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The World Is Changing Read chapter Read first chapter

2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Culture: The New Black

Authors : Annika Steiber, Sverker Alänge

Published in: The Silicon Valley Model

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

To compete in today’s fast-changing world, a firm must have a strong corporate culture of the appropriate kind. This chapter defines what a culture is—in short, it is a set of shared beliefs about what the world is like, what is valued, and how things should be done—and from there, the chapter describes the typical attributes of a vibrant innovation-oriented culture. Such a culture enables the firm to compete for top talent as well as produce winning products. Much of the material here comes directly from the authors’ interviews and observations of leading Silicon Valley companies. Topics covered include major influences on corporate culture and steps taken by these leading firms to build and maintain their cultures.

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Footnotes
1
Schein (1984), p. 3.
 
2
Ibid.
 
3
In 1982, In Search of Excellence was published. This work analyzed more than 40 companies that had been very successful for a very long time. The common denominator was a strong culture. During the latter part of the 1980s, all of these successful companies were on the skids, and some questioned whether the conclusion about strong culture had been wrong.
Naturally, a strong culture at that time meant one focused on stability, which militates against conditions that require the company to change. This is what prevailed until the end of the 1970s when the authors, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, worked on the documentation of the book. In the 1980s, external changes rose to a level that rendered a stable culture a handicap. This is why the successful trends were broken for these formerly successful companies.
 
4
Socialization means an individual’s growing to be part of society. During this process, values, attitudes, norms, etc., are absorbed and become part of one’s personality. The term socialisering is also used in Swedish articles. For many people, socialisering means nationalization (of banks, for example), which is why we chose the term socialization.
 
5
Individuation has several definitions. In this context, individuation means liberation from dependency on the collective, such as from the liberation from the traditions and customs of society and the development of an individual personality. (Egigius 1994).
 
6
Independence means the ability and willingness to choose opinions and actions, and take responsibility for one’s choices. The definition comes from Wiberg (1999).
 
7
Schein (1983), p. 3.
 
8
Excerpt from Larry Page’s remarks on the Barbara Walters ABC-TV special “The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2004.” (Walters 2004).
 
9
E.g., former Google executive Marissa Mayer said that Montessori thinking “is really baked into how Larry and Sergey approach problems.” This was quoted in Steven Levy’s book In the Plex (Levy 2011), p. 122.
 
10
See for example Steven Levy’s book Hackers (Levy 1984)—the book credited with first identifying and naming the “hacker ethic”—or later works such as The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age (Himanen et al. 2001).
 
11
However, according to a 2013 article by Eric Jackson in Forbes.com, there was pressure 10 years ago on founders of various firms to pass the reins over to the “professional managers.” Jerry Yang and David Filo stepped aside at Yahoo and Pierre Omidyar handed over the keys for eBay to Meg Whitman. According to Jackson’s report, all these handovers of power worked out well in the beginning but as time went on the “professional manager” somehow became unhooked from the company’s core and the company got off track from its core operating principles. Mark Zuckerberg changed all this at Facebook, the article claims: He stayed in charge, determining that his founder mindset could be more valuable to the company in the long run as CEO (Jackson 2013).
 
12
Schein (1984).
 
13
Steiber (2014).
 
14
Schmidt and Rosenberg (2014).
 
15
Steiber (2014).
 
16
According to Mark Pincus, the founder and CEO of Zynga, a company reaches a critical inflection point at around 300–400 people, as the number of “original” employees then is usually much fewer than the number of new employees. At this inflection point it will be critical to sustain enough people from wave 1, wave 2 and wave 3, if the firm wants to sustain its original culture. See Jackson (2013) http://​onlinecareertips​.​com/​2013/​03/​the-difference-between-the-mindsets-of-founders-and-professional-managers/​ (Accessed 2 Aug 2015).
 
17
Jackson (2013).
 
18
Ibid.
 
19
Attributed to Peter Drucker; used by various executives and business consultants.
 
20
Steiber (2014), p. 51.
 
21
Ibid.
 
22
Jackson (2013).
 
23
Winkler (2014).
 
24
Bahrami (1992), p. 42.
 
25
Bahrami (1992), p. 41.
 
26
See for example McCracken (2013).
 
27
Steiber (2014), p. 53.
 
28
Ibid.
 
29
Schmidt and Rosenberg (2014).
 
30
Steiber (2014), p. 55.
 
31
Ibid.
 
32
Ibid.
 
33
Ibid, p. 54.
 
35
Ibid.
 
36
Steiber (2014).
 
37
Watkins (2014), p. 1.
 
38
Facebook (2013).
 
39
Twitter (2015).
 
Literature
Bahrami, H. (1992). The emerging flexible organization: Perspectives from Silicon Valley. California Management Review, 34(4), 33–52.CrossRef
Egigius, H. (1994). Psykologilexikon (dictionary of psychology). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.
Himanen, P., Torvalds, L., & Castells, M. (2001). The hacker ethic and the spirit of the information age. New York: Random House.
Levy, S. (1984). Hackers. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media. Reprinted 2010.
Levy, S. (2011). In the plex: How Google thinks, works, and shapes our lives. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Schein, E. (1983). The Role of the Founder in the Creation of Organizational Culture. Working Paper #1407-83. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA.
Schein, E. (1984). Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture. Sloan Management Review, 25(2), 3.
Schmidt, E., & Rosenberg, J. (2014). How Google works. New York: Grand Central Publishing.
Steiber, A. (2014). The Google model: Managing continuous innovation in a rapidly changing world. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.CrossRef
Wiberg, L. (1999). Gränslandet: Ledarskap för medarbetarnas delaktighet och verksamheters förnyelse [Borderland: Leadership for employee participation and operations renewal]. Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus.
Metadata
Title
Culture: The New Black
Authors
Annika Steiber
Sverker Alänge
Copyright Year
2016
Book
The Silicon Valley Model

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24919-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-24921-6

Copyright Year: 2016

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24921-6_6

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