When critics lambasted Napoleon for reinstituting the merely
symbolic and practically worthless Legion of Honor medal, he
replied, "You lead men by baubles, not words." This sounds cyni-
cal, but actually it's a realistic view of human nature. Achieve-
ments deserve recognition, and recognition in turn motivates even
greater accomplishments. Like Napoleon's army, a corporate cul-
ture -- and the values it embodies -- must be ritualized and cele-
brated if it's going to thrive.

But celebration and hoopla, as we all know, are only a small
part of corporate life -- albeit a larger part of the life of strong cul-
ture companies. What about the day-to-day activities in a corpo-
rate culture?

Marvin Bower in The Will To Manage describes a manager's
responsibility to spell out for his or her employees "the way we do
things around here." Bower's implicit assumption was that unless
you tell people what you want them to do and how you want them
to do it, you have no right to expect them to infer, by some myste-
rious alchemic process, just what you had in mind. Therefore, you
have no real right to expect them to do what you want them to do.

Strong culture companies understand this dilemma very well.
They communicate exactly how they want their people to behave.
They spell out standards of acceptable decorum -- so people who
visit or work in any of their places of business can know what to
expect. They call attention to the way in which procedures -- for
example, strategic planning and budgeting -- are to be carried out,
so the fault if the procedures fail is substantive, not just a failure to
follow prescribed process. Often they also establish ways, or at

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