The Adaptability Culture
The adaptability culture is characterized by strategic focus on the external environment through flexibility and change to meet customer needs. The culture encourages entrepreneurial values, norms, and beliefs that support the capacity of the organization to detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. This type of company, however, doesn’t just react quickly to environmental changes-it actively creates change. Innovation, creativity, and risk-taking are valued and rewarded.
Most Internet-based companies use the adaptability type of culture, as do many companies in the marketing, electronics, and cosmetics industries, because they must move quickly to satisfy customers. Zappos.com became a hugely successful Internet retailer with an adaptability culture that encourages open-mindedness, teamwork, and a little weirdness. This chapter’s Book Mark tells more about the successful, slightly wacky Zappos culture.