Book Review: Organizational Culture and Leadership
Organizational Culture and Leadership, Fifth Edition by Edgar H. Schein
When I first became VP of Engineering at insurance startup The Zebra, I wrote a long internal blog post sharing several book recommendations–books that have made an impression on me in my career. From time to time, I plan to review a few of those for you here in my blog.
I first ran across MIT Professor Emeritus Dr. Schein when I worked as Lead Developer and Director of Engineering at athenahealth. Athena, being based in Watertown, Mass., generally prefers ideas that come out of places like Harvard and MIT, and ideas about company culture were no exception. I failed to really appreciate Dr. Schein’s ideas until I moved on to a local Austin startup that had a somewhat more ambiguously defined company culture.
Among other topics in the book, Schein gives an approach for really understanding culture. He focuses on three areas:
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