[MUSIC] In the digital age, success will require infusing the customer perspective throughout the organization to make it more responsive to customers, more agile, more innovative, and more data driven. Achieving those ambitions requires a cultural transformation and a new perspective on leadership. In this module we will explore the concept of corporate culture and how you as a leader can help create a culture well suited for the challenges ahead. But what is corporate culture? Culture is a word that means many things to many people. But for our purposes, the definition of culture is really very straightforward. Every organization confronts challenges. In response, the organization takes action. Sometimes the firm succeeds, sometimes it fails. The shared learning from those successes and failures become the firm's experience. Culture is simply the shared lessons an organization draws from its experience. Those lessons shape how members of the firm behave by influencing deeply shared beliefs and values. The Taj Mahal Hotel and Towers in Mumbai, India, offers one vivid illustration of corporate culture. The hotel is famous for its customer service created through a painstaking process of analyzing the customer experience, training employees and rewarding successful outcomes. Like many fine hotels, being a guest at the Taj is a treat, but the culture of the Taj is very special. In November 2008, terrorists attacked the hotel in a military style assault. For three days, terrorists roamed the hotel, killing guests and staff alike. Despite the obvious danger, not a single employee left the hotel. The hotel operators were sitting in a room just off the lobby when the terrorists entered the hotel. And they remained at their post throughout the crisis. Some employees even returned to work after learning of the attack. As terrorists roamed through the large historic hotel, members of the staff played a high stakes game of cat and mouse with the terrorists, devising ways to safely evacuate guests. Putting their own lives at obvious risk, one group of staff formed a human wall to shield guests from gunfire in an attempt to evacuate guests through a kitchen service entrance. Indian security forces including Marine commandos stormed the hotel ending the siege. Tragically, 31 people died as a result of the attack at the Taj Mahal Hotel. But analysts estimate that the heroism of the staff saved hundreds of lives. As one guest remarked, the staff was quote, simply brilliant. Stop the video and watch this clip on YouTube which shows an interview with one courageous restaurant manager at the Taj. An organization's culture, such as the one that produced heroic behavior at the Taj, has multiple layers. Most easily we observe behavior, the actions of individuals, the processes used, and the structure of the organization. At the deepest level are the fundamental values and beliefs that guide the behavior we observe. At the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, the staff obviously felt tremendous responsibility to protect the lives of guests. The courageous staff truly put customers' lives ahead of their own based on conviction. At Motorola, the culture developed differently. A remarkably innovative firm, Motorola pioneered mobile communications technology including the equipment that transmitted Neil Armstrong's famous words to Earth as he set foot on the moon. Their most famous invention however is the mobile phone. Again and again Motorola created new technologies, pioneered new markets and financial success followed. Customers did not come first as in the case of other high technology companies. Technology came first. Though an organization's values and beliefs may be invisible, they are reflected in the norms of behavior and easily observed symbols. For example, I remember walking through the halls of Motorola and noticed that employees had different name badges. Most people wore a white badge, but occasionally I would see someone with a gold badge. After asking my host, I learned that employees with more than ten patents received a gold badge, everyone else wore white. What about those who make $10 million, I asked. What color do they wear? White, my host replied. At Motorola, technology is king. Take a moment to consider the culture of your organization. Consider this simple question. What one or two values or beliefs best reflect your organization's culture? These values and beliefs are the proactive history. How well will these values serve your organization going forward? Will these values and beliefs need to change? If so, how? Which values will you seek to preserve, which values will you seek to change? We will explore the values of successful firms next. [MUSIC]
