Cracking the Corporate Cultural Code.
By Steve Simpson
The Unwritten Ground Rules, UGR’s
A Review of the book by Peter A Hunter – Author of “Breaking the Mould”
I was introduced to Steve Simpson’s book by a colleague who admitted that whenever he visited a client this was one of the first books to which his thoughts flew.
“Cracking the Corporate Culture Code” is the book that introduces us to the concept that Steve Simpson has called “ Unwritten Ground Rules.”
Unwritten Ground Rules are the unspoken genetic code of an organisation that permeate its every activity and every decision that is made within it.
These are the rules that completely ignore the words that people say and instead go straight to what they do.
These are the rules that control our processes, our policies and our customer experience.
They completely bypass the lovingly crafted corporate mission statement and zoom in on the way that people actually behave.
Customers will never remember your commitment to service excellence if when they call to place an order they feel as if they are interrupting someone’s coffee break, and your staff will never tell you why they are leaving if you never listened to them when they were there.
Steve Simpson through his UGR’s has captured the essence of what makes an organisation tick, and it is not the management rhetoric.
It is the way that people actually feel about what they do.
Steve’s straightforward book takes us through a practical process to discover what the Unwritten Ground Rules are in our own organisations.
His experience of using UGR’s suggests that when the real genetic code of an organisation is revealed in this way the UGR’s are always surprising to management and are seldom positive.
Unwritten Ground Rules such as:
Being open and honest gets you in trouble.
Customer complaints are a pain in the neck.
Human resources are a disruption to the real work of this organisation.
Having identified these negative UGR’s “Cracking the Corporate Code” then takes us to the next and fairly obvious step, how to change these negative UGR’s into positives, with a clear action plan and strategies for their implementation.
If you are concerned about the way that your organisation is performing then finding out why, and what to do about it, has got to be a very good step.
Steve’s book is simple and uncomplicated. How to find out what you need to know, and what to do about it when you have found out.
Peter A Hunter
Author – Breaking the Mould
www.breakingthemould.co.uk