Cultures and Organizations

Three of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of Cultures and Organizations pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.

1. Culture is the **collective programming of the mind** that distinguishes one group from another, it sits between universal human nature and unique individual personality, and it is learned, not inherited.
2. The **onion model** says symbols, heroes and rituals are the visible layers (practices), but values are the invisible core, absorbed largely before age ten and extremely hard to change later.
3. **Power distance** measures how much less powerful members expect and accept unequal power. It explains why a Swedish employee argues with the boss and a Malaysian one waits to be told, and why 'empowerment' programs fail on export.

The other 4 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 9 chapters

The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.

1. Software of the Mind
2. The Onion: Symbols, Heroes, Rituals, Values
3. The IBM Study and Where the Dimensions Came From
4. Power Distance: More Equal Than Others
5. I, We, and They
6. Masculinity, Femininity, and What Motivates People
7. Avoiding Uncertainty: Rules, Rituals and Anxiety
8. Long-Term Orientation and the Limits of Western Questions
9. Organizational Cultures Are Not Miniature National Cultures