Culture - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 80

shaped by positive experiences with consumer sites from Amazon to Zappos, it's clear that the sad state
of site search is damaging and merits further attention and investment.
We asked customers to solve problems using the site, and captured video footage so stakehold-
ers could see, feel, and share their frustration. We also appealed to the original source of the or-
ganization's success, the culture of Engineering, noting the potential of a slow, broken search
system to embarrass a technology firm known for its software and hardware. Finally, we de-
livered a blueprint and a roadmap. We inspired confidence that these difficult problems could
be solved. And it worked. We spoke the language of their culture, and they listened. Together
we made search better.
Of course, when it comes to co-cultures, there are some things you just can't fix. I saw this
firsthand while working with DaimlerChrylser soon after the 1998 merger. We were hired to
build an information architecture strategy for a unified corporate portal. By integrating several
American and German intranets into a single source of truth, executives hoped to bring the cul-
tures together. While this seemed unrealistic, we were willing to give it a go. But the more we
learned, the less we believed in the mission. In stakeholder interviews, the absence of trust was
palpable.
This was a culture clash of epic proportions. On the surface, friction was caused by different
wage structures, org charts, values, and brands. But at a deeper level, conflict was driven by dif-
ferences in national culture. The entrepreneurial frontier spirit and individualism of the Americ-
ans did not fit with the methodical, risk-averse, team-oriented, bureaucratic culture of the Ger-
mans. At the time, we didn't understand all the forces at work, but we knew the unified portal
would never happen. Of course, that was the least of their worries. Eventually the failed merger
resulted in a market loss of over $30 billion. Nowadays people agree it didn't fail because the
strategy was unsound. It's a deal that was killed by culture.
This story serves as a reminder that corporate culture is rooted in the national culture in which
an organization operates. This brings us to the work of Geert Hofstede, a pioneer of cross-cultur-
al research, who offers us an onion as a metaphor for understanding the cultures of countries. xcv