How to successfully change culture (part I)
So it’s December.
Some people in your organisation were considering whether to attend or skip Christmas party this year. If you sit in the right place, you probably already have overheard such conversations happening next to a coffee machine or in smoking area.
I bet somewhere in your calendar, there is an invitation for meeting summarizing what was achieved in the past months and what changes are planned for the upcoming year. If you are the person presenting these plans or person who will be involved in implementing, then this article is for you.
December is also a month in which VersionOne closes its annual ‘State of Agile’ survey and prepares results to be published early next year. If you are not interested in Agile, that is fine. I intend to get it out of conversation as quickly as possible. Agile is a target culture that some organisations decided to move towards. From a single person point of view, Agile is a target mindset. In that sense, aforementioned report shows how well change or transformation programmes are doing around the world, in variety of industries.
Last report also reveals most common reasons for failures as well as barriers to further progress. Let’s have a look into those and check if we can learn from it.
I allowed myself to change ‘agile’ to ‘target mindset’ for those who are not familiar with what Agile is.
Top four reasons for failed projects:
- [46%] Company philosophy or culture at odds with core target mindset values
- [41%] Lack of experience with target mindset methods
- [38%] Lack of management support
- [38%] Lack of support for cultural transition
and top five barriers to further change:
- [55%] Ability to change organizational culture
- [52%] General organizational resistance to change
- [40%] Pre-existing rigid/old mindset framework
- [39%] Not enough personnel with the necessary target mindset experience
- [38%] Management support
By all means, I don’t want to suggest that correlation we see means causation. Culture, management and way the organisations approach change might be unrelated to each other, yet grouped together, those were mentioned as top factors that have much to do with lack of success.
If you are a manager or a change agent, then you can see why this article is directed to you. Since you are still reading, let’s hope we have that part kind of sorted out.
Now, how can we improve cultural side of the problem?
Manage the culture or it will ‘manage’ you
Somebody said “Culture is like weather — there is always one”.
Culture to organisation is like a mindset to a person. Beware, this is a distributed mindset with all the consequences. What happens if your leadership team don’t pay attention and allow two different groups to grow opposing cultures?
Can you see what it may lead to?
Such an arrangement will result in organisational equivalent of multiple personality disorder. Tension arise between two groups, negatively impacting teamwork, synergy. This situation is particularly nasty for people who work across boundaries, teams that depend one on another or those whose success depends on engaging business from end to end.
First thing to do? Start actively managing the culture and if you were neglecting it in the past, make it as important as your strategy and tactics.
Ensure your message is consistent
Tell me if the following ever happened to you:
You (or maybe your boss) gave that speech. It was supported with visuals, slides. It was motivational and inspirational. Nicely delivered. ‘Big win’.
People were agitated and cheering. They felt inspired.
Even the ones who you expected to be disappointed.
Afterwards, you talked to them and someone said:
- “It’s good we will finally get rid of X. How come we’re not done with it already?”
Couple of minutes later, in different part of the room, you hear this:
- “Hey! I really appreciate your support. X had some bad time, yet it’s obvious now that we are following towards the right direction.”Huh? Strange, isn’t it?
Not really. Selective perception happens all the time. Even if your message supports opposing or diverse values and contains stories from multiple different cultures, people may not notice a dissonance and they may only hear what they want to hear.
What if you could prevent that happening?
Over the years, multiple models were developed, allowing to map and visualize various aspects of culture. Let’s use one that is fairly easy to explain and useful at the same time, Schneider’s model:
Four quadrants of the model describe four distinct cultures. If you are not yet familiar with the model, please take a deeper look at the picture and try to understand its axes and cultures described.
Next, list all the key points of the change strategy you plan to implement. For each of those key points, think about what you really have in mind and where on the model would you put a corresponding mark.
If you struggle with this task, try asking yourself the following questions:
- Who is main beneficent of this particular change initiative? Is it people and their personal needs or is it organisation and profits?
- Is it addressing current needs and providing short term benefits or is it describing an investment, providing long term results?
The result of this exercise may look like this:
It allows you to understands which types of culture your message speaks to, if there are any inconsistencies in your message, and what kind of tension it may create.
On the picture above, notice the following pairs:
- “Intolerant of mediocrity” vs “Done is better than perfect”
- “Solve problems not deliver projects” vs “Certainty of delivery”
What do you expect to happen when such values are promoted simultaneously?
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” - Lao Tzu
There is nothing wrong in venturing into new territory and supporting a move towards a better culture, promoting new values and behaviors. Such a move should be bold and consistent. Message needs to be powerful and focused. Something’s got to give if you want to avoid an impasse in the future.
Ensure message of leadership team is consistent
Great change often requires coordinated effort of multiple people. Some of them will pilot the change, some will provide support as thought leaders who motivate. Numerous people means various mindsets, which means risk of inconsistency and risk of being slowed down by a pull towards opposite directions.
What you can do, is repeat culture mapping exercise with the whole leadership team involved. This works the best when facilitated, so consider looking around for someone to help you, who used culture models before. The key points are:
- Ensure the model was explained. Organizing and visualizing topic which was previously considered fuzzy and obscure is eye-opening to some people.
- Ask leadership team to describe change they desire using their own words and stories. This mirrors how they will interact with people around them and shows each piece of change strategy through the lens of their operations and leadership style. For each of the stories, let them put a mark in an appropriate place.
- Ensure aggregated results are discussed. Look at the model filled with dozens of marks. Describe what you see. Analyze patterns you spot.
How wide are responses spread in terms of cultures (quadrants)?
What parts can cause tension, pull towards opposite directions?
What parts describe your strategy for moving towards improved, future state and what parts are anchored in place due to existing culture?
This is your chance to work together, not as a group of separate individuals. This is a chance to overcome politics and personal agendas.
In the best case, your discussions and collaboration will lead to creation of consistent change strategy and result in leadership team speaking in one, unified voice.
In the worst case, you will at least know what to expect and why.
If you still remember top failure reasons I listed in the first paragraphs, you probably also remember inability to change organisational culture came top of the list. There are two main reasons for that:
- Leaders do not drive a coherent change (we talked about that)
- Existing culture is overlooked (let’s talk about it next)
<end of part I >
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