The Falcon Computer

14. A small group of managers at Falcon Computer met regularly on Wednesday mornings to develop a statement capturing what they considered to be the

“Falcon culture” Their discussions were wide -ranging, covering what they thought their firm’s culture was, what it should be, and how to create it. They were probably influenced by other firms in their environment, since they were located in the Silicon Valley area of California.

Falcon Computer was a new firm, having been created just eight months earlier. Since the corporation was still in the start-up phase, managers decided that it

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would be timely to create and instill the type of culture they thought would be most appropriate for their organization. After several weeks of brainstorming, writing, debating, and rewriting, the management group eventually produced a document called “Falcon Values” which described the culture of the company as they saw it. The organisational culture statement covered such topics as treatment of customers, relations among work colleagues, preferred style of social communication, the decision-making process, and the nature of the working environment.

Peter Richards read over the Falcon values statements shortly after he was hired as a software trainer. After observing managerial and employee behaviours at Falcon for a few weeks, he was struck by the wide discrepancy between the values expressed in the document and what he observed as actual practice within the organization. For example, the Falcon values document contained statements such as this: “Quality: Attention to detail is our trademark; our goal is to do it right the first time. We intend to deliver defect-free products and services to our customers on the date promised”. However, Richards had already seen shipping reports showing that a number of defective computers were being shipped to customers and his...