It’s Not The Stupid Culture – It’s The Culture, Stupid

The best article I’ve read recently on changing, reinforcing, reinventing, and impacting culture within an organization is "Stop Blaming Your Culture" and can be found here from Strategy + Business – the Booz site. 

I say it is the best because it outlines in very clear ways the impact behaviors and rewards have on the culture you have and the culture you want.  What I found extremely interesting is the discussion around using existing culture to connect to the new culture.  Sort of "judo" approach - using the old culture against itself.  Don't fight the old culture as much as allow it's energy and inertia to propel you to the new one. 

Rather than simply restate the article in total, I’ve pulled the top 10 quotes that resonated with me and my focus on behaviors and rewards.

Go, read, digest, apply.  I’d love to hear your comments after reading.

Here are the snippets that really hit home based on my professional bent and believe me – there were twice as many more I’d like to put in but don’t want to plagiarize it completely.

It is that good.

"Organizational cultures don’t change very quickly. Therefore, if you are seeking change in your company or institution, you are most likely to succeed using your existing culture to help you change the behaviors that matter most. Bit by bit, as these new behaviors prove their value through business results, the culture you have can evolve into the culture you need."

Start where you leave off.  Don't leap-frog to a new culture.  Drive the evolution by changing small things that connect to the core things.

"When a new leader’s strategy puts the culture of a company at risk, the culture will trump the strategy, almost every time. There are good reasons for this. Every company’s identity — the body of capabilities and practices that distinguish it and make it effective — is grounded in the way people think and behave."

 Strategy is not behavior.  Behavior is behavior.  Memorize that.

"But many leaders overlook this message. They blame the company’s culture for the resistance they encounter. In the most extreme cases, they assume an explicit mandate for wholesale cultural change. This leads them to remove key leaders and old practices, restructure operations, set in place new rewards and promotions, and announce other across-the-board programmatic changes. This approach is costly, disruptive, and risky. Moreover, it takes years to accomplish. Working in a culture that is under attack reduces employees’ energy and de-motivates them."

The culture isn't the problem - it's the energy expended defending the old one that saps any change to the new one.

"The first thing to change is the view that, as a leader, you can fix your culture by working on it directly. Rarely is that the case. Just as you typically can’t argue someone out of a deeply held belief, you can’t force people to change the way they think and feel about their work. Instead, you need to focus on specific behaviors that solve real problems and deliver real results. This, in turn, enables people to experience the results of thinking differently. Experience becomes a better teacher than logical argument."

Behaviors.  Sensing a theme.

"To understand your culture, you need to pay close attention to its quiet, sometimes hidden, manifestations, such as the side conversations in the hallways, the informal consultations behind closed doors, and the incisive guidance that people get when they ask one another for advice. It is also evident in the formal lines of the organization chart and the ways in which directives are worded. Cultures can be diagnosed best by the work behaviors they promote."

True culture, like character, is what is revealed when no one is watching IMHO.

"The notion that behavior change leads to attitude change can be traced back to the 1950s, to psychologist Leon Festinger and his theory of cognitive dissonance. Festinger argued that when people are induced to act in new ways, even if those new behaviors feel unfamiliar or wrong at first, their need for consistency will gradually affect the way they think and feel. They will seek out reasons to justify their new actions — both rationally and emotionally."

Word.

"In emphasizing behavior, you are looking for those few actions, conducted again and again, that will lead to better values (and thus to better results). Make clear the distinctions among the values you want to develop, the one-time actions you are changing, and the recurring behaviors you hope to instill. A commitment to service, for example, is a value. When a retail salesperson expresses that value by helping a customer exchange a purchase, that’s an action. When the salesperson does this routinely, knowing that over time it will help solidify customer loyalty to the store, it’s a behavior."

Follow the chain to behaviors.  Don't stop short - get to the actual behavior.

"Take pains to stay within the most essential tenets of the existing culture. Make sure you understand clearly the reasons that current practices exist before you try to change them."

Taking a step back and analyze.  Can you say baby with the bathwater?

"Be a visible and consistent role model of the behavior change you want to see in others. When he was interim CEO of General Motors leading the company’s remarkable transformation after the U.S. government bailout in 2009, Fritz Henderson repeatedly admonished his staff to be “individually and collectively accountable,” which meant focusing only on activities directly linked to business results. Henderson’s remarks didn’t have much impact until he provided examples. He posted e-mails with typos, showing that quick decisions were more important than painstaking attention to appearances."

This one is the one most companies get wrong.  Not only do senior Execs think they can actually impact culture through fiat - they also believe they are outside it.  They are not.

"Whatever happens in the outside world, however, keep your internal focus on the few critical behaviors that matter most — those that determine your strategic and operating performance. Find ways to measure both the behavior change itself, and the results it produces. Resist the temptation to attempt changes in the behaviors, attitudes, and values of the system all at once. Remember, it is much easier to act your way into new thinking than to think your way into new actions."

A journey of a thousand steps...

 

Related articles

• McKinsey Classic: The psychology of change management-applying ... (terrydata.wordpress.com)
• Creating A Balanced Employee Influence Program (i2i-align.com)
• Culture trumps strategy and drives every tactic's execution (startups.typepad.com)

Comments

[Bret Simmons]

Excellent, but challenging for me, Paul. I am a firm believer that if you don't change your mind you won't change your behavior, even though I recognize as you point out that is can also work the other way around. I'm headed to the gym this morning for a good 2 hours of exercise. That is not a random behavior. It started with a series of choices (e.g. I need to exercise again, I need to find the right gym, I need to pic the right membership, etc). Exercising is changing my thinking, but the change in thinking came first. Still chewing on this one..thanks, Bret

[Paul Hebert]

I think the difference for me is the initial change decision. In your case the only one who can make that decision is you. No one can "force" you to exercise. In an organization there is some control over the initial decision. A manager can say - "you will do this - it is our new process." And you will do it. Over time (assuming the behavior doesn't violate a core value/belief and it's a "easy" behavior change) it will be part of the practice and routine. Then it is an issue of "I behave this way because... fill in blank."

I took the article to say - 1. There will be a change. 2. Make the change small 3. Link it to historical values 4. Repeat 5. Show impact of the change

I don't think that same series applies when it starts with 1. Do I want to change...

Your point will have impact on those company cultures where there is considerable freedom of choice - but for most - managers can still be the change initiator vs. the individual.

Does that make sense? There's a word I'm looking for but can't find - something like "internal trigger vs. external trigger" for change.

[Drew Hawkins]

The main theme I saw in there was Baby Steps (a la What About Bob). Changing a culture appears to me more effective when you change tiny things at a time, not a whole lot at once. Tiny behaviors, stacked on top of each other, can make a huge difference. That goes with just about anything, not just inside the office.

[Paul Hebert]

It's funny - that movie comes up more often than you think... but it's so true. Most change failures come from "wholesale" changes - driven from the top with an autocratic mandate. Thanks drew for engaging here.

[Scott Crandall]

Paul --- Values --> Actions --> Behaviors. Got it! Another excellent post!

[Paul Hebert]

Funny how we can complicate things eh?

[Kurt Nelson]

Focus on changing behaviors - it is an idea that I support 100%. I use a quote from John Kotter of Harvard often, "The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.”

Well done.

[Scott Crandall]

Paul --- Most change failures -- in my experience -- come from primarily 2 reasons: 1) The change wasn't well thought out in the first place ("flavor of the month" or F-O-T-M), and the staff KNOWS, going in, that it was just "F-O-T-M". So it was never "real". 2) The initiative simply ran out of gas -- for any number of reasons, probably having to do with unsuccessfully "fighting the culture". Lack of commitment to change, and perhaps adherence to the old culture, usually starts at the top -- as do most failures.

The quote snips you've posted give an interesting strategy about dealing with these, but I think successful change starts with facing (and admitting) reality: are we truly in a change initiative (and what is it? What does it mean?), or is this "corporate politics as usual" masquerading as culture change? That is generally what animates most "F-O-T-M".

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks for weighing in Kurt... kinda like the old saw - if a culture changes without behavior did culture change occur? (tree in the forest - no one hears it did it make a sound?)

[Paul Hebert]

Your #2 is very likely - most executives (at least ones I've been in close contact with) - think they can demand the culture change and try to force it into a specific time period (probably before the next investor call) and then either give up, replace staff (which starts the initiative over again) or move on. All of which reinforce with the employee base that culture change is FOTM.

It takes time and energy. You don't raise a kid with your values and culture in a month, year or week - it takes years - many, many years before they culture is ingrained and transferable.

[Michpoko]

Hi Paul. In reading this was reminded of what I've read on goal pursuit. We have both intrinsic and extrinsically motivated goals (your triggers). Extrinsic goals we take on are essentially those which others want us to accomplish, such as work related goals. We seek to align our extrinsic goals with our own personal, intrinsic goals, and can better accomplish behavior change (goal accomplishment) when we create shorter term, more concrete goals (steps) that help to accomplish the larger, more abstract goals (such as a culture change). And recognizing progress toward goals is rewarding to the brain, and helps us stay focused on the goal (show the impact of the change).

[Paul Hebert]

Ah... you just said in 50 odd words what took me 20 years to learn :)

You are right on the money! I'd say most companies forget about the aligning external and internal - and that requires people to talk and discuss objectives, goals, etc. If we don't do that hard, analog step - we don't the same level of results. Thanks for playing along here on the site!

[Derek Irvine, Globoforce]

Agreed, Paul. Excellent article and very much inline with Katz's book, Leading Outside the Lines.

My favorite quote from the article was in the first paragraph: "It would have been easy for Gray (new commandant of the US Marine Corps) to blame the damaged organizational culture for the problems he inherited, and to launch a formal, full-scale change initiative. But instead, he began to praise and seek out elements of the old Corps culture."

Brilliant, and what we preach every day. Don't beat your head against what you don't like. Find what you do, praise it when you see it, and it will be repeated.

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks for commenting Derek. This article was one that got me to really envision culture change as "judo" - using the old culture to get to the new culture. Instead of fighting it - find what is core and still relevant and leverage that... too often we want to "fight" the old culture directly - like boxing.