The Culture and Moral Compasses
In the Module 4 Case, we will complete an in-depth analysis of an organization’s culture, and determine the extent to which the organization’s culture fits with the organization’s strategic choices. Begin by reading the following article:
Ford, R. C., Wilderom, C., & Caparella, J. (2008). Strategically crafting a customer-focused culture: An inductive case study. Journal of Strategy and Management, 1(2), 143-167. Retrieved from ProQuest.
Case Assignment
Using the article above, write a 6- to 7-page paper in which you address the following:
Complete an in-depth, comprehensive analysis of the Gaylord Palms’ organizational culture and values, analyzing the ways in which the specific components of organizational culture and values assist – or impede – the success of the organization’s strategic choices.
Keys to the Assignment
The key aspects of this assignment that are to be covered in your 6- to 7- page paper include the following:
Using the Module 4 Background readings related to organizational culture, and after performing additional research in the library, explain how organizational culture at the Gaylord Palms Hotel:
- Creates meaning for its members;
- Establishes informal organizational controls; and
- Ensures (or alternatively, hinders) the success of Gaylord Palms’ strategic choices.Which of Gaylord Palms’ values are most salient, and how do these same values relate to the organization’s culture?
- What is required for an organization’s culture to be “effective”? Is Gaylord Palms’ organizational culture an “effective” culture? Why or why not? Be specific.
- What specific characteristics/elements of Gaylord Palms’ organizational culture do you believe are most significant relative to ensuring the success of Gaylord Palms’ strategic direction (e.g., symbols, artifacts, roles, etc.)? Why?
THE CULTURE AND MORAL COMPASSES
Part 1: The Culture Compass
As the “personality” of an organization, organizational culture has been variously defined. Culture has been a topic of great interest to organizational researchers and practitioners alike, given its apparent influence on such matters as organizational change, performance, and effectiveness. An abstract concept, organizational culture is not all that easily defined – although most of us do know it when we “see” it, or when we experience its characteristics. Much of organizational culture is tacit – it lies below the level of our awareness, as certain agreed-upon assumptions are not made explicit. Culture includes artifacts, symbols, stories, beliefs, habits, value systems, and shared assumptions (“the way we do things around here”). Of course, an organization’s culture can be made more highly complex by virtue of the many sub-cultures that make up the overall culture. Whatever culture is, its elements become most readily apparent to us during the merger of two organizations, particularly so when the culture of the two merging organizations are vastly dissimilar.
Part 2: The Moral Compass
Most of us would agree that the behaviors of Enron’s Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling and WorldCom’s Bernie Ebbers – unethical as they were – violated the public trust. Perhaps the old cliché: “Good ethics is good business” is falling on an ever-increasing number of deaf ears these days.
Who decides what is “moral” or “ethical”? Certainly, “ethics” can mean different things to different people. And people have differing ideas concerning whether any given situation is or is not ethical. I doubt we would disagree as to whether Ken Lay’s, Bernie Ebbers’ or John Rigas’ behaviors were unethical – in fact, all are convicted criminals. But there are no steadfast rules for acting ethically under all conditions. If there were, we would need no reminders, and the Moral Compass would not be a compass at all.
Organizational thriving ostensibly relies on strong culture held on a set of beliefs that are supported by structure and strategy. Such a culture enhances performance through the essence of employees understanding the management’s expectations, and the assurance of getting rewarded for their efforts in demonstrating the organizational values. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the organizational culture of Gaylord Palm Hotel in regard to the Journal of Strategy and Management article. The essay further, describes how the organization creates meaning for its members and analyzes its salient values.
Creation of Meaning by Gaylord Palms Hotel for Its Members
Employee satisfaction is a vital concept in the success of Gaylord Palm Hotel which describes creating meaning for people. Employees can experience a sense of appreciation and belonging from their seniors through various ways which are evident in Gaylord Palm Hotel, and which contribute to motivation. Firstly, the company celebrates the employees’ life events such as birthdays, rituals, and other celebrations which enhances a sense of belonging and inclusiveness (Ford, Wilderom & Caparella, 2008). For instance, upon promotion, the employees is peddled around the hotel in a wheeled rickshaw by the new supervisor, followed by a camera sending a celebratory sign (Ford et al., 2008). Such an event is celebrated by the other employees and also draws the attention of the guests. The idea makes the employee feel recognized and appreciated as a valuable asset of the organization.
Moreover, the company holds all smiles, teamwork, attitude, reliability, and service (STARS) rallies quarterly to celebrate the successes of individual STARS (Ford et al., 2008). They represent the seven corporate values of the hotel and chosen by the former winners. During the event, a three minute video is played for each person and awarded the plague (Ford et al., 2008). The emotionally charged events make the employees feel valued and appreciated, an element that motivates the other employees to strive hard to achieve such successes. The event also acts to emphasize on what employees are expected to demonstrate the company values. Further, the organization gives meaning to its members through work. In essence, without work, people fall into aimless existence and may lack meaning of life (Goldman, 2012). By providing the opportunity to the employees to exploit their skills and talents, people find value of time and hence meaning. Work also makes people to set short and long-term goals whose completion provides a deep satisfaction and hence a sense of value. Through work, people also interact to explore such a meaning.
Establishment of Informal Organizational Controls
Informal organizational structures operates through the networks of people. The Journal of Strategy and Management article describes various ways through which Gaylord Palm Hotel establishes such controls. Firstly, the hotel pursues a culture of customer-centric whereby employees are encouraged to employ their initiatives in satisfying customer needs (Ford et al., 2008). The article mentioned that the employees will not always rely on the general manager for guidance when serving the customers’ needs (Ford et al., 2008). Therefore, customer-culture is highly regarded to guide employees which lessens the need for traditional management controls such as direct supervision, procedures, and policies (Ford et al., 2008). Further, Gaylord emphasizes on the use of stories to extract concepts to enhance the flawlessness of guest service through sharing a fictious letter (Ford et al., 2008). The fictious letter, written by the management tells of a story of a guest who wrote to describe the excellent services received from the hotel. The letter acts to provoke departments to discuss on strategies that encourage regular receipt of such letters. On this note, employees tell stories through relating real life examples and their possible application in developing successful service experience (Ford et al., 2008). These stories provide the opportunity for creativity and interaction to help better understanding among the employees.
Moreover, the hiring process also illustrates how Gaylord Palm Hotel establishes informal organizational controls. The hiring process was strategically developed to hire the best ‘10’s or one among ten who demonstrated skillful passion to serve (Ford et al., 2008). Such involved hiring the ‘right’ manager, who would then hire the ‘right’ employees. Every job finalist would assess talents which would be carefully reviewed by the hiring team manager (Ford et al., 2008). The skillful talent assessment tool was to ensure the hiring of the right employees who comprehensively possessed the necessary talents. In other words, the best employees would participate in identifying other best employees through a thoughtful assessment of talents (Ford et al., 2008. Resultantly, successful candidates would experience a feeling that they were part of a special group of highly skillful employees and thus getting the chance meant that they were highly qualified. Such was also a motivating factor to enable them exhibit such skills to prove their talents while at work.
Ensuring the Success of Gaylord Palms’ Strategic Choices
Gaylord Palm Hotel portrays various strategies that aid to ensure successful strategic choices. Firstly, the company supports employees who poise as the cornerstone of its success. The leadership of Gaylord ensured celebration of the employees’ birthdays and promotions (Ford et al., 2008). Such promoted a sense of belonging which played a significant role in enhancing motivation. Motivated employees are focused and concentrate their efforts to achieve organizational goals. As such, if employees feel appreciated by the company, the quality of customer-service increases.
Intermingling employees is the other strategy employed by the company. The leaders mingle employees from different departments to demonstrate the values they hold for each other in pursuing organizational goals (Ford et al., 2008). The groupings aid to eliminate the dysfunctions of functional silos and demonstrate how each other’s’ roles connect with each other. Such also improves communication among departments to improve the processes and eliminate delays and dysfunctions.
Most Salient Values and Relation to the Organization’s Culture
Gaylrod Palms Hotel operates under seven corporate values which include creativity, respect, excellence, passion, services, citizenship, and integrity (Ford et al., 2008). While the seven values are important to the company, passion stood out as the most salient. Such was effectively exhibited in the hiring process whereby it hired only ‘10’s, the employees with a passion to serve (Ford et al., 2008). The process communicated the intention of the company to hire only those committed to provide legendary or flawless services. In this regard, the company signaled the message that the employees were not expected to only follow the company’s policies and strategies, but serve with passion. In relation to the organizational culture, he company values employees as important assets. As such, the hiring process made the employees feel a sense of value and belonging to the hotel fraternity, hence a motivating factor. Besides, the culture was customer-centric and only employees with passion to serve could ensure positive word of mouth to customer and a repeat excellent business.
Creativity is also a salient value that plays a crucial role in maintaining organizational performance. Gaylord promotes creativity through laxity in creation of rules to follow by employees (Ford et al., 2008). Instead, the employees are encouraged to employ their skills and talents in approaching the guests. Such provides opportunity for creativity to allow flexibility in serving client variations. In this regard, employees evoke their creativity spirit and hence more motivation to exemplify capabilities. The culture of the organization acknowledges the STARS through promotions (Ford et al., 2008). In this regard, it is through allowing the opportunity to demonstrate creativity that allows to identify such STARS, who exhibited salient behaviors in achieving organizational mission.
Requirements for an Organization’s Culture to Be “Effective”
Effectiveness of the organizational culture is driven by various factors. Firstly, the corporate values define the kind of culture that a company aspires to develop. Values guide the employees in attending to their duties with the aim to achieve the company’s mission and goals (Goldman, 2012). Such values help to understand what the organization expects from them and hence commit themselves. Gaylord’s culture is effective because one of its goals was to create a rewarding FUN culture to ignite the passion of employees for serving the guests (Ford et al., 2008). Such was achieved through creation of the seven corporate values that drove the mission of the company.
Moreover, recruitment and selection process depict crucial factors in promoting organizational culture. Hiring the right candidates is important and impacts greatly on the culture. Gaylord was effective in promoting the culture through this approach. The management invented various approaches to signal the intended culture to the potential candidates (Ford et al., 2008). The approaches equipped the hired employees with the appropriate mindset as they joined the company, to understand the kind of culture they were expected to build upon. Besides, the new hirers acquired their positions through “offer experience” that signaled an enthusiastic culture of Gaylord, hence employees perceived an expectation for creativity skills in the workplace (Ford et al., 2008).
The leadership principles also form important factors in enhancing organizational culture. In essence, the approaches through which the leadership team manages the business play critical role in impacting the procedures, policies, and rules that guide the employees. While employees rely on such policies, they adopt in the execution of duties which attract culture formation (Gander, 2009). In this regard, if leaders exemplify effective leadership skills, the culture also becomes effective. Such was evident in Gaylord whose culture was meant to be fun and enthusiastic to promote creativity (Ford et al., 2008). The managers avoided procedural policies and allowed the employees to invent their initiatives in problem-solving and decision-making processes (Ford et al., 2008). The leadership principles that avoided creation of stringent rules was paramount in creating an effective culture where the employees responded commendably to client variation.
Specific Characteristics of Gaylord Palms’ Organizational Culture
Gaylord exhibits a variety of characteristics and elements in its culture to enhance success of its strategic direction. Firstly, the support to employees is the most salient element that promotes performance of the company. In essence, employees form the backbone and most important aspects in the success of a company. Gaylord’s management realized the value of this virtue and invested a lot in ensuring the happiness of employees, to aid in unleashing their potential and skills in supporting organizational mission and goals (Ford et al., 2008). Satisfied and motivated employees tend to work with passion to achieve higher for a company. As such, Gaylord’s culture appreciates the employees through celebrating successes and personal events such as birthdays (Ford et al., 2008). This aids the employees to feel themselves as valuable part of the organization and hence commit their skills, talents, and efforts to achieve higher goals. Besides, motivated employees would serve the clients enthusiastically and exhibit the willingness to invite them again hence building on the clientele niche.
Secondly, the company uses relics such as printing of wallet or pocket cards that detail its values (Ford et al., 2008). These act as easy reference materials for employees to ensure they persistently remember what the company values and hence strive to achieve them during duty-execution. The tangibility of the corporate values through these wallets reinforces to the employees the worth that the management attaches to its values (Ford et al., 2008). Further, employees participate regularly in a discussion of the corporate values. The discussions entail telling of stories regarding the best approaches to promote service delivery. Such enables the employees to view the company mission in terms that specifically relate to their departments (Okantey, 2013). The discussions also ensure that even the quiet employees participate and unleash their potential and skills through verbal communication.
In retrospect, organizational culture is a valuable aspect in pursuing its mission, goals, and objectives. Culture guides the employees to perform their duties in accordance with the corporate values, hence ensure success. The essay discussed various elements that related to creation and maintenance of a company culture, in this case Gaylord Palm Hotel. Creating value for the people was deemed important and Gaylord Palm Hotel achieves this through celebrating employees’ personal events and promotions. Promoting informal organizational procedures was through allowing the use of stories to determine the best means to achieve corporate values. Passion and creativity emerged as the most salient values of the organization that drive success. Further, the leadership principles, recruitment, and selection process poised as the factors that guided cultural effectiveness. Such ensures the exploitation of a variety of skills and hence keeping the company lively and top-performing. Generally, the paper featured various elements of promoting a company’s culture which is a vital aspect of the overall performance.
References
Goldman, E. F. (2012). Leadership practices that encourage strategic thinking. Journal of Strategy and Management. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17554251211200437/full/html
Gander, M. J. (2009). Managing people in a lean environment: The power of informal controls and effective management of company culture. Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS), 5(6), 105-110. https://clutejournals.com/index.php/JBCS/article/view/4738
Okantey, P. C. (2013). When values and ethics lead the way in organizations. Strategic Leadership Review, 3(2). https://submissions.scholasticahq.com/api/v1/attachments/318/download