What can change the nature of a company?

Today's topic is an (extremely) brief exploration of the question - what can change the nature of a company?

Admittedly, this was brought on by the recent acquisition of Bioware by EA (you can read my thoughts on it here). Rather than bashing on EA, I'm going to use this post to consider the question of the "nature" of a corporation. Also, bear in mind that this is a HUGE question - one on which many books have been written. In that regard, don't expect too much from this tiny blog post!

Obviously, the first question which arises is - Can a company have a nature?

Basically, a company is simply comprised of the individuals within the company. In this sense, it seems to me that the company just takes on the nature of whatever people are working there. Note that I specifically talk about the people who work there and not just the management of a company.

Take the case of EA. Either rightly or wrongly, EA is hated by the hardcore gaming community (As I said, this post isn't to EA bash and I won't examine any of the reasons for the hatred - all you need to know is that it exists). EA are well aware of their reputation in the hardcore gaming community and seem to be taking steps to try and remove the stigma which exists against them. For example, the new CEO, John Riccitello, seems to be someone who is very much trying to build bridges to the hardcore gaming community.

If you buy into the concept that a company takes on the nature of its management, then does the new CEO at EA already mean that the nature of the company has changed? Clearly, the issue isn't that simple. Even though the company has a new CEO, I think that John Riccitello still has to report to Larry Probst who has remained as Chairman. If the "evil" nature of EA was caused by Larry, the fact that he is still there and in charge would still impact EAs culture.

Even if John has free reign, how many people are going to be directly liaising with the CEO? Very likely, the staff in EA have a culture very similar to the pre-John Riccitello culture in EA. As such, people who interact with EA on a daily basis may not feel any change in the nature of EA until John has some time to effect a change in culture in EA. This is assuming that John can effect any change at all (I work in Knowledge Management - I know exactly how hard it can be to change corporate culture).

Second question - can a company's nature change?

Given that a corporation does have its own nature, can that nature change? The answer to this question is clearly yes. For you to believe otherwise would mean that a company is static and that seems incredible when you consider the constant staff turnover in many companies (assuming you agree that the nature of a company is equivalent to the nature of the staff working there).

Third question - what can change the nature of a company?

This is the big one. If the nature of a company depends on its staff, then simply firing all staff and hiring new staff with the "right" nature would in itself change the nature of the company. However, in practice, this isn't possible.

So what can you do? Well, you could change the management of the company. Then make sure the new management has the "right" culture and that they then try to impose this culture on the rest of the workforce. In this case, management can give employees a chance to change to match the new culture (and possibly remove those who can't change). Over time, the staff of the company would either all believe in and adopt the new culture - or at the very least, pretend to buy-in so that they can keep their jobs.

At this point in time, the nature of the company has effectively changed. Which interestingly enough, is exactly what EA are doing. Given that EA have changed the CEO and the new CEO seems to be making the right noises viz a viz connecting with the hardcore gaming community, it would appear that EA are trying to change their corporate nature.

However, is this a genuine shift or is it just a PR ploy by the new CEO?. Can EA change from being an "evil" corporation to one being loved by community? I have no idea - only time can answer this question as we look at future actions taken by the company. One thing is for certain - considering the amount of hatred in the hardcore gaming community, EA have their work cut out for them!

PS If you can guess the inspiration for the title, then you are probably a hardcore gamer!