ABSTRACT
Integrating twenty-two disparate agencies into the Department of Homeland Security is a major management challenge. Typically, government managers address the task of integration in terms of the levers they most control: structure, processes, performance measurements, and incentives. This approach, although essential, is usually insufficient to create the kind of cooperation required for effectiveness. Left out are the cultural factors, the values and norms that most determine behavior in an organization. As an anthropologist and psychoanalyst who has been a management consultant to leaders in both government and industry, I have found that by understanding both organizational culture and the role of personality at work, leaders become better able to achieve their goals, especially when they need to integrate different cultures.
