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Behavioral Norms, Not Personality, Is How Cultures Change It Is an Honor and a Joy to Revisit Ben Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Behavioral Norms, Not Personality, Is How Cultures Change It Is an Honor and a Joy to Revisit Ben Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic JENNIFER A. CHATMAN Behavioral Norms, Not Personality, is How Cultures Change It is an honor and a joy to revisit Ben response to the COVID-19 pandemic. small behavioral changes “led to a big Schneider’s Attraction–Selection–Attrition We are finding that organizations dynamic shift.” (Chatman, 2013, p. 11). model, which has had so much impact on may have significant capacity for both This distinction, between culture my career and more importantly, on what rapid and fundamental cultural change as an aggregate of members’ personal- we know about person-culture fit. Ben and (Brown, et al, 2020; Stein, Chatman, & ity versus behavioral norms, is impor- I have engaged in wonderfully illuminating Schroeder, 2020). tant and has significant implications debates about organizational culture over 2. Culture is derived from behavioral for how we think about culture change. the years and, in the interest of continuing norms within organizations, not aggre- We have long known that personal- that fruitful debate, I offer some contrast- gations of members’ personality. ity is remarkably stable (e.g., Costa & ing views on three of the themes that he Why might Ben and I disagree about McCrae, 1986) and so, if we define cul- and Lukas Neville surface in their interest- the pace of culture change? Probably ture as aggregated personalities homog- ing paper. because we disagree about what culture enized through the ASA process, we 1. Organizational culture changes more is. I conceptualize organizational cul- can only imagine culture changing rapidly than Neville and Schneider sug- ture as behavioral norms, which have slowly if at all. And yet, we observe that gest. Culture is not as inert as Neville greater plasticity than personality. My cultures can and do change. The rea- and Schneider claim. Organizations longtime collaborator, Charles O’Reilly, son is that even if personality is not in which members agree about a wide and I suggest that when the norms very flexible, behavior is. Most people, range of cultural norms but whom also characterizing an organization are both regardless of their personality, could prioritize adaptability as a key cultural widely shared and strongly held, they make the kind of behavioral shift norm perform better over time (Chat- act as a social control system to shape described at Genentech— changing man et al, 2014). In fact, the combi- members’ attitudes and behaviors the way they talk about sales from nation of a high consensus culture (Chatman & O’Reilly, 2016; O’Reilly vials to patients—and this reprioritiza- characterized by adaptability was worth & Chatman, 1996). These behavioral tion of strategically effective behaviors about 15% in annual revenue growth, or norms are socially created standards is where the potential for meaningful about $5B for the high-technology firms that help members set expectations and culture change lies (Chatman & Gino, in our study. In another pair of stud- interpret and evaluate behavior. Orga- 2020). In other words, people are not ies, we found that when leaders across nizational culture, then, is a pattern of destined to behave in accordance with levels were consistent in emphasizing beliefs and expectations that members their personality. Indeed, in even the the strategic relevance of the culture share and that produce these norms, best studies attempting to link person- change they were pursuing, meaning- which in turn, powerfully shape what ality traits and exhibited behavior, cor- ful change occurred quickly (Caldwell people do in that organiza tional context. relations top out in the .40 range (e.g., et al 2008; O’Reilly et al, 2010). Other To illustrate the potency of behav- Funder, 2006). Further, people can research has shown that culture can ioral norms, consider a small but vivid behave in ways that are quite different be malleable, much like a growth example of culture change at Genen- from their personality when the cul- mind set (Dweck et al, 2014), and that tech: As the organization sought to ture favors doing so (e.g., Chatman & employees and prospective employees triple their sales by becoming more Barsade, 1995). view malleable cultures more positively focused on the patients who could ben- There is also new evidence that (Canning et al, 2020). efit from the medicines Genentech people perform well in organizations In a more anecdotal, but striking produced, members changed the way even if they don’t fit the culture in con- case at Genentech, I tracked the pace they talked about sales. Instead of dis- ventional, personality-fit terms. In of culture change and its link to strat- cussing the number of “vials sold,” contrast to previous theories of person- egy execution (Chatman, 2014; Lyons, they intentionally discussed sales in culture fit based on personality or val- 2017). Genentech tripled in size, an terms of the number of patients they ues fit (e.g., Chatman, 1991; Sheridan, accomplishment they had expected had helped in the period. They also 1992), colleagues and I recently found to take five years, in 11 short months. began opening meetings with a patient that a newly identified form of culture Genentech leaders attributed their story. As a result, one of the leaders at fit, which we call “perceptual congru- staggering success to deliberate cul- Genentech said, “People shifted focus ence” or the degree to which a person ture change. Finally, colleagues and I from ‘how are your numbers?’ to ‘what can decipher the organization’s cultural have a set of in-progress studies exam- have you done for patients?’” These code, equips people with the capac- ining the pace of culture change in ity to exhibit behavioral conformity, 60 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT REVIEW Vol. 53 No. 1 2021 regardless of their actual personality organizations that causes these dys- of leadership and change readiness,” or value fit (Lu, et al, 2020). Further, functional norms to persist even after Health Care Management Review, 33(2). perceptual congruence enables behav- they depart. The reason for this is that Chatman, J. (1991). Matching people and ioral fit and ultimately, upward mobility members of the organization follow organizations: Selection and socializa- within a firm. the culture—those policies, practices, tion in public accounting firms.Admin - 3. Leaders and their personalities do and sanctions that became embedded istrative Science Quarterly, 36: 459–484. influence organizational culture, during the narcissistic leader’s era, Chatman, J. (2014). Culture change at but identifying exactly how this hap- regardless of who currently sits in the Genentech. California Management pens is essential. Ed Schein has long CEO’s office. Review. 56(2): 113–129. argued that CEOs and founders have a Chatman, J. & Barsade, S. (1995). Person- unique impact on organizational cul- Focusing on culture as behavioral norms, ality, culture and cooperation: Evidence ture (Schein, 2010), and Neville and emphasizing cultural adaptation, and rec- from a business simulation. Administra- Schneider appropriately recognize this. ognizing that people with many person- tive Science Quarterly, 40(3): 423–443. But it is too simple to attribute leaders’ ality orientations can enact a wide range Chatman, J. A., Caldwell, D. F., O’Reilly, impact exclusively to their personal- of behaviors enables researchers and man- C. A., & Doerr, B. (2014). Parsing ity; we need to continue to uncover the agers to be more optimistic about the organizational culture: How the mechanisms by which a leader’s per- possibility of achieving fast, functional cul- norm for adaptability influences sonality becomes reflected in culture. ture change within organizations. This is the relationship between culture We did this in a series of studies good news! consensus and financial performance linking leader narcissism to organiza- in high-technology firms. Journal tional culture. We found that narcissis- References of Organizational Behavior, 35(6), tic CEOs were more likely to develop 785–808. cultures that were low in cooperation Brown, D., Chatman, J., Chen, Y., Gold- Chatman, J. & Gino, F. (2020). Don’t and integrity (O’Reilly & Chatman, berg, A., Harrington, H., Srivastava, S., let the pandemic sink your culture. forthcoming). The way that narcissis- & Vicinanza, P. (2020). The speed and Harvard Business Review, August 17, tic personalities influenced the cul- intensity of culture adaptation during the 2020, https://hbr.org/2020/08/dont-let- ture, however, was not through role COVID-19 pandemic: Silver linings and the-pandemic-sink-your-company-culture modeling, or even attract ing, select- dark clouds. Working paper, University Chatman, J. A., & O’Reilly, C. A. (2016). ing, or retaining people who were also of California, Haas School of Business. Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study narcissistic —in fact, the last thing a Canning, E. A., Murphy, M.C., Emerson, of organizational culture. Research in narcissistic leader wants is to be sur- K.T., Chatman, J.A., Dweck, C.S., Organizational Behavior, (B. Staw & A. rounded by other narcissists. Instead, & Kray, L.J. (2020). Organizational Brief, Eds.), 36, 199–224. narcis sistic leaders influenced their cul- mindsets shape corporate culture, trust, Costa Jr, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1986). Per- ture by embedding policies, practices, and commitment. Personality and Social sonality stability and its implica­­tions for and sanctions that favored behaviors Psychology Bulletin. 0146167219872473. clinical psychology. Clinical Psychology asso ciated with lower cooperation and Caldwell, D., Chatman, J., O’Reilly, C., Review, 6(5), 407–423. lower integrity. And, of great con cern, Ormiston, M., & Lapiz, M. (2008). Dweck, C., Murphy, M., Chatman, J., & our work also suggested that narcissis- Implementing strategic change in a Kray, L. (2014). How companies can tic leaders may leave a residue on their health care system: The importance . if we define culture as aggregated personalities homo- genized through the ASA process, we can only imagine culture changing slowly if at all. And yet, we observe that cultures can and do change.
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