The next section, is called "The Case for Socialization" and, as the title suggests, it goes to some length to argue for the need for socialization, particularly in corporations. I'm going to skip over a lot of it that, I think, isn't so relevant to the Vienna context, mostly because it just deals with large corporations and so the arguments would need to be, I think, greatly changed to fit a mid-sized religious nonprofit setting.
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"It is useful to distinguish between norms that are central to the core factors that drive business success and social conventions that signal commitment and belonging. The former set is most essential as it ensures consistency around certain crucial activities that link to a firm's strategy...
The second second set of norms are, in effect, organizational equivalents of a handshake. They are social conventions that make it easier for people to be comfortable with one another. One need not observe all of them, but as some conventions count more than others, one strives to reassure the organization that one is on the team... The important aspect of this second set of social values is that, like a handshake, they are usually not experienced as oppressive. Partly, this is because adherence is only skin deep. (Most of us don't feel our individualism is compromised by shaking hands.) In addition, these social conventions are usually self-evident to prospective members and self-selection eliminates many whose integrity would be violated by observing them." (p. 36)
The way the author distinguishes types of organizational culture would not fit in the Vienna mission context; that is "social conventions that signal commitment and belonging" would be seen as just as critical as "norms that are central to the core factors that drive business success" and as such becomes virtually indistinguishable from the latter, or at least the lines demarcating them would be very blurry.
That being said, however, I think it might be possible to find a different way to separate out different types of culture and (sticking with just two types of culture), I'd like to suggest another commonly used way of looking at this issue, which is to divide them into formal and informal culture (or Culture vs. culture), which are defined in the Sensagent.com dictionary as:
"In the context of intercultural learning, it is important to be aware of different subcategories of culture, such as "little c" and "big C" culture. While the latter one is also called "objective culture" or "formal culture" referring to institutions, big figures in history, literature, etc., the first one, the "subjective culture", is concerned with the less tangible aspects of a culture, like everyday patterns. In intercultural learning, a mixture of these two is to be employed, but it is especially the apprehension of subjective culture that triggers the development of intercultural competence."
Although this definition refers to culture in society at large I don't think it would take much effort to apply it to the Vienna mission setting. This would put things like aspects of the monthly organization-wide women's meetings, the monthly staff meetings, having monthly birthday cakes for all staff with birthdays in that month, the monthly newsletter, as well as specifics of these traditions, such as who does what, how institutional memory is formally developed within these vehicles, etc. These were issues that, as the author suggest (in reference to his "organizational equivalents of a handshake") were not a problem for me and did not feel my individualism compromised by them. They were also straightforward and, as such, often included explicit instructions on what I should do, such as signing up to bring the birthday cake one month.
But the little "c" culture, where all the most basic norms and values of a society (or, in this case, organization) lie, and which are for the most part not explicitly stated, are where I had problems. In society at large, these things often grow up in and of themselves (but not always) and are not necessarily intentional in a "social engineering" sense. But in some kinds of organizations there is more of a tendency towards the top-down intentional development of informal culture; I hadn't made that connection with East European missions prior to my arrival in Vienna, but it soon became apparent that, despite my unconscious assumption to the contrary, I was wrong on this count, and that there indeed was some social engineering going on there.
What might give the impression of such informal cultural traits being top-down is how they were enforced and what the possible consequences of infraction of those aspects of culture. In the case in Vienna, it was the leadership that was offended more than the rank and file organizational membership, and this was exhibited in how I was moved around so much, for example. That had to come from leadership and, since there was nothing wrong with my adherence to formal cultural norms, I assumed that it should be somewhere in the bowels of the informal cultural apparatus that was offended by something I did or did not do appropriately.
The last thing I'd like to comment on in this part of the text is that I would have had no opportunity to de-select myself from the Vienna mission because I hadn't been exposed to it (other than bringing a light table there in the summer of 1983, which hardly counts for much of an encounter). I would have had to make broad assumptions about only a couple question-raising interactions with the mission, but both of these could be (and were) easily dismissed as likely being unintentional (in the sense of involving something other than what they were on the surface). Alternately, I could have interpreted issues that had raised questions regarding other East European missions and applied that to the universe of all East European missions and as a result decided from the get-go to have an independent ministry in that part of the world apart from any mission connection. All of these possibilities are somewhat far-fetched and I wouldn't have had a very convincing basis on which to explain my decisions.
And, unlike my first librarian position here where I now live, I wasn't invited to Vienna for an in-person extended interview, which may have served to raise questions on both sides of the interview table (mine and theirs). So, in these ways, self-selection was highly unlikely vis a vis my possible work with the Vienna mission, because I didn't know enough about their informal culture.
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The next (and last) section in this article is called "Misconceptions."
"There is, of course, an ever present danger of strong culture firms becoming incestuous and myopic - the 'General Motors syndrome.' Most opponents of socialization rally around this argument. But what is learned from the firms that have avoided these pitfalls is that they consciously minimize the downside of socialization by cultivating obsessions - not just any obsession, but ones that serve to continually wrench attention from the internal matters to the world outside. The four most common 'obsessions' are quality, competition, customer service, and productivity. Each demands an external focus... It should be noted that organizations which tend to be obsessive over internal matters, such as Delta's with 'the family feeling,' may be riding for a fall." (p. 37)
I'm not sure where to put the Vienna mission on this issue; I think there were elements of both inward and outward looking "obsessions." But on the other hand, I think it would be actually very difficult to disentangle which "obsessions" might be inward and which outward looking, or which are both. The outward looking aspect would be the response to the (real and/or perceived) security threats because of the nature of their mission field (but also Vienna as a jumping off point, being a virtual hotbed of spies). But was there a point where an outward impetus might have resulted in an inward obsession? I think this question could easily be a point of contention, and open to discussion, depending on your perspective and values, which, in the mission's case is (at least part of) their organizational culture. In that case, it might be easy to find oneself inextricably entangled in either circular reasoning or guilty of "begging the question", or both, and end out on a wild goose chase (begging the question) or dizzily trying to extricate oneself from a revolving door.
Here's an example of what I mean (by way of taking the liberty of putting words in the mouths of the mission leadership):
Circular reasoning: "We've developed our outward-looking obsessions largely in response to threats to our ministry, but to fully develop these obsessions we've found it necessary to also develop inward-looking obsessions, which thus serve to support the more directly outward-looking obsessions, which we developed in response to threats to our ministry, but to fully..."
And round and round you go, and where it stops nobody knows...
In this manner, inward obsession might be acknowledged, but justified in a circular manner.
Begging the question: East European mission experts agree with us that unusual measures are warranted in response to [potential] threats to our ministry.
In other words: We agree with ourselves that unusual measures...
In this way, there is not even an attempt to differentiate inward and outward looking obsessions, but instead they are all lumped together in the phrase "unusual measures" and justified based on, basically, their own say-so.
Again, these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, nor necessarily the only ways to understand the reality of what was going on regarding the organizational culture of the Vienna mission, but it might give you an idea of some of the possible ways of understanding these phenomena, and I find either (or both) of these ways of thinking to be reasonably believable interpretations, or at least partial explanations or contributing factors.
In any case, my contention remains that many of these cultural measures were excessive and based on erroneous (as defined by biblical mandates) foundations.
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That's all for this text and for this post. I have physical therapy in an hour and I haven't even showered yet, so I have to run!
