Chapter 30: Culture Vultures

“I should have asked, but how do you go about determining what the culture or ethos of a business is?” Dave and Ginny were sitting on the sofa in his EneRG office.

Ginny stood and went to the flip chart in the corner of the seating area. She turned to a blank page and wrote: traits, behaviors, leaders, and measurements. Opposite those terms she drew a line and wrote clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy.”

She turned to Dave, “Let’s define some terms. By the term ‘culture’ we mean the social and psychological environment of a business. It includes how people interact, their resistance patterns, how they share knowledge, the values and beliefs of the group, the stories that they embrace, and the sometimes-unwritten rules about how business really gets done. All types of things influence it: history, group lore, past behaviors and major events or milestones, technology, skill base, market, products, management style, the industry or setting it is in, its vision, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, environment, location, and habits. I probably forget a few things, but you get the idea. Everything impacts a group’s culture to some extent.

“Think about two large companies that have vastly different cultures. I’ll pick Apple and Exxon Mobil. Do you think they have the same cultures? They’re both big, rich, providing critical products to their customers, and so on.”

“No, not at all. Apple became almost a cult built around Steve Jobs. It’s innovative, design sensitive, customer centric, and wants to see major changes in how its products shape society. Exxon is a big, dinosaur of an oil company. They turn the crank and out comes petroleum products.”

“Right, so expect your culture to be different from others that you think you know about.”

Dave said, “So, we’re talking about two groups: the Circle and EneRG. Both are important to me, as well as to the many others around me in both settings.”

Ginny smiled, “I’m going to wander around both groups and interview people. I want them to tell me what makes the Circle and-or EneRG great and not so great? What guides their behavior in those settings? I’ll gradually develop a model for each group, something like what I wrote on the flip chart. Those are some of the things I’m looking to hear. They’re standard models popular in consulting circles dealing with the culture of organizations. You won’t be all in one category or another; you’ll smush out among those areas, with an emphasis here and there.”

“How long? How many interviews?”

“I’ll be doing both groups in sequence, but I’ll focus on EneRG first and then the Circle. Of course, just from hearing you talk, I have some idea about what I expect to hear, but I’ll see whether I’m right or not.”

“You do this alone?”

Ginny shook her head. “I take someone in the group that appears to have the confidence of the others in the company. Later, after an interview, they can also clue me into anything subtle that I missed, like an oblique reference to some accomplishment that is major in some way.”

“Have you picked your partners?”

She smiled, “Yes, so I’m asking permission to co-opt them for about two weeks each. I’d like Jenny Harvest from EneRG and Cricket from the Circle.”

Dave nodded, “They’re yours. Should I tell them?”

Ginny nodded and Dave yelled out for Jenny to join them for a moment. Five minutes later she’d been conscripted as Ginny’s assistant in the interviews. She said she’d get Deborah to spend time at her desk to help with appointments and calls. Nikky could help out, too.

Dave turned to Ginny after Jenny left. “Are we OK? I want to emphasize that what we did on Sunday night had no bearing on you getting and keeping this consulting gig.”

Ginny chuckled, “I think you’ve told me that about fifty times now. Personally, I don’t examine my baser motivations, so even if it did, I don’t care. Chill on the issue. It’s past, and I’m already on the job. I also am more than happy at our lovemaking and how much pleasure you gave me. I really do love you and I believed you when you told me that you loved me. I want us to maintain our social and sexual relationship, as well as our business relationship. So, there!”

Jenny reported back to Dave on Friday afternoon just before they left for the weekend. She was pumped up, juiced, excited, and twitching. “I have learned so much from Ginny Fuller. I want to go back to college and get an MBA. They teach all the stuff she uses every day in the B-School at the university.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Well, since we met Monday morning, we’ve done fifteen interviews with the execs and a few of the staff. I learned so much about how to interview somebody. Throw out an open-ended question and then shut-up and let them ramble around in the space of the question. Ginny taught me and I even led the last couple of interviews. She taught me about listening frameworks, and I’ve got a whole new way to talk to people and listen to what they say. We wrote up the results of every interview except those we did today. That’s my weekend homework.”

“And you’ve discovered what about our culture?”

Jenny danced around, “I’m sworn to secrecy. I can’t tell you really, because we haven’t done the analysis. Ginny and I will finish typing up the interviews and on Monday we’ll start our analysis. She has a unique methodology she’s going to teach me – organizational analysis frameworks. She said I’ll have analysis matrices coming out my ass when we’re through, but we’ll have a thorough analysis of the culture, what’s changing, what we want to change, what will change if we do or don’t tinker with it, and a lot more. This is so exciting. I hated to take the weekend off, but she insisted.”

Dave laughed. “Well, I can see we have at least one convert among us. I’ll wait. I assume we’re not sinking fast on any front?”

“No. Ginny liked what she was hearing. She said it was all good. I could tell you that much.”

“What about the Circle?”

“We’ll start on that after we tell you about EneRG, maybe next Friday.”

Dave teased, “I’ll block off that afternoon for our meeting and discussion.”

“Yes! Yes! Do it. I’ll put it on your calendar.” Jenny ran to her desk and fussed with her computer to put the appointment on the calendar.

Dave yelled out. “Have JR, Nikky, Deb, and Larry at the meeting, too.”

Friday evening, after getting home and changing into casual clothes, Dave joined several others in tending bar. He was surprised to find Tony Harris as one of the volunteers.

Tony told Dave, “Leann told me I should take this job because I would meet just about everybody in the Circle this way. You’ll note that Carol and Nora are playing apprentice waitresses, too. They’re working with Sharon and Morgan as ‘trainees’. They don’t have the cute and revealing little uniforms, but they know from your team where to order them online. Morgan is kind of like very pregnant, and I heard a rumor that you’re responsible for that.”

Dave effused, “I’m glad you and they are here. This is nice. I see some of the students we met a week or so ago here too, even setting the table as part of the dinner team. As for Morgan, she is one of the women I love.”

Tony said, “I met the twins – Savannah and Samantha. They went into the kitchen for something, but they’re ... well, topless and only wearing little cheerleader skirts with nothing underneath. One of them told me she hoped to find me later for, and I quote, ‘a fabulous fuck’. She ... they ... are really hot. I wasn’t sure which one it was – damn!”

As Dave worked, he spotted Ginny, Cricket, and Jenny sitting away from the main group and talking to Kat. They all had serious looks on their faces, and Cricket and Ginny appeared to be taking copious notes about what Kat was saying. Dave smiled. He hoped this was going in the right direction. He noted later that they spent about two hours with Kat before their informal meeting broke up. Kat looked happy, as did Jenny.

Ginny came and sat with Dave as the coffee carafes were put on the table. “Hi, Boss.”

Dave laughed, “I’m not your boss. I’m indebted to you for your diligence and tenacity in helping me with my projects. You’re more my boss than you perhaps realize.”

“Oh, good. Then I have a series of tasks for you.”

“Name them,” Dave said, thinking he’d get a list about cultural elements he expected to hear about in the Circle.

Ginny said methodically, “Well, the first several tasks involve you helping me remove my blouse and then dancing with me. After that, there needs to be some serious kissing with lots of tongue and fondling of my body parts. I then want that tongue on my bare breasts and soon thereafter slathering and licking in my nether region absorbing as much of my female nectar as you can and eliciting several orgasms from yours truly at the ideal rate of one a minute.

“I have learned about something you do for a woman called The Experience, and in the course of the cunnilingus that you will be providing, I would like to experience The Experience. I am told that I will not ever forget what happens, and I am hopeful for that pleasurable result.

“After those orgasms, I would then like to make love to you and I am hopeful for both an initial and subsequent session this evening. So, those are the steps forward as I see them based on extensive experience and education in such matters. If I left something out, please feel free to improvise.”

Dave nodded, “Well, those steps define a tough assignment, but I will take it on with determination, resolution, and enthusiasm.” He leaned in and kissed Ginny, who practically melted in his arms. Seconds later, the scoop neck blouse she’d been wearing lay atop the table they were sitting at. Dave’s t-shirt joined hers, and then the couple was dancing with Ginny’s breasts rubbing gently against his chest, providing rapidly escalating sexual stimulation to both parties.

About fifteen minutes later, Dave’s face was buried solidly in Ginny’s sodden pussy, his tongue slashing and lashing out to absorb every drop of her magnificently secreted glandular juices. His fingers started their dance right beside his tongue and kisses.

Fifteen minutes later, Ginny lay comatose with her body twitching. Dave lapped up the sweet feminine fluids he’d collected from inside her body as he fisted her and stimulated her A-spot, bringing her to a colossal orgasm, no doubt larger and more powerful than anything she’d ever experienced before in her life.

Dave cradled her body to his on the chaise, and kissed her tenderly.

Ginny’s eyes blinked open and her body shuddered in his arms. She looked deep into Dave’s eyes and started to cry. “Oh, God, I love you so much. Every pore of my body ... no, every cell in my body is in love with you. My soul wants to be with you for the rest of time.”

“I love you as well Ginny Fuller,” Dave told her as he kissed away her tears of happiness and stress relief.

About two minutes passed with nothing said. They just looked at each other as Dave stroked her naked body in a sensual manner. Ginny finally spoke, “You knew what would happen didn’t you?”

Dave nodded, “I did. It’s happened a lot to women I love.”

Ginny explained, “I did, too; kind of. Nora told us what you’d done and how she felt about you. Have you done that to all the women in the Circle?”

Dave nodded and said his steady refrain, “Consenting adults can do whatever they want about sex. I made sure before I started that you knew you could stop me.”

“I had no plans to stop you. I’m just surprised at my own reaction. I’ve never passed out from too much pleasure before. I’m really in love with you, too.”

“Don’t forget Bob.”

“Oh, I know I love him. If I didn’t know I could love more than one person before, I sure do now. I love everybody – male and female. I am so glad to be in this life where I can express myself physically and sexually, especially here in the Circle and in our neighborhood where I can include making love in those interpersonal connections.”