2. I agree that, whatever style a manager employs, meeting the business goals of the organization are paramount (unless they are impossible or don’t contribute to the success of the whole organization, for example, but that’s a different topic). Unfortunately, demonstrations of the effectiveness of management style can be hard to quantify, depending on how good a job the organization does of understanding its costs. They can also be undermined or ignored by peers or higher level managers who may feel threatened, for example. I do believe that a manager who employs a collaborative, team-oriented style has a better change of surviving, but there are no guarantees. In a real “hard-ass” culture the softer-styled manager may either be incapable of defending themself, and in one in which the average worker is at the bottom “subsistence” level of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs that style may be quite ineffective. It depends a lot on both the culture and circumstances of the business.

3. I do agree that no manager can be passive, and each must strike the best cultural note they can for the circumstances. In most cases, however, the softer style yields greater productivity and results, from my experience.

Thanks again for your comment. Also, I really enjoyed your blog.
- Tim

I agreed with your points that we need good managers who can understand employees and support them in their career. I also agreed that the “top” have the most influrence to the organizational culture. Your example of the mid-level manager being “oust” because of his “soft” management style demostrated nicely how difficult culture change can be.

The only thing I would like to discuss with you is how much we can do outselves to change the organizational culture. Here are what I believe:

1. Good culture won’t fall upon us like rain drops. The same as good fortune won’t come to us by no reason. We need to actively seek it, either through finding organizations that carry good cultures, or through changing the culture of the organization we currently work for.

2. The culture of “being genle to people” alone won’t persist. For an organization to survive, it must achieve its business goals. In most of the case, the goal is being profitable. “Being soft to people” is the “method” to achieve business goals, not the “purpose”. If your mid-level manager demostrated that the management style he adapted could actually improve the efficiency and productivities, he would have a better chance to survive even in hard environment.

3. I agreed with you that a isolated sub-organization practicing totally different culture that the large organization would be hard to survive and sustain. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go out there to change the culture within our control. In my opinion, that change should involve influrence not only one’s own team (within control) but also one’s supervisor and peers. Your set a great example that one can influrent his/her manager like the video session you setup. If your mid-level manager constantly and delibrately influrenced his manager and peers instead of passively being criticized by them, he might have better chance to succeed.

Just my two cents. I am also writing a series of “ideal cultures” for a development organization. I elaborated some of my opinions here, http://bigapplezlp.wordpress.com/. Welcome to visit. I will love to discuss more with you about what the best organization cultures are and how to achieve them by the efforts of ourselves.

Best regards,
Linpei