Leadership

How national is your organizational culture?

Date: 21.09.2017Author: Marcella Bremer

This is a dangerous question, probably. Every answer is a generalization of national culture, and we're often sensitive because it touches on identity. But the question is relevant.

Stubborn

I used to be Dutch. In my first job, working with the Dutch Army, I heard that Dutch soldiers were seen as stubborn and (too) autonomous. Foreign generals who commanded multinational troops had to get used to the Dutch. They could not simply "order" the Dutch to do something. They wanted a Why, an explanation, and sometimes even offered alternatives. "What if we...."

Change Management, Leadership, Organizational culture

Using the OCAI in Leadership Search

Date: 31.08.2017Author: Marcella Bremer

Guest post by Marc T. Frankel and Judith Schechtman

Case Studies, Leadership, OCAI, Organizational culture

How is your Culture Quotient?

Date: 8.02.2017Author: Marcella Bremer

Does your organization have a strong, homogeneous culture? Is that desirable? Does everyone hold the same values, beliefs, priorities, norms, preferences? Does everyone eat the same lunch menu every day?

Change, Leadership, Organizational culture

To Ask is to learn from Cultural Differences

Date: 26.01.2017Author: Marcella Bremer

What is your biggest challenge with organizational culture? That’s an extra question we ask all free respondents who use the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument. Just because we’re curious - what are you struggling with? What do you need help with? What can I blog about to inspire you?

There’s a long list of interesting topics submitted by over 25,000 people over the last two years.

Multinational Collaboration

One returning topic is multinational or international collaboration. Here are some challenges people submitted:

Change, Leadership, Organizational culture

Transcultural Collaboration: are you Competent?

Date: 12.01.2017Author: Marcella Bremer

We were sitting in a room in a foreign country: 20 executives were waiting for the CEO to arrive. I was present to facilitate the first part of their workshop on culture after they did the OCAI culture survey. People were checking their laptops, smartphones or talking softly to their neighbor. The CEO was ten minutes late.

I checked the time with the HR manager who was my contact at the company. Should we call the CEO to remind him? No, he said, he’ll arrive shortly.

Change, Leadership, Organizational culture

12 must-reads on Organizational Culture, Leadership, and Change

Date: 22.12.2016Author: Marcella Bremer

Positive leadership, organizational culture, positive change

How has your year been? It's time to evaluate, and develop new intentions. My intention is to inspire toward positive organizations where people and performance thrive.

OCAI Online aims to contribute to positive workplaces by offering the online culture survey so people can work on their culture.

Change, Change Management, Competing Values Framework, Leadership, OCAI, Organizational culture

Overview of Blog posts: Change with Culture and Positive Leadership

Date: 15.12.2016Author: Marcella Bremer

Overview: Change with Culture and Positive Leadership

Are you engaged at work? Are you content, and productive? Are you thriving?

Most people would answer these questions with a firm No. According to the infamous Gallup research, only 13% of workers is engaged, worldwide.

This means there is a staggering 87% of untapped potential while the world is struggling with serious challenges such as the climate challenge, sustainability, pollution, poverty, human rights, inequality, globalization, de-industrialization, refugees and migration, banking crises, tax havens, war, and conflict…

Change Management, Leadership, Organizational culture

What is Positive Change?

Date: 8.12.2016Author: Marcella Bremer

What is positive change? What is a positive organization? Why would we bother to practice positive leadership, and create a positive culture? For some, the answer is obvious, for others not at all.

As we have seen in my blog post on positive leadership: the why is rather obvious. We want to help positive change succeed and create a positive organization because it makes people happier and more productive. The performance of a positive organization can be astounding.

Change, Leadership, Organizational culture

Organizational Culture Case: How can I Change this Machine?

Date: 1.12.2016Author: Marcella Bremer

In my last post, I introduced you to the machine maintenance company MM that faced increasing competition and had to become more profitable. However, the CEO’s response was to push hard for more efficiency and focus on the numbers which led to micro-management. Combined with their current culture tendency to organize everything in a phonebook of rules and procedures, they were slowing down, and they felt stifled.

Case Studies, Change, Change Management, Competing Values Framework, Leadership, OCAI, Organizational culture

Overview: Change based on Culture and Positive Leadership

Date: 21.11.2016Author: Marcella Bremer

In this series about Culture, Change, and Leadership we’ve discussed how organizational change can fail or be successful and how organizational culture can help or hinder. This article provides an overview of what we’ve covered thus far - including my Change Circle approach.

You probably know about the 70% failure rate of organizational change. One of the reasons is that change programs don’t align with the current culture. A more fundamental cause is the conventional command and control mindset and linear worldview of many leaders and employees.

Change, Change Management, Competing Values Framework, Leadership, OCAI, Organizational culture

Leadership

How national is your organizational culture?

Stubborn

Using the OCAI in Leadership Search

How is your Culture Quotient?

To Ask is to learn from Cultural Differences

Multinational Collaboration

Transcultural Collaboration: are you Competent?

12 must-reads on Organizational Culture, Leadership, and Change

Overview of Blog posts: Change with Culture and Positive Leadership

What is Positive Change?

Organizational Culture Case: How can I Change this Machine?

Overview: Change based on Culture and Positive Leadership

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Stubborn

Multinational Collaboration

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