For example, a smaller company in the business of developing new and innovative software might have been founded and headed by young, aggressive executives whose daily business and personal actions smack of impetuousness and a penchant for risk-taking. That would be the image that you would be most likely to perceive as representing the entire company, and you might find that you pattern yourself after those top people. The problem arises when, further down the management line, your immediate supervisor functions more methodically and without the capacity or willingness to go out on a limb. That puts you in a dilemma: your immediate supervisor responds favorably to a slower-moving, cautious individual and does not take kindly to a more flamboyant style, even though it represents top management.
The same conflicts can occur in virtually every area of a company. The top executives might be extremely informal, while middle management takes a more formal approach to relations between management and employees.
The nature of the industry in which the company functions will determine, to a great extent, that company's culture. An aircraft manufacturer, whose future rides on an extremely long-term and sizable commitment to one product with the hope that it will be widely accepted over the years, places greater value on employees whose approach to decision making is less crisis-oriented. Data processors who can view the job in terms of a marathon runner, rather than a sprinter, will be more comfortable in such a culture.
On the other hand, a company engaged in the manufacture of a product that must constantly be refined to meet the competitive demands of the marketplace will place a premium on people who are able to rapidly shift gears and respond to immediate change.
If you have been in data processing for a while and have taken the time - and used the experience - to understand yourself and the way you function best, you will naturally gravitate toward a company with a corporate culture that approximates your style. In terms of career growth, it is very important that you do this on a continuing basis, and use the knowledge as a guide for future decisions.
Adapting to a corporate culture is difficult for everyone, but it's likely to be more difficult for data processors. The field of data processing has its own occupational culture, and very often it doesn't match up with a given corporate culture. From the very beginning, data processing has attracted men and women who held themselves outside the mainstream of American business life and who functioned with the philosophy that all they needed for future success was to make a computer stand on its ear and perform. Those days are over, and it is the blending of the DPers' culture with the American business culture that is necessary for the continued success of both.
That's not to say that data processors must lose their identity. Rather, it is like the varied ethnic cultures that have made this country great. An ethnic group will continue to enjoy its unique characteristics within itself, but also spreads out into the broader American culture and uses the process of assimilation to contribute to that larger culture.
The same holds true in business.
Culture + Politics = Blend
One of the major problems in blending cultures - occupational, corporate, or ethnic - is our reluctance to shed the myth belief system by which we live our lives.
It works this way. We are brought up with a set of myths given us by our family, friends, schools, and surrounding society. I'm not using the term "myth" in a negative sense, only to make the point that a great deal of what we end up believing in our adult lives is not necessarily based upon reality. It's more mythical: for example, "Just do your job and you'll be rewarded" or "Security is found only in a large corporation" or, "Politics is a dirty word and shouldn't be engaged in by anyone except politicians."
The myths with which we grow up are legion, and many of them eventually harden into our belief system. The myth, as unfactual as it might be, now is practiced as though it is based on rock-hard data. The word "myth" is a good example. We tend to view it as something totally lacking in substance, a fairy tale, yet the word does not have to be perceived that way.
The same holds true for the word "politics." There is, of course, dirty politics; one needs only to read the daily newspaper to be given examples of that. But if the word "politics" is used in the true sense of its definition (the ability to persuade people to our way of thinking), its function in the business world takes on a greater and more valuable meaning.
Politics plays a pervasive role in every company, and employees who refuse to at least acknowledge that, and who live their professional lives acting upon the myth that it is something to be avoided (because it has become a belief), will not only find it virtually impossible to blend their occupational culture with that of the company, but will soon find their career growth stymied, not only within that company but within the data processing field itself.
One myth about office politics is that it involves stabbing people in the back in order to get ahead. People who do that are not practicing politics; they're simply bad people. Assigning the word "politics" to them gives it an unnecessarily bad name.
Politics in the workplace involves an understanding of the relationship of people within a department and the relationship of that department to the company as a whole, and, ultimately, how that company will relate to the industry within which it functions.
