Creating the Autonomic Culture

Managing an increasingly diverse IT population requires cross-cultural competencies. A global, agile, virtual, matrixed, e-business on demand organization should be able to build effectiveness across national, organizational, team, and interpersonal barriers. Successful cross-cultural IT managers typically are flexible and possess a broad behavioral repertoire.

Culture is the complex pattern of ideas, emotions and observable behaviors that tend to be expected, reinforced, and rewarded by and within a particular group. You can most easily understand and observe culture at four levels:

• National

• Individual

• Team

• Organizational

Culture is not an inherited characteristic. It is shaped by what we learn in the context of our social group or category. Culture goes beyond narrow nationalistic definitions.