Introduction Eager to implement organizational change, leaders might leap into change implementation fueled by enthusiasm, offering real and symbolic support, and demanding results. There is a factor, however, too important to overlook: the organization’s culture. Culture might serve as an enabler of change, but it might also erect barriers. For that reason, this chapter will examine organizational culture and its role in hindering and implementing change. In particular, this chapter will:   * Define organizational culture as an emergent phenomenon in organizations   * Analyze the relationship between culture and organizational change   * Delineate the six cultural traits most associated with organizational adaptation and change   * Suggest how organizations can go about assessing their culture   * Discuss actions that organizational leaders can take to reshape culture Before doing that, we will examine how attempts by a progression of CEOs intent on change at what once was a premier American company faced a strong, resistant organizational culture. Culture and Change at Xerox In some ways, Xerox represented American business at its best. 1 In 1960 when the company issued its 914 copier, no one understood just how significant that launch would be. Five years later, Xerox’s flagship product generated revenues of over $390 million; it went on to be the most profitable product in the history of the United States. The brand was so popular and ubiquitous that the name itself became iconic: people didn’t “copy” documents, they “Xeroxed” them. But Xerox became one of the most extraordinary stories of corporate decline as well. As the company gained a near monopoly over the centralized office copier market, employees’ attitudes and behaviors became increasingly insular. Personal aggrandizement, turf protection, and career advancement directed employee behaviors away from the marketplace. The cultural values which pervaded the company in the 1960s and 1970s became “somewhat intolerant of initiatives and leadership from the ranks. Decision making was often centralized. Experimentation was often discouraged, and error was not tolerated well.” 2 The company failed to commercialize many of its own internally developed breakthrough technologies: the personal computer created at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center being only the most famous example. The looming threat of high quality/low cost Japanese competitors—Canon would revolutionize the copy market through smaller, decentralized machines that could now be placed in each office—blindsided Xerox executives. Perhaps most troubling was a culture that treated customers with a contempt bordering on arrogance. One story, small though it might be, captures the prevailing attitude. It used to be that Xerox users were unable to write in blue ink; Xerox machines simply did not reproduce blue very well. Customers wondered why Xerox could not fix the “problem.” When they complained, the company’s response was simple and straightforward: use another color ink! If our processes don’t meet your needs, they were saying, why, you’ll just have to adjust your needs. After all, we set the standards, we will decide how to define effectiv