首席文化官异军突起

    任何一本管理指南都会谈到公司文化的重要性。可以说公司的所作所为，不管是成功还是失误，背后都有文化的影子。就如我们最近在金融行业所见到的情形，再健全的公司文化如果出现小小裂缝，都可能导致严重错误。

    然而公司文化总是在演变，所以定义公司文化、确保它保持在合适的方向上就成为一个重大的挑战。咨询公司怡安翰威特（Aon Hewitt）的高级副总裁肯•欧勒指出，越来越多的公司在寻找应对的方法。“我们的客户重新审视企业文化，在经济危机中及危机过后，它的重要性得到首席执行官层面的关注。”欧勒说，很多公司发现“来自宏观经济的压力造成了企业文化的紊乱，无法在未来支撑公司业绩的提升，”所以他们现在试图找到防止企业文化失控的方法。

    在最高领导层安排专人负责这项事务就是其中一个方法。最广为人知的例子莫过于谷歌（Google）了，人力资源总监史黛西•沙利文在2006年就增添了“首席文化官”的头衔。随着公司演变成为一个跨国庞然大物，如何保护谷歌生气勃勃的开源文化核心的关键成分就成了她的工作职责之一。

    不过作为创新和宽松工作环境的代表，谷歌拥有专门的企业文化守护者不足为奇。但其它更为传统的公司，甚至金融行业的公司都聘用了文化官员。北泽西社区银行（North Jersey Community Bank, NJCB）最近委派了玛丽亚•金德尔曼担任首席文化官。为此，首席执行官弗兰克•索伦蒂诺还在董事会遇到了反对，他觉得那只是因为难以精确地说明这一职位。金德尔曼指出，现在情况已经大为改观，首席文化官成为了公司的制胜法宝，很快也会成为业界常态。“是否每家银行都需要在管理团队增加一个企业文化守护者？”她问道，答案是：“毫无疑问。”

    咨询公司博斯（Booz & Company）的资深合伙人乔恩•卡岑巴赫指出，仅仅设立这个职位是远远不够的。实际上，他认为管理层过分注重说教、而不是付诸行动就是企业文化变质的主要途径之一。换句话说，不要只是鼓吹效率和客户服务，而是要做出运营调整来推进效率、提升服务，比如：奖励优异的服务，合理化的技术改造等。

    卡岑巴赫认为：首先，首席文化官需要了解内部商业环境改变的方式，这种改变通常很缓慢。欧勒告诉我们，多数公司只是在预期将出现重大变革，比如一系列并购行动时，才会设立高级职位来管理企业文化。但最具威胁的潜藏改变很少在危急时刻发生。

    “不良的企业文化鼓励不当行为、抑制适当的战略转变，但它的出现往往缓慢而不易觉察。它往往历时数年，经常在公司业绩良好时就已经发生，”约翰•科特和詹姆斯•赫斯克特在1992年出版的《公司文化和业绩》（Corporate Culture and Performance）一书中如是说。“这种文化一旦出现就难以改变，因为相关人等往往对此视而不见，而公司的现存权力结构也有赖于它的支持。”

    因此，首席文化官要想展开卓有成效地工作，就必须得到最高管理层的全力支持。他/她的意见首席执行官要能倾听，同时也要贴近普通员工，因为他们的一举一动时时刻刻都在体现和定义公司文化。咨询师梅尔•劳来自咨询公司美世的德尔塔分部（Mercer's Delta division），她指出，首席执行官往往会有种错觉，以为公司文化可以自上而下地控制。她还说，文化确实会改变，而“你要么放任自流，任由其自己改变，要么影响其改变的方式。”雇佣首席文化官只是行动的开始。

    对金德尔曼来说，首席文化官的职位意味着她要负责一系列事务，比如：她会派人假扮银行顾客，确保营业所的员工不是例行公事，而是真正去了解客户。那是NJCB文化的关键理念。她解释说：“百年以来，银行服务对我们来说就意味着了解每一个从大门走进来的人。”

    客户服务确实是文化的组成部分，但公司文化也几乎涵盖了公司的所有活动。金德尔曼就坚称自己的工作与人力资源总监截然不同。“我的职责就是确保公司交给客户的每一份文件都风格一致，确保公司的流程高效而流畅，所有这些都与文化有关。”

    但世界上不存在十全十美、或者糟糕透顶的企业文化，任命首席文化官也“不是简单的好坏问题，”卡岑巴赫说。“但它显然会带来很多有趣的挑战。”至少，公司开始对文化重新思考会让人觉得曙光乍现。

    Read any management how-to, and it will talk about the sanctity of a company's culture. Culture, you could argue, drives everything a business does -- it's successes and its slip-ups. Cracks in an otherwise sound culture can lead to big, expensive mistakes, much of which we have recently seen in the financial industry.

    But a company's culture changes constantly, which makes it a challenge for companies trying to define it and make sure it's progressing the way they want. More and more, companies are trying to figure out how to do this, says Ken Oehler, a senior vice president at consulting firm Aon Hewitt. "There's been a resurgence from our clients, certainly an elevation of importance of culture to the CEO level during the recession and post recession." Many companies, Oehler says, are seeing that "macroeconomic pressures have created a dysfunctional culture, one that is not supporting business performance moving forward," and now, they are trying to figure out how keep their culture from spinning out of control.

    One way to do this is to bring someone into the C-Suite whose job it is to keep an eye on culture. The best-known example of this approach is Google (GOOG), which added "chief culture officer" to head of HR Stacy Sullivan's job title in 2006. Part of her job is to protect key parts of Google's scrappy, open-source cultural core as the company has evolved into a massive multinational.

    But Google is the poster child for innovation and foosball at work, it makes sense that they would have a culture-keeper. Yet other, more traditional companies, even in the financial industry, have hired culture chiefs as well. One example is North Jersey Community Bank (NJCB), which recently appointed Maria Gendelman as its chief culture officer. CEO Frank Sorrentino encountered resistance from his board when he argued for the position, he says, because the job description is a little tough to define. Though now, having a chief culture officer is a differentiator for the bank, and there's no reason it shouldn't be status quo, Gendelman says. "Could every bank utilize a protector of the culture as part of the team?" she asks. "Absolutely."

    The title certainly isn't enough, though, notes Jon Katzenbach, a senior partner at consulting firm Booz & Company. In fact, he adds, one of the main ways that a culture can sour is if management focuses too much on messaging and not enough on action. In other words, don't preach about efficiency and customer service, but instead make operational changes that allow those behaviors to thrive: Reward great service, streamline technology, etc.

    First, a chief culture officer needs to understand the way internal business environments change, which is slow, says Katzenbach. Most companies hire someone up top to monitor culture if they're expecting dramatic change, say, a series of mergers and acquisitions, Oehler says. But the most insidious changes rarely happen during times of crisis.

    "Cultures that encourage inappropriate behavior and inhibit change to more appropriate strategies tend to emerge slowly and quietly over a period of years, usually when firms are performing well," according to the book Corporate Culture and Performance by John Kotter and James Heskett, published in 1992. "Once these cultures exist, they can be enormously difficult to change because they are often invisible to the people involved, because they help support the existing power structure in the firm."

    To that end, an effective chief culture officer would need the full support of top management. He or she would need to have the CEO's ear without growing too distant from the rank-and-file employees that live, breathe, and define a company's culture with everything they do. CEOs often subscribe to the misguided idea that culture can be controlled from the top down, says Mel Lowe, a consultant with Mercer's Delta division. Culture will morph, she says, and "You can either let it happen or you can influence how it happens." Hiring a chief culture officer is one way to step to the plate.

    For Gendelman, that means she's in charge of a range of things -- soon she'll have people mystery-shopping at the bank, making sure employees at all branches aren't using a script and that they're inquiring into the lives of their customers. That's a key part of NJCB's culture. The idea, she says, is that "it's banking a hundred years ago where you knew everyone who walks through the door."

    And while customer service is part of the equation, culture includes just about everything a company does. Gendelman's job, she insists, is completely different from head of HR. "I'm there to make sure that every single piece of paper that we give to the customer all looks the same, that our processes are efficient and streamlined -- all of those things touch culture."

    But just as no culture is all good or all bad, appointing a chief culture officer is "neither a good idea nor a bad idea," says Katzenbach, "but certainly opens a whole interesting set of challenges." At the very least, it seems promising that companies are thinking about culture again at all.