Org Culture Mcnamara Describes Organizations as Having

Org Culture

McNamara describes organizations as having one of four different cultural types -- academy, baseball team, fortress or club. These analogies describe certain characteristics of organizations, for example that an academy culture is where employees are highly skilled, loyal, work their way up the ranks, and the organization itself provides a stable environment. The baseball team culture is a meritocracy, and workers may not be loyal but are rather likely to be free agents, moving from company to company and position to position. These are fast-paced, highly-skilled organizations. The fortress culture reflects an organization that is defensive in nature. Employees do not have a strong sense of security, and there might be a reorganization ongoing at the company. There are opportunities for some employees, not for others. The final style is the club culture, which places emphasis on assimilation to group norms. There is often a high degree of stability in these organizations because employees who are already in the culture are prized.

My organization would be classed probably in the academy culture. While there is certainly a degree of assimilation akin to a club culture, this is a stable company and employees do tend to work their way up the ranks. So there are elements of both but academy is probably a better fit, because fitting into the group is not necessarily prized, given that many people spend a lot of time working on their own.

The McGinty/Moss assessment provides a different perspective on organizational culture. With this, I had 2 trues in questions 1-5, 3 in questions 6-10 and 2 in questions 11-15. This puts my organization in the "established/stable" culture (McGinty & Moss, 2011). The authors note that the organization has probably been around for a long time (correct) has processes in place to handle most situations (correct), and does not reinvent the wheel (correct). The authors also predict that the organization provides a lot of opportunities (correct). They identify pitfalls as well, predicting that the organization struggles to handle conflict well (false), has command and control leadership (more or less true), is wary of turnover (more or less untrue) and a few other pitfalls. So while many of their predictions hold true, not all do.

These two assessments clearly note certain similarities. The key theme is probably stability. The company has a stable business and has been around for a long while. Things do not change all that quickly, just adjustments where changes in the external environment warrant. Stability is not just in the company itself but in the organizational culture, in many of the people who work there, and in the business model (which seldom changes) and most other aspects as well. This is an interesting finding, that both models point to this, but it is not exactly earth-shattering. Both models tell me that a stable, conservative company is stable and conservative.

As noted, there were some deviations from what these models predicted for the company and what I perceive to be reality. The McNamara model left me not really understanding what the difference between Academy and Club are, given that their traits seem very similar. One is perhaps more professional, if I am to read between the lines, which I why I saw my company as being more of an academy. But there are some strong club elements, so I see that the McNamara typologies are not a perfect fit for explaining my organization.

The McGinty/Moss typology definitely was the closest one to describing my organization, and accurately predicted the positive traits of my organization -- while not a family company it has had the same CEO for a long time. The negative traits proved harder to predict, however, in the McGinty/Moss model. The leadership might be command and control (again, more or less), but this does not lead to feelings of disconnectedness on the part of employees at all -- they are entrusted to do things. Command and control is not the same thing as micromanagement and disempowerment. So I see that McGinty/Moss, in trying to characterize a downside to each culture, reaches a bit. Companies that are highly successful are not likely to have these negative traits and cultural elements, but would have weeded them out.