In the Industry: A Look at the Culture of World Wrestling Entertainment By: Dylan Kirn

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture Deal and Kennedy are communication scholars that suggest there are four important parts that make up a strong culture in an organization.

First is values, heroes, rites and rituals, and finally cultural network.

This presentation will highlight how the strong World Wrestling Entertainment company demonstrates each one of these elements.

Deal and Kennedy will encompass the first half of the presentation.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations

Peters and Waterman are also communications scholars that argue there are themes in an organization that make them excellent.

Aptly named Peters and Waterman’s themes for excellent organizations.

There are 8 of these themes.

A bias for action, close relations to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands on, value-driven, stick to the knitting, simple form, lean staff, and simultaneous loose-tight properties

All of these will be explained in the following presentation.

Peters and Waternman’s themes will be highlighted in the second half of the presentations.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Cultures: Values

According to Deal and Kennedy, values are beliefs and visions that members hold for the organization.

In World Wrestling Entertainment their main value is the value of the dollar. They want to provide the top quality of entertainment, but they also want to make the most money doing it.

The big push over the past 10 years has been to have a more family friendly environment that provides something for everyone.

The idea behind this is that if everyone has something to relate to everyone will spend as much as they can on all elements of the sport.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Heroes

Deal and Kennedy state that individuals who come to exemplify the organization's values are heroes.

World Wrestling Entertainment has had many heroes throughout it’s history. I am going to talk about 4 more recent heroes of the WWE each of these men exemplify the values of the company in their own way.

From selling the most products to promoting a good message for families.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Heroes cont.

Hulk Hogan

One of the most iconic wrestlers of all time.

During the 1980s Hogan dominated wrestling and promoted physical fitness and healthy living in order to be as successful as him.

This message was great for the kids and it created a new generation of wrestling fans. It also made the parents happy because their hero was telling them to eat their vegetables.

Hogan also made World Wrestling Entertainment a lot of money and demonstrated to incoming wrestlers how to be the best in the business.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Heroes cont.

Stone Cold Steve Austin

An untraditional hero, the anti hero of the next generation of wrestling fans.

As Hogan’s fans grew up they didn’t want to be told to eat their vegetables anymore.

They were angry and they wanted someone strong and rude to represent them.

This move was risky because of the already existing values of the WWE, but it worked out very well.

Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the most successful wrestlers of all time and is still a fan favorite to this day.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Heroes cont.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

The Rock is today the most successful wrestler he took a career as a wrestler on tv and became a huge Hollywood actor.

Demonstrating the values of the company and being the good guy to the anti hero of Stone Cold Steve Austin.

These two had a huge rivalry during their career and it is also important to note the The Rock demonstrated the family friendly look of the company while Stone Cold Steve Austin was the unruly rebel that older fans could enjoy.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Heroes cont.

John Cena

The current highlight of the World Wrestling Entertainment company.

The man who has granted more “Make A Wish Foundation” wishes than anyone in the world.

He is the heart and soul of the WWE and shows the kids that if they never give up they can become as great as he has become.

With the current state of WWE an unruly character that drinks beer and swears would not demonstrate anything for the company, but John Cena is the perfect opposite of this.

He, much like The Rock, has also made a smooth transition to Hollywood.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Rites and Rituals

Deal and Kennedy say that rites and rituals are ceremonies through which an organization celebrates its values.

Every month, at least once a month, the WWE broadcasts a Pay Per View that can be purchased by anyone in the world. These are special events that demonstrate the values of the company.

From the perspective of the wrestler, headlining a Pay Per View is their first big break. They have the big fight at the end of the night that the most fans are purchasing the show to watch. It is a rite of passage on the way to becoming a great wrestler.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Rites and Rituals cont.

Rituals of the World Wrestling Entertainment are the annual events hosted in the same format as a Pay Per View.

These annual occurring events are in Pay Per View format, but they are the ones that everyone tunes into.

The most notable annual event is Wrestlemania, this Pay Per View, which now totals at roughly 8 hours of wrestling and entertainment, is the most widely known.

From the perspective of a wrestler, headlining Wrestlemania is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon them. This gives them the most exposure and the chance to show everyone they are the best wrestler.

Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture: Cultural Network

Deal and Kennedy say that cultural network is the communication system through which cultural values are instituted and reinforced.

The network that the WWE uses to create it’s culture is one that makes shows the wrestlers how important their position is to the company.

The shows creative team assigns wrestlers different times to fight during the week the most coveted time is on Monday night during the 10 o’clock hour.

This communicates the wrestlers their importance by when they wrestle their match.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: A Bias for Action

Peters and Waterman say that a bias for action is how quickly they react and do not waste time planning and analyzing decisions.

World Wrestling Entertainment does this by being open to their customers they will announce a death and not cover it up.

They make it public when the hire, fire or suspend a wrestler for any policy violations.

Their swiftness to act is unmatched by most companies today.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Close relations to the Customer

Peters and Waterman say that close relations to the customer are how the organization gears decisions and actions to needs of customers.

The WWE does the best they can at making their show interesting and giving the customer what they want.

This means that not everyone can always be happy.

What does stay consistent is that a successful champion will remain the champion for as long as they make money.

Bruno Sammartino was the World Heavyweight Champion for 7.5 years.

WWE is sports entertainment, therefore the company makes the champion the person who best represents the company as long as they will make money.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Autonomy and Entrepreneurship

Peters and Waterman suggest that autonomy and entrepreneurship is important for a company and that a company needs to encourage employees to take risks in the development of new ideas.

World Wrestling Entertainment encourages their creative team, made up or writers and old professional wrestlers to make decisions that will make or break new professional wrestlers.

Someone that is not on this team is new professional wrestlers, this stifles their creativity and discourages wrestlers from trying to create themselves.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Productivity through People

Peters and Waterman suggest that productivity through people is when and organization will encourage positive and respectful relationships among management and employees.

Positive and respectful relationships between management and employees is encouraged through a positive reinforcement system.

If a wrestler is not agreeing to a contract, getting along with other wrestlers, or selling as much as other wrestlers they will begin to lose money and be farther away from prime time spots of wrestling.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Hands on, Value-driven

Peters and Waterman say that employees and managers who share the same core values of productivity and performance are more successful.

The most current hero John Cena, mentioned early in slide 9, exemplifies the same core values of productivity and performance.

John Cena is a great performer that people who watch wrestling for the art of wrestling and the athleticism enjoy.

Cena also is a good actor which allows for him to be a convincing inspiration for kids.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Stick to the Knitting:

Peters and Waterman say that staying focused on what they do best and avoiding radical diversification helps a company be successful.

World Wrestling Entertainment has always stuck to the dynamic of good vs. evil. There was always a good guy and a bad guy throughout the history of wrestling and everyone was always welcome to root for whoever they want.

Newer wrestlers focus on making the company great and continuing to wrestle for the WWE at all costs.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Simple Form, Lean Staff

Peters and Waterman say that avoiding complex structures and divisions of labor will help a company.

Although the roster for WWE is huge, there are different organizations within the master organization.

Monday Night RAW, is the most notable organization and it keeps its roster to exactly what they need for 3 hours of weekly programming. Considering that this sport is dangerous and wrestlers must complete every week they have enough wrestlers to keep things interesting and let people recover each week.

Smackdown and NXT wrestling also use this same formula for their weekly shows.

Peters and Waterman’s Themes for Excellent Organizations: Simultaneous loose-tight

properties This is the final theme of Peters and Waterman’s themes for excellent organizations.

This theme states that both unity of purpose and diversity are necessary for innovation.

Everyone in the company is united for the purpose of entertaining people and making money.

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Superstars. (2016, October 5). Retrieved October 8, 2016, from http://www.wwe.com/superstars