Edgar H. Schein: Management

Edgar H. Schein is Psychologist. Explore interesting quotes on management.

Edgar H. Schein: 24 quotes 0 likes

“A deeper understanding of cultural issues in organizations is necessary not only to decipher what goes on in them but, even more important, to identify what may be the priority issues for leaders and leadership. Organizational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the most decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management, and--if and when that may become necessary--the destruction of culture. Culture and leadership, when one examines them closely, are two sides of the same coin, and neither can really be understood by itself. In fact, there is a possibility--underemphasized in leadership research--that the only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture and that the unique talent of leaders is their ability to work with culture.”

Edgar H. Schein

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 2

Understanding , Decision

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

Edgar H. Schein

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 20

“Organizational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management, and--if and when that may become necessary--the destruction of culture.”

Edgar H. Schein

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 2

Decision

“A key characteristic of the engineering culture is that the individual engineer’s commitment is to technical challenge rather than to a given company. There is no intrinsic loyalty to an employer as such. An employer is good only for providing the sandbox in which to play. If there is no challenge or if resources fail to be provided, the engineer will seek employment elsewhere. In the engineering culture, people, organization, and bureaucracy are constraints to be overcome. In the ideal organization everything is automated so that people cannot screw it up. There is a joke that says it all. A plant is being managed by one man and one dog. It is the job of the man to feed the dog, and it is the job of the dog to keep the man from touching the equipment. Or, as two Boeing engineers were overheard to say during a landing at Seattle, “What a waste it is to have those people in the cockpit when the plane could land itself perfectly well.” Just as there is no loyalty to an employer, there is no loyalty to the customer. As we will see later, if trade-offs had to be made between building the next generation of “fun” computers and meeting the needs of “dumb” customers who wanted turnkey products, the engineers at DEC always opted for technological advancement and paid attention only to those customers who provided a technical challenge.”

Edgar H. Schein

Edgar H. Schein (2010). Dec Is Dead, Long Live Dec: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equiment Corporation. p. 60

People , Dogs , Loyalty

“One of the best mechanisms that founders, leaders, managers, or even colleagues have available for communicating what they believe in or care about is what they systematically pay attention to.”

Edgar H. Schein

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 225

Communication

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.. The unique talent of leaders is their ability to understand and work with culture; and that it is an ultimate act of”

Edgar H. Schein

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 11

Understanding