corporate culture

this is the thread about corporate culture

the aspects of corporate culture are symbols, language, group norms, slogans, heroes, myths/stories, and ceremonies

hope someone's taking notes

oh man.

corporate culture.

i hate that shit.

the three levels of corporate culture are artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions

No, the main aspects of corporate culture are cubicles, copiers, and coffee.

http://www.pminnovations.com/images/Mgmt_cau.gif

i think you're wrong, although cubicles and copiers could certainly be used as symbols, while many of the activities around coffee could be considered a ceremony

the main aspects of corporate culture are Teamwork, Insight, Brutality, Male Enhancement, Handshakefulness, and Play Hard.

hopefully the worldwide recession will get rid of most of this

corporations is people!

i'm noticing some negative feelings about corporate culture here so far. kind of surprising ... corporate culture is important in providing consensus about an organization's values

one time there was dinner theatre

it can also provide a sense of identity, guide behavior in ambiguous situations, and provide controls for desirable behavior. these seem like good things to me?

One way to ensure a healthy business: Give customers more of what they want. At least, that's what we've gleaned from Thomas Pink's new initiative, the white shirt bar (pictured), which opened this week in Manhattan. (Those expecting a dress-code-restricted boozery, sorry to disappoint.) With 20 perennial styles to choose from (black-tie to casual oxfords) as well as six seasonal additions, the bar features a shirt menu and dedicated staff to figure out which shirt belongs on which customer. Liquor or no, it's working: According to Thomas Pink CEO Jonathan Heilbron, sales are up 20 percent, even given (or perhaps because of) the financial crisis. "In these times the white shirt is even more important," he says, "as dressing gets a bit more conservative, and, of course, for interviews."

tell me more about heroes

are you saying that a corporation you worked for used dinner theater as a ceremony in its culture? that is interesting

yes!

heroes are the men and women who exemplify the attributes of the culture

it was interesting but also fun and there was a residual sense of comraderie for days afterward!

what about villians? i.e. the kind of person who steals your pizza from the fridge. what do we do about them and what is their role in CC?

by the way, there are six types of rites: passage, enhancement, renewal, integration, conflict resolution, and degradation

so obviously if there is a villain, we would use the rite of degradation

is steve jobs a hero

my superiors have my best interests at heart i know because they told me but they also must look at the larger picture sometimes *shrug*

my corporate culture forbids booze :(

how about guys who wear really "wacky" ties to assert their individuality in the conformist corporate culture? are they part of the problem?

i would certainly guess that steve jobs could be considered a hero within the culture of apple and other tech-centered corporations, although he may not be a hero for other types of organizations

my office is cold

jordan, i understand you are sad about the fact that booze is forbidden in your corporate culture, but shouldn't you at least be glad that the culture has guided your behavior in what could have been an ambiguous situation? try to see the silver lining

sometimes my coworkers engage in phatic communication. i think this helps create a sense of belonging, which is nice.

office dress code is certainly part of corporate culture. each company would have its own unique response to the wacky tie: some might embrace it as a healthy expression of individuality while still staying within the confines of the culture, while others might look at it as straying outside of these confines. in short, it depends. this is why it is important to be familiar with our respective corporate cultures

There used to always be enough time to do the paperwork
There used to always be enough people to do the paperwork
Today, there isn't enough time
Today, there aren't enough people

dude n/a is this what they're teaching in library skool these days?

i just want to note that corporate culture can occasionally conflict with national culture. for example, some national cultures embrace individual efforts, while others glorify group accomplishments. do any of you have related experiences you could share?

where i work EVERY role is important, which is nice.

words/phrases I associate with corporate culture:

circle back
leverage
monetize
continuous quality improvement
so many more, makes head hurt

if i'm teaming with another department and we reach an impasse, it's nice to know we can escalate it to a superior.

i'm worried that my corporate culture may lead to groupthink as opposed to healthy consensus. continuous 360 feedback might help.

so quincie, what you're saying is that you have a problem with the language aspect of your corporate culture? that's interesting.

we need to shift to a paradigm where we leverage new functionality to increase synergy

one time we teamed well into the night, but i was reimbursed appropriately, and we had a pizza, which we all teamed on.

i realize that the culture of ilx values frivolous language and and rites of degradation but i really think we could all gain something from a serious discussion of this topic

i would put forward a suggestion that we are in fact brainstorming, although who is wearing which of the six hats i couldn't say just now.

oh another one: "parking lot" when used as something other than a place in which one parks a car.

i didn't mean to get upset at you all, i realized just now that maybe you have something in your national cultures that values mockery as an important aspect of corporate culture. i meant no disrespect.

The corporate culture where I work is curious: Middle management are treated like a buncha male chickens with spikes on their ankles. Whenever any cock gets too powerful, upper management rebalances (reorgs -- been involved in one already in under 1 year of employment), 'cause they like a fair fight.

Also, the culture differs greatly depending on the veep: My org gets all the nice workstation hardware we want, including Macs. Engineering gets a taste of the whip and when they balk, they're made to apologize (no shit).

i really like the word monetize - its fun to say and the idea of turning something which is not money into money is pretty sweet

my office is cold

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:47 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can i get an ETA on this? thx.

For me, corporate culture boils down to who do they hire and why, and who do they promote and why. Once a hiring and promoting bias or direction is established, it tends to perpetuate itself.

i'm watching a video of a dog raping a duck

this is part of my JOB fwiw

Here's a twist: Japanese corporate culture. I worked for one for 3 years. My name was Burtu-san

more like Burtu-sok

What a disappointing thread. Why don't you corporate types fill us in on what it is really like to work for a corporation? Is it really like "Office Space"?

you don't have to be mad to work here!

omar: link?

telephone conversation overheard in next cubicle:

if you need a new individual record, you can use the standard query, but we're never doing that, we usually just use 'select statement' & then instead of failing to update we simply use 'insert', and that's the process because for them, it seems like a new record. (short pause) no, no exemptions for non-profits, absolutely not.

my office is cold

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:47 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can i get an ETA on this? thx.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:34 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i really have to scan the best piece of scrap paper i ever found in the scrap paper bin at the library. it's a matriced collection of office buzzwords like TEAM PLAYER and ACHIEVEMENT ZONE and STRIVE TO SUCCEED and all that kinda thing.

I love corporate culture.

it's a matriced collection of office buzzwords like TEAM PLAYER and ACHIEVEMENT ZONE and STRIVE TO SUCCEED and all that kinda thing.

this is called "bullshit bingo"

i have the six sigma rules as shown on 30 rock up on my whiteboard

take that, corporate culture

I'm a Six Sigma yellow belt. But I never actually received a belt, which was a bit disappointing.

awesome new-to-me corporospeak at my new job: "thought leadership"

which is hilarious considering it's a software company using a bunch of cobbled-together M$ junk

friend temped at citibank 15 years ago, first day of work took home a plastic badge that had printed on it:

big letters: 'IDENTIFY WITH COMPLIANCE'
cartoon drawing on hapless looking person's head sticking out of the water, surrounded by sharks
caption: 'Don't let this happen to you!'
citibank logo

we stared at it for a long time trying to figure it out

A symbol of our corporate culture is the flat bed scanner/copier/fax machine in my office, which can only send a fax to one number at a time and requires the user to individually scan each page of the fax into memory, and does not print confirmation pages, requiring the user to spend valuable corporate time observing the fax machine to ensure the successful transmission of documents.

This fax machine not only functions as a symbol of our corporate culture, but is also instrumental in a common rite of degradation in which management asks an employee to print paper copies of electronic documents and then transmit these paper copies by fax machine.

??? Are they demented?!

This rite of degradation is enhanced by the fact that management asks the employee to transmit the freshly printed paper copies of electronic documents to a service that transforms facsimile transmissions into an electronic format, usually "PDF".

The artifact and rite described above form the basis for the most important espoused value of our particular corporate culture, which can be best described as the value of "Mind-boggling Absurdity."

(I am not making this up - I just spent 20 minutes sending a nine page fax to two different numbers, one of which is an electronic fax service. However, the infuriating fax machine belongs to my employer while my union imposes the requirement that I print paper copies of electronic documents and then fax them to an electronic fax service. I can only assume that once the intended recipient opens the PDF files, she prints paper copies of these files and then throws them away, as she inevitably asks me to resend the fax at least once every time we go through this miserable charade.)

This is truly insane. Is anyone there familiar with "save file as pdf"?

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/27/science/tier_600.jpg

Not to detract from your thunder, but Jenny did you mention you work for state govt.?

loooool i was gonna ask that because that totally sounds like a state government thing!

Which, if I didn't know better, would lead me to believe that you'd have a decent fax machine. Have you considered that if your current machine were to have an accident that they would be forced to get you a new one? xp to myself.

netflix is an inspiring place to work http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

Where is the thread w interesting corporate lingo? I have:

Soft Skills
Management Chain

Soft Skills is awesome, that should be the name of a band.

posted this in another thread and now i don't remember which but there is one dude from mgmt who i always bump into in the washroom

just as i was finishing he comes in and while he was in there i let out a real nice one for him

it's the little things

saw this on stack overflow today:

How to find jobs that are as corporate as possible?

I worked in a startup as a web developer and it was really unsuitable for me. I don't like making friends at work, going out to eat with the team, having to go get drinks, team lunches, "team outings", meetups, open offices, or having to fit in with the culture. I just want a job where I can show up, get my work done, and go home. With no pressure to see them after that.

Unfortunately most web dev jobs are in start ups with this atmosphere. How do I find a job that is as corporate as possible? Ideally it would be a large company that's very depersonalised, with private offices or at least sectioned off. No pressure to try to fit the culture.

hell yeah baby

I don't know how to tell you this...

Srsly. Corporate jobs are like all that shit you hate plus shitty pay.

Forgot the court intrigue out of a historical novel

Joint the public sector you can behave pretty much how you like

Yeah come on in the government's fine

its p chill here too tbh (not gov't/public sector)

every job is different. w modern Flex Time and mobile work/hangouts/zoom teleconferencing it is easy to make it work and only work 9-5 40 hours a week working from home half the week. as long as your boss and/or position is not demanding you should be able to find that balance or at least close to it.

not overly demanding i should say