Scenario: Building Your Own High Performance Subculture

One of the most misunderstood and yet exciting research findings regarding culture concerns subcultures. Specifically, research has found that the cultural variance within companies (for example, between different McDonald's stores) is often as great or greater than that between companies ( McDonald's vs Burger King). The same holds different chapters of nonprofit organizations, for individual churches in a national denomination, and for the same government function (For example, property assessment) in different city or county locations. What is exciting about is that it suggests an overall company or top-down culture is not destiny and, in fact, individual subcultures exist and are greatly subject to the influence of the managers and workforce within a unit.

With that in mind, assume you work for one branch of a landscaping firm that has six branches in your state. Each branch has roughly the same revenue, organizational/cost structure, and retail presence, and all brand and marketing expenditures are handled at the corporate level. As a young and energetic go-getter, you would really like to make your branch the top performer in the state.

Modify this scenario above such that "assume you work for one branch of a landscaping firm that has six branches in your state." changes to the following: “assume you manage one multi-service health care clinic that is a subsidiary of a major hospital chain in the tri-state/province/etc. region where you are located."

Answer the following questions:

Given that your clinic seems almost identical to the other five clinics in the region, is there really anything you can do that would have much impact?

What are the things that impact high performance cultures and what levers to change them are available to you?

In what ways would you seek to differentiate yourself from the other branches and why?

What elements, if any, of high performance cultures from well-known firms would you try to emulate and how could those elements be adapted to fit this health care business?