When an organisation is born, a tremendous burst of energy is released as members struggle to make it work. A corporate culture seems to form rather quickly, based on the organisation's mission, setting and behaviour for success: high quality, efficiency, product reliability, customer service, innovation, hard work and loyalty. The culture captures everyone's imagination and cultural change becomes a constant driving force. As the reward systems, policies and work procedures are formally documented, they suggest what kinds of behaviour and attitudes are important for success, people become more reflective and cultural change slows.

Such situational forces, while important in shaping culture cannot compete with actions of key individuals. For example, the founder's objectives, principles, values and especially behaviour provide important clues as to what is really wanted from all employees, both now and in the future. Carrying on in the traditions of the founder, other top executives affect the corporate culture of the company by their example. Employees take note of all critical incidents that stem from management action - such as the time that so-and-so was reprimanded or highly praised for doing a good job when not asked to do so beforehand, or the time that another worker was fired for publicly disagreeing with the company's position. Incidents such as these become an enduring part of the company folklore, indicating what the corporation really wants, what really counts in getting ahead or, alternatively, how to stay out of trouble. They are the unwritten rules of the game.

The corporate culture may be very functional at first. But in time it becomes a separate entity, independent of its initial purpose. The culture becomes distinct from the formal strategy, structure and reward systems of the organisation. In a similar vein, culture becomes distinct from workers and even top managers. All members of the organisation are 'taught / educated, through situational experience' (i.e., are directly or indirectly persuaded by their colleagues) to follow the cultural norms without questioning them or attempting cultural change. After employees have been around for a few years, they have already learned the ropes. Even new top executives who commit to cultural change find out - often the hard way - how the corporate culture is "bigger" and more powerful than they are. A top manager can get individual commitments to some new cultural change initiative or policy from his/her subordinates, but after they walk out of the office door and once again become part of the corporate culture, the boss finds the new plan opposed / resisted / frustrated - there are always a hundred 'justifiable' reasons why cultural change is not a good idea, see some in the appendix.

Top management are also caught in the grip of the firm's separate and distinct culture. Employees wonder from below why managers play it so safe, why they refuse to approach things differently, why they keep applying the same old management practices that clearly do not work, why they cannot stick their necks out to sponsor cultural change, to take on political corporate heavy weights and fight for what is right, for what is needed. They wonder why management is so blind to the world around them and to the 'obvious' cultural change needs and the feelings of the staff. Is management mean, ignorant, frightened or just stupid?

The management wonder why staff cannot see what is needed for business success, what is needed to ward off threat, to survive, why are the staff so obstructive, unco-operative, don't they understand the consequences of failure to affect cultural change, to develop modern thinking, are they blind, insensitive, ignorant, or so self centred, so determined to hold onto existing working (but outdated) practices, pay and performance and manning deals, etc., regardless of what the organisation needs simply to survive? Why cannot they see this? Why cannot they work with us on cultural change initiatives? Are they stupid?