If consultants are part of the crisis, thentheir role must be explained if not, why mention them?Deal and Kennedy emphasize corporate culture to such an extentthat the reader wonders if profit and profitability ever enter intotheir equation. While this makes the book an easier and more entertainingread, one cannot help questioning if their assertions apply to othercompanies and other industries.Throughout their diagnosis of the current crisis in corporateculture, Deal and Kennedy attack 'young consultants' who areusually the advocates of downsizing and other cost-saving strategies.Their critique never progresses further than oblique references and onlyweakens their argument. Repeated downsizing leads toresentment of those re leased and acute insecurity of those remaining.The loss of corporate identity has not only gutted the workplace ofmeaning it has fostered hostile relationships between employer andemployee.The final and most constructive part of The New Corporate Culturesoutlines the various measures that senior management can take to helprebuild fragmented cultures.Deal and Kennedy draw their anecdotes and examples from aconsistent set of companies primarily in the airline and computerindustry. The central part of the bookcontends that cost-saving measures practiced with increasing intensityhave placed corporate culture 'in crisis.' Often, the onlyemployee problem that gets significant management attention isstock-based executive compensation. An informal communication networkreinforces these bonds on a day-to-day basis.After outlining the elements of a robust culture, Deal and Kennedydetail how it has fared in recent years. Their new book opens with a restatement of the thesis of CorporateCultures: 'Companies that focus on their people and create a socialenvironment - or culture - in which employees can thrive achievesuperior, long term business success.' A robust culture, accordingto Deal and Kennedy, builds on shared values and beliefs held by boththe company and its employees.Ī mission statement that incorporatesthese values must be etched into the consciousness of all employees, notetched into corporate coffee mugs, posters, and other meaningless'corporate graffiti.' Ritual and ceremony ensure that acompany's culture consists not only of intangible beliefs but alsomeaningful communal activities.
Given the slew of new works and the economictransformations of the past two decades, Deal and Kennedy decided torevisit the issue of corporate culture. Thelatter two works supplied quantitative evidence to support Deal andKennedy's original findings: They demonstrated that companies withstrong cultures outperform 'run-of-the-mill' enterprises by asignificant margin. In the years since,there has been a deluge of books on this now-mainstream subject,including John Kotter and James Heskett's Corporate Culture andPerformance and James Collins and Jerry Porras's Built to Last.
Thebook focuses on the effects of these managerial trends, with interestinganecdotes and relevant evidence.In 1982, Deal and Kennedy collaborated on the pioneering CorporateCultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life - the work creditedwith putting corporate culture on the radar screen. While these cost-focusedstrategies have boosted short-term share price, the authors believe thatlong-term value may suffer, as executives paid short-shrift to thepeople in their organizations whom they rely on to get the job done.
KennedyPublished by Perseus Book, Reading, Mass, 312 pages, $26.00TERRENCE DEAL and Alan Kennedy's The New Corporate Cultures:Revitalizing the Workplace After Downsizing, Mergers, and Reengineering,argues that the economic pressures of the last 15 years have destroyedthe cultural fabric of many major corporations. Retrieved fromThe New Corporate Cultures By Terrence E.
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