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S E R I E S

California Management

Review

Leading by Leveraging Culture

Jennifer A. Chatman Sandra Eunyoung Cha

© 2003 by The Regents of the University of California

Leading by Leveraging Culture

Jennifer A. Chatman Sandra Eunyoung Cha

e occasionally get calls from prospective clients who, having heard that we consult with organizations to improve their cultures, ask us, “Come on down to our organization and get us a better one.” Perhaps they are thinking that, somehow, after we have worked our culture magic, employees will be singing and dancing in their cubicles. Although this is a nice image, simply trying to make employees happy misses the power of leveraging culture. The problem is that organizational culture has become faddish; and, as such, it has been over-applied and underspecified. Our goal here is to precisely clarify why culture is powerful and to provide specific criteria for developing a strong, strategically relevant culture that is likely to enhance an organization’s performance over the long haul. We will not claim that by simply managing culture, leaders will be assured of organizational success, or that by neglecting culture, they will be doomed to failure. Leveraging culture is but one of a number of key leadership tools. We will claim, however, that by actively managing culture, an organization will be more likely to deliver on its strategic objectives over the long run.

W

Why Is Organizational Culture Powerful?

Focusing People Intensely on Strategy Execution

A 1999 Fortune magazine article highlighting pathbreaking research by Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin began with a provocative title: “Why CEOs Fail.”1 The definitive answer had been found, and it was notoriously simple:

The first author wrote this article while a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School and is grateful for their support.

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CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW...