What is your organization's profile? / Return to Core Group Theory outline.
Core Group Profiles |
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Organizational Profiles |
For any given organization, if you know its core group, its creative imperative, and its noble purpose, you know what it is being subtly propelled to do. If your ideas match these imperatives, or you can figure out how to influence them, then you can achieve remarkable results, even from a low point in the hierarchy or from outside the organization. Here are some profiles of well-known organizations. I have taken these from my own observations, from the observations of people who know the organizations, and from published material. All misperceptions are mine. These views represent, of course, only perceptions of the organizations involved, and are not intended as comment on any individuals within those organizations. I would like to improve this list with your help, so invite you to post a core group profile of an organization you know (all anonymously), by answering the questions on the following form. If you disagree with these characterizations (or if you agree), please email me with your comments at: art@well.com. I will continually change these profiles to match the growing body of perception. |
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Procter & Gamble
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Procter & Gamble |
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1. The Core Group members are the elite marketing and R&D managers who came to work in Cincinnati directly from college and from whom the company's top executives are chosen. 2. The creative imperative involves dominating the supermarket and drugstore shelf with P&G brands - and controlling the marketing and advertising of not just their own products but the categories (toothpaste, diapers, etc.) in which they compete. This is not just a strategic choice; it is a creative act that P&G people take part in with skill, verve and pleasure. 3. The right thing to do: Procter & Gamble people see their company as a guardian of purity and cleanliness. A deeper noble purpose has surfaced, from time to time, in discussions within the company: P&G could take on a leadership role drawing other companies together to reshape the consumer packaging waste stream. But P&G, whose managers have little experience with alliances and joint ventures, is not ready to embrace this calling. |
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Coca-Cola |
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The Core Group: A small inner circle of senior executives, all extremely well dressed and courteous, but with steel-trap ability to keep their circle small; and part of the Board. Creative proficiency: Building "throat share." They know they have done well when they start to replace tap water in a given country; they measure this by estimating per capita consumption of Coke. Managers and distributors focus on getting the "per caps" up. This is why it is so important to snub Pepsi; why they forbid contractors and consultants, in contracts, to drink Pepsi. They do everything possible to get the "per caps" up. The right thing to do: They see themselves as bringing the all-American feeling of easy affluence, a cold drink in the picnic basket, to every part of the globe. But the world may be calling them to produce and market healthier drinks, especially for children. |
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Handspring |
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The Core Group: This company was a start-up by people who left Palm, just as Palm was a start-up by people who left Apple. The Core Group is the founders and friends. Creative proficiency: The design of an operating system for a new kind of portable, internet-savvy device. The right thing to do: Imagine if people in remote Africa all had solar-powered handsets, connecting them to the world-wide web, bypassing their corrupt governments and putting them in touch with the world. |
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Houghton Mifflin's College Division |
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The Core Group: People who started as sales reps (representing the company on campus to college professors) and are now editors (or, in some cases, in marketing.) Creative proficiency: Taking an intangible idea and making it into an educational product. The right thing to do: This company exists to help college students learn. Since college students are learning less and less from books, this company faces a significant challenge. |
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Microsoft |
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The Core Group: As one senior executive told the New York Times, out of more than 30,000 employees, there are "5,000 who really count." They all have programming backgrounds. Creative proficiency: Microsoft prides itself most in taking on impossibly difficult software infrastructure jobs and continually improving their usability and design, even when nobody expects them to. The right thing to do: They see themselves as the ultimate arbiters of quality in the computer-mediated world. They could have been (and perhaps could still be) the Medici of a vibrant, multi-faceted and highly inventive computer industry. |
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New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) |
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The Core Group: Not curators and artists, but the wealthy trustees and the marketing staff. "As far as [museum head] Glenn Lowry's job is concerned," said the New York Observer in November 2000, "they are the only people that he really needs to keep happy." Creative proficiency: Placement, discretion, taste, status and novelty. The right thing to do: Just by existing they have opened up awareness. |
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The Republican and Democratic parties in the United States |
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The Core Group: Elected officials (as long as they're elected) and the "permanent gang" of decision and policy makers; the purpose of the political party is to find jobs for them. Only David Boies or Ted Olsen can be Solicitor General; not both. To serve its Core Group, the party must win, both locally and nationally. Creative proficiency: Raising money. Winning. Slandering. Getting jobs for their people. Starting institutes and institutions. Ultimately, their creative proficiency is building networks of people. (Most of us, after all, don't vote because of what we believe in. We vote the way that the people we know vote.) The right thing to do: The Democrats have an idea about supporting people. The Republicans have an idea about free enterprise. They both think they understand the best way to be a parent -- and, thus, the best way to run a government. |
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What's your organization's Core Profile? If you would like to post a core group profile of an organization you know (all anonymously), please answer the questions on the following form or email me. If the core group profile shown here is wrong in some way (if you disagree
with it), please email me at art@well.com and I will change it accordingly.
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