Like strong cultures, opportunistic cultures work well for a period, but often falter as conditions—competition, market shifts and technology— change. For a variety of reasons these cultures possess, in one shining window of time, the right people, the right product and the right customers. The enterprise might be shaped around a new technology or an innovative way of doing something better than anyone else. But if it lacks the ability to adapt to the changes brought on by the new needs of customers, new competition or faster technologies, it can end up like yesterday’s news.

In its early days, Xerox was a strong example of an opportunistic culture because of its ability to maximize the potential of its unique technology. In the late 1960s, Xerox as I knew it was a collection of about 80 decentralized branch offices. Despite the company’s centralized approach to product innovation, the branches had a great deal of autonomy in terms of sales and marketing. These branches (subcultures) were focused on the needs of their local customers, allowing them to react quickly to changes in the market. Loyal customers graduated from buying small copiers to larger copiers, as their needs changed. Sales teams tended to be highly motivated. They had a wide range of products and pricing plans to attract and serve more customers. There were many opportunities for advancement, recognition and reward. And the branches had autonomy to deploy resources. Thus, much of the company’s early success took place in these decentralized markets that catered to local customers. 25 Is Your Organization Ready for Changing Times? But the fortunes of Xerox changed when new managers from outside the company sought to centralize control of their products and their sales and marketing strategies. Among other things, the new central control diluted the local identities of the branch offices. Sales and marketing representatives often answered to far-off managers who, unlike the local sales teams, were unable to respond as quickly and as personally to the customers’ needs. Focusing more attention on the short-term bottom line than on the strong culture Xerox had built up, the leadership decided to place the lion’s share of its marketing and sales efforts on its large copiers. This allowed the small-copier market, which had been the breeding ground for business for local branch offices, to slip away to emerging Japanese companies. The Japanese not only became very efficient at building low-cost, high quality small copiers, they also found that they could make large copiers. So soon they began to siphon away those loyal customers who once depended on Xerox to take care of their entire copier needs—from small copiers to large ones—further eating into Xerox’s market share.

While Xerox still dominates the high-end of the market, the rest of the market it once presided over has largely been conceded to the Japanese. Here is another textbook case of a tremendous culture decimated because of decisions made around products and services that, in the end, failed to account for the changing needs of its customers and the market. The leadership of Xerox was so focused on the bottom line that it robbed the energy from its once highly effective sales teams, which were the reason for the company’s profitable years to begin with. The company, which not only demonstrated consistently outstanding performance, also exhibited the ability to react to turmoil, adjust and speedily take advantage of opportunities their competitors miss. Xerox has gone through a number of reorganizations in an attempt to recapture its former glory, has also failed to capitalize on the many high-potential products coming from its own research because of its continual focus on the “copier business” rather than on where the marketplace is going.