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    Falcon Computer

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    Franz Josef Aldave
    The managers at Falcon Computer created a document called the "Falcon Values" to define the company's culture. However, a new software trainer, Peter Richards, observed many discrepancies between what was expressed in this document and the actual practices at Falcon. For example, the document emphasized quality and defect-free products, but Richards found that many computers being shipped to customers were defective. It also promoted open communication, but meetings were actually held in a traditional hierarchical style. Richards believed the real culture was one of secrecy, hierarchy, and expediency. Employees learned to ignore the documented values and focus on the realities of the workplace culture instead.

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    Falcon Computer

    Uploaded by

    Franz Josef Aldave
    254 views4 pages
    The managers at Falcon Computer created a document called the "Falcon Values" to define the company's culture. However, a new software trainer, Peter Richards, observed many discrepancies between what was expressed in this document and the actual practices at Falcon. For example, the document emphasized quality and defect-free products, but Richards found that many computers being shipped to customers were defective. It also promoted open communication, but meetings were actually held in a traditional hierarchical style. Richards believed the real culture was one of secrecy, hierarchy, and expediency. Employees learned to ignore the documented values and focus on the realities of the workplace culture instead.

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    Human Behavior in Organization

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    The managers at Falcon Computer created a document called the "Falcon Values" to define the company's culture. However, a new software trainer, Peter Richards, observed many discrepancies between what was expressed in this document and the actual practices at Falcon. For example, the document emphasized quality and defect-free products, but Richards found that many computers being shipped to customers were defective. It also promoted open communication, but meetings were actually held in a traditional hierarchical style. Richards believed the real culture was one of secrecy, hierarchy, and expediency. Employees learned to ignore the documented values and focus on the realities of the workplace culture instead.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    254 views4 pages

    Falcon Computer

    Uploaded by

    Franz Josef Aldave
    The managers at Falcon Computer created a document called the "Falcon Values" to define the company's culture. However, a new software trainer, Peter Richards, observed many discrepancies between what was expressed in this document and the actual practices at Falcon. For example, the document emphasized quality and defect-free products, but Richards found that many computers being shipped to customers were defective. It also promoted open communication, but meetings were actually held in a traditional hierarchical style. Richards believed the real culture was one of secrecy, hierarchy, and expediency. Employees learned to ignore the documented values and focus on the realities of the workplace culture instead.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Falcon Computer

    A small group of managers at Falcon Computer met regularly on


    Wednesday mornings to develop a statement capturing what they
    considered to be the Falcon culture. Their discussions were wide-ranging,
    covering what they thought their firms culture was, what it should be, and
    how to create it. They were probably influenced by other firms in their
    environment, since they were located in the Silicon Valley area of
    California.
    Falcon Computer was new firm, having been created just eight
    months earlier. Since the corporation was still in the start-up phase,
    managers decided that it would be timely to create and instill the type of
    culture they thought would be most appropriate for their organization. After
    several weeks of brainstormin, writing, debating, and rewriting, the
    management group eventually produced a document called Falcon
    Values, which described the culture of the company as they saw it. The
    organizational culture statement covered such topics as treatment of
    customers, relations among work colleagues, preferred style of social
    communication, the decision-making process, and the nature of the
    working environment.
    Peter Richards read over the Falcon Values statement shortly after
    he was hired as a software trainer. After observing managerial and
    employee behaviors at Falcon for a few weeks, he was struck by the wide
    discrepancy between the values expressed in the document and what he
    observed as actual practice within the organizatio. For example, the Falcon
    values document contained statements such as this: Quality: Attention to

    detail is our trademark; our goal is to do it right the first time. We intend to
    deliver defect-free products and services to our customers on the date
    promised. However, Richards had already seen shipping reports showing
    that a number of defective computers were being shipped to customers.
    And his personal experience supported his worst fears. When he borrowed
    four brand-new Falcon computers from shipping room for use in a training
    class, he found that only two of them started up correctly without additional
    technical work on his part.
    Another example of the difference between the Falcon values
    document and actual practice concerned this statement on communication:
    Managing by personal communication is part of the Falcon way. We value
    and encourage open, direct, person-to-person communication as part of
    our daily routine. Executives bragged about how they arranged their chairs
    in a circle to show equality and to facilitate open communications whenever
    they met to discuss the Falcon values document. Richards had heard the
    open communication buzzword a lot since coming to Falcon, but he
    hadnt seen much evidence of such communication. As a matter of fact, all
    other meetings used a more traditional layout, with top executives at the
    front of the room. Richards believed that the real organizational culture that
    was developing at Falcon was characterized by secrecy and
    communications that followed the formal chain of command. Even the
    Falcon values document, Richards was told, had been created in secret.
    Richards soon became disillusioned. He confided in a co-worker one
    afternoon that the Falcon values document was so at varrence with that
    people saw every day that very few of them took it seriously. Employees
    quickly learned what was truly emphasized in the organization---hierarchy,

    secrecy, and expediency ---and focused on those realities instead, ignoring


    many of the concepts incorporated in the values document. Despite his
    frustration, Richards stayed with Falcon until it filed for bankruptcy two
    years later. Next time, he thought to himself as he cleaned out his desk,
    Ill pay more attention to what is actually going on, and less to what top
    management saves is true. Furthermore, he thought to himself, I guess
    you just cant create values.

    FALCON COMPUTER - Why did the Falcon executives act as they


    did?
    Falcon managers documented that the companys communications is
    an open kind of communication, but why did they always hold a
    meeting with an executive panel. Quality was said to be the most
    important of all, in a sense that they delivered damaged-free
    computers to customers; in contrast, two out of four defective
    computers were used in one of their trainings.

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