the personality of a ‘growth’ organization should include a trait of change friendliness.
Organizational Culture and Positioning 71 Using the example of Sears in the 1990s, Rucci, Kirn and Quinn (1998) record that there was a change in the logic and culture of the business rather than any change in marketing strategy. Managers talk about a new strategy, speak with conviction about empowerment and customer focus, yet employees rarely understand the point of a new strategy, their role and their contribution to it. They note: ‘Once the energy and excitement – and the results – have peaked, many companies fall back in relief and resume bad habits’ (ibid., 86). Organizational and cultural change or renewal needs to be a part of new strategy rather than a brief operational dalliance. Change itself is part of the positioning strategy that demonstrates ‘in the mind of the customer’ that an organization is
‘growing’ and moving in the same direction as customers rather than lingering in the past.
The ‘anti-change’ approach is often portrayed as: ‘Stay the course.
Keep the adjustments small. No need to change in any major way . . . management for stability . . . we try not to change. We stay the course, maybe accelerate the speed’ (Gorman and Hoopes, 1999: 9). The desire for consistency and stability is a powerful emotion, and yet ‘change builds on what is already known’ (Day and Montgomery, 1999: 8). It is the willingness and ability to change, itself a key element of personality, which contributes to the strategy of an organization. The company’s strategic fit with the environment will inevitably erode unless the organization has a culture that is willing and able to change with the surrounding environment. The marketer has the task of recognizing the need for change, not because things are going wrong, but because the market requires something different. The manner of harmonization as part of positioning strategy is vitally affected by the culture of the organization. The expectation of the customer will rely on the personality of the organization as expressed and portrayed by its behaviours.
Hamel (2000) believes innovation is the answer to beating the com- petition and Prahalad and Ramaswany (2000: 87) observe:
It may sound paradoxical, but rapid change requires that companies have a stable centre. The real challenge for senior managers will be to provide that stability while embracing change. The only way to do that is to develop a strong set of organizational values. That’s not an easy task. It is easier to pay lip service to values than it is to live by them.
This stable centre may be the ‘superordinate goals’ (Waterman, Peters and Phillips, 1980) or ‘shared values’ (Peters and Waterman, 1982) at the centre of the 7S model. Once again, there is reference and
distinction to the importance of reality over perception, in this case related to the need for organizational values and the recognition of the need to adjust to new surroundings. This is a strategic shift rather than a cosmetic gloss suggested by a manipulation of the mind or an image or perception based on advertising.