Robert Purse on Corporate Culture

The best analogy that I can come up with is that Organisation Culture is like the product of a chemical reaction. You take a variety of elements/compounds, combine them and, in the appropriate conditions, you end up with a particular product. The product may be very beneficial e.g. water, or it may be extremely toxic e.g. potassium cyanide. The key is what you start with and how all the elements react together. Once the reaction is complete, it is too late to say, “I don’t like product, I’ll change it.” If you want a different product you have to change something. That something may be the ingredients you start with, it may equally be the way you combine them and the conditions under which they are combined.