One challenge that change agents face is determining a way to measure culture in terms that make sense for the application.  Sociology is a relatively soft science.  It is easy, of course, to measure cultural artifacts.  It is also possible to assign a number to espoused values.  However, quantifying core cultural beliefs can be quite frustrating.  The flip-side of the coin, however, is that change agents often find it necessary to direct the development of these core beliefs.  In a previous article (Eyes on Google), I discussed the importance of determining the state of an organization’s culture before implementing intentional change as wells as the desired state of the culture after the change has been introduced.  In light of this, many anthropologists have spent frustrating time attempting to develop a framework that yields quantitative results.  These attempts have been met with varying degrees of success.

This article examines an interesting approach to solving this problem, as attempted by graduate students at Florida A&M University.

Cultural Intelligence: A 360-Degree Assessment

In the span of thirty-six hours, several disparate people’s lives intersect, intertwine, and exert influence over one another.  There are carjackings where the perpetrators are black, racist Caucasian police involvement, drug-addled Hispanic parents, an East Asian pedestrian hit-and-run episode, repeated robberies of a store owned by a Persian, and a Hispanic father who is dedicated to keeping his family safe.  These stories overlap, characters from one vignette appear in other vignettes, filling critical and influential roles.  Yes, this might describe a typical day in Los Angeles; however, it is also the premise for the movie Crash.  Because this movie is very culturally diverse in ways that provoke an emotional connotative response in individuals, three Florida A&M University graduate students used it as a vehicle to measure people’s cultural intelligence, or CQ (Smith, Shrestha, & Evans, 2010).

Smith, Shrestha, and Evans (henceforth referred to in this document as the researchers) developed and tested one method for quantifying an individual’s CQ.  The researchers defined two objectives and used these objectives as a foundation for assessing their achievement.  The first objective was to measure concepts, or subjects’ understanding of multicultural diversity.  The second objective was to measure students’ understandings of causes of multicultural diversity problems (Smith, Shrestha, & Evans, 2010).

The researchers utilized four concepts to analyze cross-cultural interactions: Cultural Perception, Cultural Communication, Cultural Identity, and Cultural Relations.  They then built the assessment exercise, “in which students analyzed the occurrence and significance of the four cross-cultural concepts in various scenes of Crash.”  The participants then Completed the following instrument (see Figure 1).

The researchers conducted this assessment on fourteen subjects, all students at the university.  It is interesting to note that all of the students were African Americans in their early twenties, and eight of the students (over 50%) were female.  The published results are detailed in Figure 2.

From these results, it appears that nearly one-third of the subjects failed to grasp cross-cultural concepts; however, 85 percent of the subjects were able to understand the cause of the related cross-cultural problems.  This is interesting, because it indicates that although individuals may not be aware of cultural issues, they do maintain an awareness of their source.  The report does not mention the background of the subjects, so I assume it is the typical pool of undergrad subjects that may or may not be an accurate sample of the population.

The report concludes with suggestions that the film used “conveyed enough of the texture of real life situations that students could draw on their general knowledge about people-to-people relations (across cultural boundaries) to compete the task of assessing cross-cultural problems” (Smith, Shrestha, & Evans, 2010).  However, the researchers speculate that the selected film was “realistic in nature and may not have been as helpful in identifying the specific cross-cultural concept at play in a movie scene” (Smith, Shrestha, & Evans, 2010).

References

Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural Intelligence. Palo Alto, CA (USA): Stanford University Press.

Smith, W. I., Shrestha, N. R., & Evans, C. L. (2010). 360 -degree Approach to Assesing Cross-Cultural Intelligence: Use of Film. Tallahassee, FL (USA): Florida A&M University.

As a change agent, I like to stay abreast of others in the industry.  To this end, today’s article looks at one successful organization, the Global Business Network.

Global Business Network

The Global Business Network (GBN) is a think tank that provides strategic planning consulting services to client organizations.  It is interesting to note that one of the five founders of the GBN is Peter Schwartz, author of The Art of the Long View.  The GBN has been in operation for 25 years and is a pioneer in the art of scenario planning.  This organization leverages their scenario-planning experience along with a diverse network of resources in order to provide clients with a highly-customized, collaborative, and co-creative consulting service.  In addition to consulting, the Global Business Network offers training courses both at clients’ locations as well as offerings to the public (Global Business Network, 2012).

The GBN seems to support the application of scenario planning in nearly everything it does, from direct consulting, to training, to providing support, to collaborative learning programs.  The organization states that it has several unique approaches, such as outside-in thinking, diversity of perspective, envisioning multiple futures, collaboration, learning through co-creation, all leading to “world-class experience and facilitation” (Global Business Network, 2012).

When utilizing the scenario planning method, GBN recommends that the client first consider external factors and dynamics before considering potential evolution of either the industry or the organization.  The organization subscribes as best-practice to the value of including a very broad range of perspectives (Global Business Network, 2012).  Following the ideals proselytized in The Art of the Long View, the Global Business Network helps and encourages client organizations to identify critical uncertainties and use these to develop multiple scenarios of what the future might hold (Global Business Network, 2012).  This allows clients to make decisions, generate ideas, develop research, create vision, and direct initiatives once the GBN has completed the project (Schwartz, 1996).

The Global Business Network offers many types of support for businesses or individuals interested in scenario planning.  As a measure of direct support, the organization offers collaboration with their client’s team in order to co-design the necessary engagement.  The GBN would then follow up on this engagement by recommending necessary or helpful design and process skills in order to ensure that the project continues after their involvement ends.

The organization further offers what they term “learning through co-creation” (Global Business Network, 2012).  During this approach, the GBN representatives work together with their clients to produce a depth of learning  that benefits the client in the future.  The Global Business Network also claims to offer “World-class Experience and Facilitation”, stating that its practitioners are highly skilled in the design and facilitation process, and that through they are capable of inspiring “break-through ideas, insights, alignment, and action” (Global Business Network, 2012).

There are several training classes offered by this organization.  The programs are scheduled public offerings that might be attended by anyone interested in learning more, and the Global Business Network offers to schedule customized on-site learning programs.  According to the website, the following training courses are currently offered: Developing and Using Scenarios, and Scenarios to Strategy.

References

Global Business Network. (n.d.). About GBN. Retrieved August 11, 2012, from Global Business Network: http://www.gbn.com/about/

Schwartz, P. (1996). The Art of the Long View. New York, NY: Doubleday.

One of the most important elements associated with intentional change is to determine where the organization stands before changes are made and where it should stand after the change has been implemented.  This makes sense:  in order to get to any destination, one must first know where one is and where one would like to go.  The next step to figure out is how to get to your destination.  To determine the best approach, many change leaders look to other organizations whose culture embodies the desired end state.  With this in mind, today’s article focuses on an organization that has developed into a wonderfully weird corporate anomaly often discussed as a model for contemporary organizations: Google.

This article examines the Google corporate culture, as documented by Katrin Weislowski in her 2009 case study entitled Corporate Culture as a Critical Success Factor at Google.  The research conducted by Weislowski (2009) is explored in light of concepts found in Organizational Culture and Leadership (Schein, 2010), and in Built to Last (Collins & Porras, 2004).  The case study was translated into English from the author’s native language, so I used information found in What Would Google Do? (Jarvis, 2009) and Google’s own published history to clarify several of Weislowski’s points and substantiate my own assumptions on the author’s intended message (rather than rely strictly on the translator’s content).

Google

In 1995, two computer science majors met at Stanford University.  Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two young students who disagreed about almost everything, began collaborating on an application that could quickly search and locate information stored electronically.  In 1997, these two young visionaries named their application Google.  They quickly found an investor willing to supply money to help them continue their work, and they began operating out of a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.  From this inauspicious beginning, Google was born.  Within just a few months, Google was incorporated, Page and Brin hired the first Google employee, and PC Magazine began extolling praises, such as Google “has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results” (Google, 2012).

The organization saw relatively quick growth over the next few years.  The company grew from one employee to eight by February of 1999.  Since it was difficult to house ten people in a garage, the company moved to Palo Alto, CA; however, the organization continued hiring.  They hired so many people, in fact, that the fledgling Google quickly outgrew the Palo Alto space and moved once again (in August of 1999) to a location in Mountain View, CA (Google, 2012).

It was during the early formative years of the organization that the foundation was laid for Google’s corporate culture.  There are several cultural artifacts of note that arose during this time.  One such artifact was created when Google hired its first chef, Charlie Ayers.  This was one of the first times that the company hired by committee; Ayers earned his position by winning a cook-off competition, judged by Google employees.  Ayers is an extremely interesting choice in chefs, because his last position was chef for The Grateful Dead (Google, 2012).  This is an indication of the unconventional methods Google uses to source and hire talented people who love what they do.  Google continues to hire by committee, although their current approach is a bit more technical than using a cook off to hire a Dead Head (fan of the Grateful Dead) chef.

Another interesting cultural artifact from this period is the announcement of the MentalPlex, or a Google application that was reportedly able to read the minds of users as they visualize desired search results.  Of course, this was a hoax announced on April Fool’s Day in 2000 (Google, 2012).  The more important consideration is that this is the first time that Google publically showed the playful side of its developing organizational culture.  This cultural aspect continued to evolve along with other aspects of the culture.  Throughout the next decade, there are several further examples of the organization’s sense of humor (and the importance they place on this attribute).  For example, in 2001, Google added Swedish Chef (one of Jim Henson’s Muppets that had a vocabulary nearly limited to the word “Scrumptious”) to the list of language preferences of their application.  Another example is in 2002, Google added the Klingon language (a fictional alien race from Star Trek) to the language interface.  In addition to these examples, Google continued its annual April Fool’s Day hoaxes, announcing (among other things) that search results are powered by pigeons, plans to open a Googlunaplex office on the moon, a Gmail Paper Archive, and a finger fitness program that supposedly got your fingers into shape by typing on the keyboard (Google, 2012).  This love of jokes displayed by the organization is truly an important part of the corporate culture.  It is an indication of how Google is able to take their work and product very seriously while retaining the ability to make jokes at their own expense.  In fact, it is partly this humorous style that draws many users to the company and its wide range of products.

During the years between the company’s beginning and present day, the organization saw tremendous growth (there are more than 70 offices in over 40 countries).  Each office is different, in some ways, from any other office, since the organization focusses on bringing the local culture into each of its offices; however, there are several common items that truly represent aspects of the corporate culture (or personality) that are in every office.  These items include “sharing cubes”, video games, pool tables, pianos, and yurts (Google, 2012).  Clearly, Google places a high emphasis on having fun in the workplace.

Several internal environmental factors led to the development of this cultural anomaly.  Two visionary individuals who enjoyed disagreeing created the organization.  This paved the way for the current emphasis placed on self-expression.  The original Google crew (two founders and one employee) truly loved their work, put in many hours, and found success.  One can only imagine that the three people must have found time to break away from work and play.  Although it is not documented in the Google history, it is not hard to imagine the small founding group playing pranks on each other during April Fool’s Day.  The founders had very different ideas about their ideal workplace, and they worked hard to make the vision a reality in order to attract talented people who have a similar mindset and share a common vision of a workplace utopia.

There are several remarkable idiosyncrasies within today’s Google culture.  For example, Googleplex offices do not have a permanent seating arrangement.  Every office holds up to three people and has room to bring comfort items (such as sofas or canines) to work.  There are fitness centers and day spas where employees may exercise or refresh themselves.  Employees are also expected to bring forth ideas and innovations, which has nearly every employee filling more than one professional role.  Employees are not held to proscribed working hours (Weislowski, 2009).  Employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time working on their own ideas and projects.  This 20% idea has spawned several common Google products, such as Gmail, Google Earth, Flight Simulator, and several important advancements in the main product’s (searching and indexing web page) evolution (Weislowski, 2009).

In the eyes of Google, there is nothing more important than the user experience.  The organization places this priority at the forefront of every product they choose to develop.  The organization then takes this primary product (the user experience) and gives it (and the associated applications) away (at no cost) in an attempt to meet their stated mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google, 2012).

The organization has developed an internal team whose sole purpose is to preserve and enhance users’ experiences.  This team operates on ten espoused values: the experience and application should be useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable (Weislowski, 2009).  Several of these items might seem to be mutually exclusive.  For example, for search results to be useful, they must be comprehensive; however, comprehensive search results seem to be contradictory to the fast value.  This is an indication that Google is not oppressed under the “tyranny of the OR” perspective, where an organization believes that they must choose one goal or another.  Rather, it is an indication that they believe in and rely on “the genius of the AND” perspective, a dualistic approach whereby one may pursue two seemingly exclusive goals simultaneously (Collins & Porras, 2004).

Google’s culture has evolved to a “cult-like” level, where new employees either love and embrace the existing culture, or they detest it and quit (Schein, 2010).  The acculturation process begins during interviews and continues until long after a new employee is hired.  Because this is a very “cult-like” culture, Google has developed an interviewing system that allows nearly everyone to have a hand in choosing an individual to whom an offer of employment is extended.  When talent is identified, interviews are scheduled with those who would be the new employee’s managers, contemporaries, and reports.  These interviews are recorded and maintained in a database so that the existing employees might review and compare the interviews with other interviews.  A hiring decision is made by a committee.  Once the committee makes a decision on the successful applicant, management (or human resources) then steps in to negotiate compensation (Weislowski, 2009).  This process helps to ensure that whoever is hired is a good fit for the position (from a technical perspective) and the workgroup (from a personality perspective).

This organization is certainly unique.  Many practices make Google stand out from any other organization.  By examining the beginnings of this corporate giant, it is clear how the ideals of the founders formed the core ideologies that became the foundation for the current state of the organization’s culture and ultimately shaped the culture of Google.

References

Collins, J., & Porras, J. I. (2004). Built to Last. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Google. (2012). Google Locations. Retrieved July 12, 2012, from Google Company: http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/

Google. (2012). Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Retrieved July 12, 2012, from Google Company: http://www.google.com/about/company/

Google. (2012). Our History in Depth. Retrieved July 12, 2012, from Google Company: http://www.google.com/about/company/history/

Jarvis, J. (2009). What Would Google Do? HarperCollins: New York, New York.

Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Weislowski, K. (2009). Corporate Culture as a Critical Success Factor at Google. Grin.