Interview w/Kat at www.mormon.org

Coming into this week I knew who I wanted to interview for my post as soon as I looked at the reading assignment. The Hofstede (2006) piece seemed like a no-brainer for me to apply if Kat would agree to an interview. Kat is one of my favorite people in the world, and she knows this so I figured she would be open to it. Unfortunately she and her husband are on the opposite side of the world right now. Luckily she was able to get me an email out at the last minute responding to the Hofstede dimensions for her organization.

Kat is one of the front end developers for the Mormon Church and is responsible for www.mormon.org. She is really talented at what she does and throughout the years I have learned that she is also very brilliant. I wanted her responses to the Hofstede dimensions because in her career line most the world functions the opposite way that the Mormon Church does, or so it seems. If this assignment were a little larger I would substantiate that claim. I wanted to see how much of the world’s norms for her type of profession have infiltrated the very hierarchical structure of the Mormon Church. Here are her responses:

1. Power Distance: Is your organization very flat, meaning anyone can talk directly to upper management or is it hierarchical with lots of ‘hoops’ to jump through?

Not at all! It's very bureaucratic, even in the lower levels. Each Person's position is ranked from a 1-5, and I have actually seen level 5's yell at level 3's for out stepping their bounds. We are kept from upper management by a thick middle management...and it takes a lot of politicking to get things done.

(I get the impression that many successful companies in the same field as Kat have adopted flat organizational structures, perhaps I am wrong though. It is worth noting that the structure that Kat describes is precisely what I remember things being like organizationally growing up.)

 Individualism vs Collectivism: Is stress put on individual accomplishments or group successes? Often times individualist societies have high career turn over, whereas collectivist tend to see long term, even life long career trends.

Group successes. 110% group. The individual is rarely recognized, only by individual merit rewards given by their direct managers. It is very much so a team environment, but I've learned to love it. Less cut throat at the team level...we leave that to management :) 

(In a way this came as a surprise to me. The Mormon Church to a certain extent champions individual success-but the more I thought of it the more it made sense. Much of the teachings are group centered, particularly on the family unit. Often times an attitude of if one fails we all fails is the norm and used to motivate members to unite under a single cause.)

1.   Uncertainty Avoidance: Does your organization cope with anxiety by trying to minimize uncertainty? i.e. are there a lot of rules, structure, and coincidently emotions? Or is it a loose organization with everyone tolerant of change and pragmatic?

We hire people on "contract" for two years before they are ever offered a FTE position. This is actually really nice, because once you are FTE, you know that you're set for life. The church hates uncertainty, and there is a plan and a budget for EVERYTHING. and not one thing is done that is outside of those plans.

(This was exactly what I expected to hear. There are no uncertain things in the Mormon Church-everything happens for a reason and at a specified time when possible. I would think that in a line of work like Kat’s this lack of flexibility would be detrimental, but I know she loves her job and I can’t think of a time when I heard her complain about the structure.)

1.   Masculinity vs Femininity: Masculine traits are competiveness, control, power, ambition, assertiveness etc; feminine traits focus on relationships and quality of life—which traits are predominate at your organization

masculinity. oddly...but very much so. 

(For me this was a no-brainer, but it is interesting to see that she thinks it odd. I wonder if it is because so much emphasis is placed on the family that maybe Kat got confused about what it meant. I probably should have explained the masculinity traits as referring to more traditional gender roles.)

1.   Long Term vs Short Term Orientation: Does your organization pragmatically look to the future with persistence and strive after rewards or does it focus more on the past and present respecting face and maintaining tradition?

Long Term. We're trying to fix the mistakes/habits of the past....it just takes a long time to get there

(The Mormon Church is very goal oriented so this came as no surprise.)

Now if Sorenson (2009) wanted to find a strong culture it would be apparent in Kat’s office. Not only is it part of their work life, but also their religious life and the same values are reflected in the office as are stringently adhered to in their personal lives.

As I have previously mentioned I grew up in the Mormon Church but do not practice and I find it intriguing that Kat thinks it odd to have such a masculine culture at work. This fits very well with the Mormon culture in general and you can look to the popular media for proof (Winter, 2011).

There was a part of me that wanted to see some of the other traits having infiltrated this part of the organization. It would have been refreshing to hear that some feminine traits predominated with in Kat’s department, and not because I want to see a change in the Mormon Church, but because it would have shown how ends can justify means even within a very strict culture. For Kat the way it is seems very natural, and I look forward to talking with her when she is available again to see if I can get an idea for how much the organizational culture affects her on a daily basis. Denison and Mishra (1995) argue that an organization can have a very dramatic effect on its constituents-and I am sure that Kat’s does-but I would like to know at what level. It is too bad that we can probably never see where she would be without it also (nor would I want to, it is a very important part of her life.)

One thing that I take away from this interview is that organizations and people can flourish no matter their culture. What the leaders in Kat's organization have done is recruit people that fit very well into their organizational puzzle and buy into the culture 100%. This has allowed them to produce near flawless products under what would seem counter-intuitive to many other organizations. It seems that the real task to organizational success is not creating the right culture, but establishing a culture, sticking with it, and getting the people who fit it well on board.

Sorenson, J. (2009) Note on Organizational Culture, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6 (full article)

Hofstede, G. (2006). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture. (full article)

Denison, D.R. & Mishra, A.K. (1995) Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organization Science, 6, 204-223.

Winter, C. (2011) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/mission-training-grooms-mormons-to-pursue-presidency-ceo-suite.html