Schein's Organizational Culture Model
To explain the concept of culture and the way it affects an organization, Scheincharacterized an organization’s culture into three (3) levels: 1) artifacts; 2) values, andassumptions.
Artifacts can be considered as the visual organizational structures and processes. In 2013,the HQ in downtown Cleveland consisted of 3 high towers in buildings attached to an indoorshopping mall and subway stop. When I first was hired at Sherwin-Williams in 2013, there were9 elevators servicing the 10+ floors of offices. Each business unit was separated into offices ondifferent floors without the thought of a cohesive structure, making each of the towers functionas quite literally, a business silo. Each office space was cubicles with high walls. Each largespace contained a maze of cubicles. Upper level managers had offices with doors. The physicalseparation created very little communication between the differing business units. Dress normswere business casual for men and for women, suits if they wanted to be taken seriously orbusiness casual if they wanted to be overlooked.
Espoused values would fall into strategies, goals, and philosophies. Their espoused valueis to “provide our people with a friendly, safe, and excited work environment that includesopportunities to learn and grow.” However, there were few opportunities to learn and grow. Inthe four years of working there, access to the budget for learning was given only to a select few.Overall, there was not a cohesive strategy or goal across the organization. If there was one, it wasnot communicated well. What was apparent was that different business units had strategies, goalsand objectives that often clashed with each other with no real way to solve those problems thatarose. In the way there is a clash between the legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis over Gazawith no clear resolution that serves all, the same holds true for the business units who clashedover differing objectives.
The basic assumptions / values, the core of Sherwin-Williams culture, were summed upinto one: employees’ fear of rocking the boat to upset the “norm”. Sherwin-Williams wasfounded in 1866 and much of the old-school, white old-boys club mentality still exist at a baselevel. Proof was in the employees response to me when I informally interviewed differentbusiness groups to understand the business units around me that I would be interacting with andmight potentially interact with. The common theme was a marvel at how bold and fresh it wasthat a new hire was trying to learn all aspects of the business and to work jointly with businessunits that have never talked before. Each one of them told me that after getting their handsslapped a few times for stepping “out of line”, they no longer felt comfortable being bold and“rocking the boat” by offering new perspectives. Proof was in men and women of diversitycommenting to me that they felt pressured or political pushback based on gender or ethnicity andthat it was common “insider” knowledge that I would come to learn as well.
Hanson and Castleman’s Product Organization Model
Hanson and Castleman espoused user-centered design, which is to drive the design and thereby create great products by understanding the people who will use them, what they will use them for, and how they will use them. In other words, their model is a user-centered approach to introducing user-centered design. It is a great concept that cannot be cleared characterized using this model. Sherwin-Williams is still a business siloed organization and for this product organization model to work, the managers have to provide a clear direction, schedule, and a budget. Different business groups such as sales, IT, training, etc that have customer contact (internal or external) to provide user insights. IT and software developers must understand what they are building and provide quality work. For Sherwin-Williams, meeting deadlines was more important than the quality or viability of the end product to the user. Viability of the end product was always caveated with “fast followers” to appease the stakeholders to deliver that viable product.
In 2016, the software delivery model of IT started changing to an Agile Methodology, which is an indicator of change to iterate more to create a more viable, user-centered product to ultimately produce higher profitability, lower costs, and increased productivity. Unfortunately, as in the article about Ford Motor Company management, the Sherwin-Williams CTO who oversaw this change also lasted for as long as it took to implement this culture and methodology change.
Buley's UX Maturity Model
While Buley says that “design team size isn’t always an indication of business impact or a company’s design maturity”, it would have to be said to very much be an indicator of Sherwin-William’s design maturity. In 2013, the UX team consisted of 3 designers who coveredall of IT and internal projects for Sherwin-Williams, who then had under 40,000 employees. TheUX team was not set up, nor did it have the manpower to work on UX for the Sherwin-Williamswebsite itself. The UI and UXD of the external website was contracted out. The SW UX Teamwas at a Level One: Producers. They focused on the visual designs of internal applications. Atthe time, the software delivery method was waterfall. There was a lack of cohesion andcommunication between them and the development team. I know the UX designers oftencomplained about not being brought into the project sooner. There was no budget for usabilitytesting or research. In 2015, Sherwin-Williams hired a UX Manager who began pushing for morevisibility for her UX team. They started becoming more collaborative and performing some userresearch for projects. They were working towards Level Two: Connectors but had not yetachieved it when I left the company in 2016. User stories were still the domain of the businessanalyst. In addition, I was not aware of any user testing that was ever done.
