Marketers attach great value to the concept of brand personalities. If your cake of soap were a car, would it be a Merc or a Matiz? Were it a person, would she be Karishma Kapoor or the dumpy lady next door? Companies also have personalities-manifestations of their complex cultures. Employees of a buoyant company exude confidence. Success appears to be destined for them.

A sick company's personality, in contrast, is a dead giveaway. One would expect to see rusty, unused machines in such a company's plants, along with peeling plaster and grubby patches in its offices. But what strikes a casual visitor the most is the expression of the utter defeat on the faces of its employees. They seem to personify the company, a derelict waiting for doom.

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For the new CEO, this personality crisis poses the biggest threat. Damage from external threats has already happened, competitors have taken business away, facilities have become obsolete, people have been poached, and to add insult to injury, the competitor's brands have appeared even on the shelves of the store around the corner from the company's HQ. If the company is to revive, the starting point must be a change in its personality.

The first task is to change the mindsets of middle-managers. Many of them will refuse to accept that a rescue operation is indeed possible. Pushed into adopting new ways, some of the more recalcitrant ones might join hands to ensure that things don't work. They might resist efficiencies-the fear of redundancy would be very real for them. Many will attend training sessions under duress. Groups will form-some openly defiant, some sycophantic but reluctant to change, and still others keen to ingratiate themselves with the new management. Only a small number will genuinely support the proposed changes. They need to be spotted, protected and nursed into change agents.

Another challenge lies in integrating the workforce with the mainstream. Workers, contrary to conventional wisdom, are actually more attuned to work than office staff. They are more familiar with accountability as their contribution by way of daily output is easily measurable and they are the first ones to know when the firm is in trouble. They see mounting inventories for what they are-declining sales that lead to suspension of production, eventual closure and loss of jobs. It is natural, therefore, that they fall back on their 'skill-sets' for security. Efforts to get them to do jobs other than those based on their skill-sets will cause concern. The ability to get workers to learn new skills can work wonders for a company's mindset.

The new CEO needs to be aware of the forces at work. He must have a plan to tackle these problems. He has to trigger a cultural metamorphosis that will reshape mindsets. He must remember that experience and expertise can be negative assets without the right mindset.

The industry's nature, the company's monopolistic access to strategic assets, the technology used, and militancy of trade unions are often the factors that determine a company's culture. The culture of a smoke-stack era company will perforce be different from that of a company in the cutting-edge information technology sector. Companies with exclusive mining rights in remote areas will get away with cultures more autocratic than those located in developed areas offering greater employment opportunities. Understanding the factors behind a company's current culture helps greatly in ushering in change.

Irrespective of how a company's culture came about, the new CEO must address the issue of a cultural transformation on a war-footing and make the changes needed to keep the company alive. If he does not, he will be in for a rude shock as he discovers that new ideas, no matter how good, introduced too early into an unchanged work environment tend to die unceremonious deaths.