In my profession, and in most others I suppose, programs are singled out for recognition because they are exemplary or innovative. The innovative ones are likely to get the most public attention, but the exemplary ones usually last longer and are less controversial. Inevitably, there is tension between the two. “Tried and true,” stalwarts of the old order proclaim, not without a bit of hauteur. “The best is yet to be,” reformers insist, in a tone likely to be disparaging and with a glint in the eye more than a little idealistic. If we are fortunate, both are influential and a balance is achieved between the two.

Attempting to account for this in my own line of work, I ran across an article by Terence Deal on “corporate culture,” in which he made a key distinction between what he called “managers” and “heroes.” I found his analysis so useful that I was delighted when the book he did with his colleague, Allan Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Addison-Wesley, 1982) came out. The corporate world now is quite a different cosmos than it was when they studied it, but the two types of leaders they describe are both still evident in most professions, industries, civic movements, and human organizations, even temples, synagogues, mosques, and churches.

“Managers run institutions,” they assert, “heroes create them.” At that time, they found the corporate world powered by managers and neglectful of heroes. “Managers are routinizers; heroes are experimenters. Managers are disciplined; heroes are playful and appreciate the value of ‘hoopla’—ceremonies and rewards to honor top performance. Both managers and heroes fuss about details, but managers will spend hours refining their numbers, while heroes will plant a garden so that it will look just right. ¶ The management ethic has to do with order, procedure, and fitting square pegs into square holes. Heroes defy order in pursuing their vision. And this violates the management canon: you don’t do anything unless you can figure out whether if makes sense. So while business certainly needs managers to make the trains run on time, it more desperately needs heroes to get the engine going.”

They are speaking of commerce and industry, of course. I would argue that the same is true for schools, for political parties, for the sciences, for religion and the arts and city planning, even for social protest and communication systems and protection of the environment.

Some heroes are born; some are made, Deal and Kennedy maintain. Heroes are more than just charismatic individuals, more than Hollywood idols. What do heroes do? They make success appear attainable and human; provide role models; symbolize the organization or movement to the outside world and demonstrate that it is special; set a standard of performance, and motivate employees. “Managers . . . are guided by an ethic of competition, of winning the game. . . . Heroes, by contrast, are driven by an ethnic of creation.” Heroes as leaders distribute a sense of responsibility across the whole group, are more tolerant of risk taking, accept the value of long-term success rather than immediate results, and rejoice in the effectivenss of the overall enterprise rather than in personal advantages.

Using anecdotes from actual business and data from their qualitative research, the authors address a number of interesting topics. They make a special case for rites and rituals in the culture of business, but they also talk about communications processes and networking. The provide specific counsel on how to identify and diagnose corporate cultures, how to manage and reshape cultures. Their last chapter identifies “the atomized organization” as the culture of the future. Like Warren Bennis and Philip Slater in The Temporary Society (q.v.), they foresaw a greater democratization on the horizon, a breakdown of hierarchical, autocratic organizational patterns. “We think that this dismantling will result in highly decentralized organizations in which the work of the corporation will be done in small, autonomous units linked to the mega-corporation by new telecommunications and computer technologies.” Well, telecommunications and computer technologies, for sure. But autonomous units? “In the increasingly literate and educated work force of the future it will be impossible for an employer not to share with employees the fruits of their labor.” We wish.

Deal and Kennedy clearly were innovators, heroes ahead of their time. Sometimes managers and their autocratic masters win out, at least for the time being. Even in education and religion, the sciences and leisure activities, managers still seem to have the upper hand in their “corporate cultures.” Are there heroes on the horizon? Is there another FDR or Martin Luther King or George C. Marshall or Jane Addams waiting in the wings?

Every company has its “sacred-cow heroes,” Deal and Kennedy say, “objects of reverence” “who epitomize the norms of the culture,” “personify what the organization thinks it is about.” The media love them; the powers behind the scenes ignore them. God protect us from any more sacred cows. If we simply engaged our youth in the study of corporate cultures—and not only our youth but our business executives, our foundations, our citizenry, ourselves—we might open the door for genuine heroes. Let it be.

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