Organizational Culture Paper

OB712 F1

Organizational Culture Paper

March 21st, 2017

Three years ago I joined a new research team that was being set up within a consulting company in Boston after accepting an internal transfer from the India office. Being a strong P type personality, I was very excited about this new career opportunity in a new country after having spent five years with the company already and feeling that my growth and learning had plateaued. On the other hand, as someone who is also a strong I personality type, there was also a sense of apprehension and uncertainty about how I would fit in and adapt to this new environment.

While the consulting company overall had an intimidating, serious, 'nose to the grindstone' kind of work culture and environment, the research team was part of the 'non-client facing' business services team which had a far more relaxed culture and was also based on a different floor. The differences were immediately observable to someone who visited the 2 floors of the organization – one being the consulting and the other being the business services. The visible artifacts on the consulting floor were the hardwood desks and floors, formal attire, the pin-drop silence in the hallways and the cubicle and corner office type work stations which I thought were a good reflection of the image that the organization was trying to portray to its employees and to clients– that we are a firm that takes our work very seriously and, though expensive, when you give us your business you will get your money's worth. The business services floor, on the other hand, had a layout that was far more relaxed and immediately appealed to me. The colors were much brighter, the attire was business casual, we had an open floor seating and managers sat out on the floor with the rest of the team and there was a lot of banter and chatting in the hallways and in the common areas. The new research team was very young (median age was about 26) and had quickly grown to about 80 people in a little under a year so the espoused beliefs and values of the department were still in the formative stage.

A lot of the work that the research and business services team was undertaking was new and groundbreaking in the world of consulting. Ideas such as customer analytics, geospatial analytics, proprietary data and tools etc were being applied to traditional consulting projects for the first time and the company had hired a lot of young and dynamic people with very specialized and varied skill sets to meet these new demands of the business. This sort of led to an almost stereotypical 'start-up' like culture within the department and very unlike anything I had experienced during my more traditional and structured stint with the firm in India. As a mid-level people manager I found my authority and decisions constantly being challenged by my young subordinates. Initially I struggled to come to terms with this, thinking that it was tantamount to insubordination and perhaps would also be considered disrespectful back in India where such behavior is generally not culturally acceptable. However, from my conversations with my peers I soon came to realize that this behavior was common in their meetings as well and was even encouraged. I soon got used to this blurring of lines between subordinates and managers in the decision making process and felt like it was really effective in achieving project objectives. I also realized that my subordinates bought technical skills and expertise to the table that I didn’t possess myself and so, if they challenged some of my decisions, it was only because I often didn’t fully comprehend certain pitfalls and roadblocks associated with processes and was not any deliberate attempt on their part to undermine my authority. This dynamic also had a profound impact on my management style and also on the way I interacted with my own managers. In my regular 1:1 catch up meetings with my subordinates, rather than starting off with me driving the agenda of the meeting and voicing my opinion on how I felt they were doing and how the project was coming along, I would let them start off the meeting and set the agenda. After they had had their say about what they felt was going well and what they would like to see being done differently, I would then round off the meeting with my opinion, responses and any agenda items that I wanted to bring up. I felt like this approach, in this startup like set up where the organization was relatively flat, paid rich dividends in the way I was perceived as a manager and went a long way in earning the respect of my subordinates. It also made me more open and vocal in my upward interactions with my own managers who, like me, had also transferred from other departments within the organization and were also getting used to the new cultural norms. I found initially that with 1 of my 2 managers this practice of challenging some of her decisions was not appreciated by her at first but as time went by she became more accepting and open to my opinions even if they contradicted hers. I felt like the more senior you were, and the more years of experience you had under your belt, the longer it took to adapt to the 'new normal' in this research team. I also felt like the beliefs and values were being driven in many ways bottom up by this young and dynamic batch of very intelligent employees that were constantly challenging procedures and established ways of doing things which forced the higher ups in the organization to sit up, take notice and modify things when needed. Personally it was great to be part of this new team and though I had some teething issues to start with, I felt like it had a very positive impact on my managerial and work style.