After reading the statement "The best-performing companies worry
less about performance and more about their organizational
capabilities" (Bititci, 2015) - I tend to agree. Reason being, capability
will allow you to excel far further than the performance at hand. If
you establish an environment that has organizational capabilities,
they will develop on their own without much attention. In the
beginning stages of business, companies often perform poorly. As a
result, measuring their success from a performance standpoint will
leave them with a lot of self-doubt and criticism. If you focus more
on your internal process and organizational capabilities, often times
your company will start to grow in just a few short years. Personally,
I think it is much more important to build a business that is
sustainable, including strategic culture, to create an environment that
flows seamlessly. Furthermore, there is a similarity between culture
and capability, in relation to development (and future performance).
In the initial discussion guidelines, I agree with the statement "An
active, participative culture is essential for encouraging
organizational learning". Due to the fact that, a participative culture
cannot thrive without the encouragement of organizational learning.
Culture will influence the way employee's treat other employee's,
and that leads to a companies developmental capabilities. In that,
companies will grow at their own pace in order to achieve the goals
that they set forth in the short/long-term. I believe in staying the
course, and trusting the process. As a business starts developing,
they adopting a standard set of goals/principles that they will use to
form the companies values/mission. The culture steadily forms
around those values, creating a sustainable business that develops on
its own terms. Rushing into performance objectives can derail the
internal process of the company, especially if they haven't
determined their target market/demographic.
After analyzing the organizational culture of Company A, it is clear to
determine that they have a lot of structure for a smaller company.
They have a great relationship with their customers, often seeing
repeat customers with two-thirds of sales going to them. They also
support a "Bring a Friend" promotional program, which encourages
customers to send additional customers - an excellent strategic
technique. Customers are often pleased with the business process
and in-flight experience, offering excitement and entertainment,
which directly aligns with TransGlobal's aspirations. They also have
plans to hire an additional VP of sales to boost traffic in the off-
season. According to the CFO, the revenues are at an all-time hight,
year-over-year growth is favorable and profit-wise, they have
excellent earnings. According to the COO, he is new, and the
president advised that there are some issues with quality and
productivity within the business. They6 still keep their customers
happy, but they seem to be behind on technological advancement
(compared to the competition). On-arrival time is top notch and
employee retention has been kept consistent over the past couple of
years. The HR director made is clear the the company does not make
substantial investments in training and development beyond what is
strictly required for licensing and safety. Compared to Company B,
Company A seems to have a very structure culture that is goal-
oriented and strategically carry business transparency throughout
the organization.
After analyzing the organizational culture of Company B, it is clear to
me that they aim to adopt an agile culture, empowering employees
and placing emphasis on innovation. It is also clear that the IT
department seems to be a bit behind compared to its competition in
the business environment. The sales team is relatively complacent,
and their marketplace/routes are fixed, likely into the next decade.
Company B has plans to make innovations, and they are eager to try
something new in the coming years. Furthermore, there seems to be
a lack of transparency between the IT manager and the company's
employees, describing his approach to business as reckless and
fraught with excessive costs. Maintenance and operations
departments seem to be well-experienced with multiple employees
having a military background. The crew is innovative and hard
working, but they have substantial turnover. The culture seems to be
very laid back, however, they lack actual culture and/or structure in
their particular business/organization.
References:
Bititci, U. S. (2015). Managing business performance: The science and
the art. Wiley.
