Performance management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Performance management - Essay Example Impact of organizational culture however depends on its pervasiveness within an organization whether it is widespread, or shared among the members of the group. 2. Can the culture of an organization be changed to increase performance?   To better answer, culture must be first placed in proper perspective of what it is really all about and what it does so that any attempt to determine whether culture can be changed to increase performance will be properly grounded. Culture, is the shared philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions, beliefs, expectations, attitude, and norms that knit a community together. All of these interrelated psychological qualities reveal a groups agreement, implicit or explicit, on how to approach decisions and problems: â€Å"the ways things are done around here.† (Kilmann, 1986). Culture is manifest in behavioral norms, hidden assumptions, and human nature, each occurring at a different level of depth. â€Å"At its deepest level, culture is the co llective manifestation of human nature – the collection of human dynamics, wants, motives and desires that make a group of people unique† (Kilmann, 1986). Culture is the behavior and mindset that animates the organization to stay in a competitive environment. ... And â€Å"whether a given culture can be changed depends on how deep-seated the culture is and whether multiple culture exist. The deeper the level at which culture change is required and the more cultures there are in the organization, the more difficult and time consuming the culture change process. When culture change involves changing surface-level behavioral norms, it can occur with relative ease because members can articulate what behaviors are required for success today in contrast to those required yesterday. In addition, closing the gap between actual and desire norm is easier if the desired norms are essentially the same throughout the organization – if the environment is homogenous. Even when multiple cultures exist, requiring different changes in each work group, change is still easier to effect when the focus of culture change is on behavioral norms rather than hidden assumptions or hidden nature (Kilmann, 1986). 3. As a senior leader in an organization what can you do to change the culture and in turn increase performance of the business?   As a senior leader in an organization, culture can be changed on a top down when â€Å"one single corporate culture exists (and those at the top thus could be accurate in their view of their desired culture) and if the focus is on changing norms and not assumptions. â€Å"This is however may be difficult to sustain, even though such changes may be easy to bring about; top-down approaches generally result in overt compliance to what is mandated, not covert acceptance† (Kilmann, 1986) So that, a participative approaches to changing underlying assumptions, although difficult and time-consuming to