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Re-engineering Corporate Culture


Over the course of my career(s), I have been party to, and subjected to, numerous missions to change a corporation’s culture. Usually, there is an obvious and pressing need to change such as increased competitive pressure, or a major shift in the market that sets the C-Suite alarms ringing and the ensuing clarion call that “Our culture is the problem and we must change it!”. Often times, that is indeed the case. Sadly, the mission to change the culture of the subject department, division or the entire company falls flat. In fact, from perhaps an overly cynical perspective, I would say it almost always falls flat, or at least far short of achieving the changes envisioned at the beginning of the effort, and usually ends up being seen by all involved as a complete waste of precious time that could have been better used to address the presenting problems in the first place.

Markets call for a global presence, and regional or multinational companies need to adapt and change the way they do business around the world. Sometimes the competition is bringing newer, more cost effective or more innovative products and services to the market, and the need to shorten lead times and “move faster” becomes the battle cry. Stale product lines call for a culture of creativity and innovation and the old-school ways of product development are just not up to the task. The worse the problem, the more focus is placed on the strategies, structure, staffing, and processes that the company employs to conduct their business; the undercurrent of the way associates behave in their daily activities gets called into question. Hence the focus and desire to change the prevailing culture.

And so, it begins…

Work groups are formed. Consultants are hired and form even more work groups. Work Life surveys are distributed and the pulse of the organization is taken. Ultimately, after much discussion, a list of indicated actions is generated, assignments are given, and good intended people head off to fulfill Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s aphorism, “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontes ou desirs”, or “paving a road to hell armed with good intentions.” In short order, management by poster will appear and inspirational reminders of TEAM WORK, Creativity, Innovation and Greatness will grace conference rooms, corridors and even restroom walls.

That’s where the wheels usually start to fall off; where the desired outcome silently coasts to a halt, if it ever built up a head of steam in the first place.

I think the reasons for the great difficulty in changing an enterprise’s culture are many, and complex.

Organizations move in structured ways, follow ingrained processes and obey the norms established by those who paved the way before them. Styles and skill sets that have been honed and practiced, and productive in the past, albeit perhaps now outmoded. Even more importantly, people are naturally resistant to change and they do not like it when “Somebody moves their cheese”. Efforts to alter the current state of affairs is thwarted when people are directed to conduct themselves in a new manner. They attempt to do so in a disheartened and begrudging way. They need time to process through the cycles of rage, denial, acceptance and growth before the change has even half a chance of becoming the new norm.

Of all the myriad of reasons one can articulate as to why so many of these culture re-engineering efforts fail, I believe that the central reason for the failure is the under-appreciation of the magnitude of impact that leadership plays in establishing the culture of an organization in the first place. As our leadership lesson of the day, let me propose a new definition of culture as, “the unintended environment that is created by our leadership behaviors”. As we lead, we hold certain values dear, and we insist on their adherence. When we lead, we pose certain types of questions and we consistently establish certain standards of behavior and performance of others. Those who are led naturally begin to behave in ways that meet the standards set, and the norms that are established. An outsider, observing such behavior would refer to this set of behaviors as your “culture”.

As a small example, I conduct a daily staff briefing at a certain time every day. It is a meeting where the key leaders stand around high-top tables, in front of an Operating System Board and we run through a standard set of operational metrics and conclude with a quick round table discussion so that everybody understands the challenges of the day and their role in it. An interesting quirk, although the meeting is scheduled at a specific time each and every morning, it is always started early, usually 2-3 minutes before the hour. As the leader of this specific gathering, one day, early on, I just started it early. I was tired of having to wait for participants to straggle in as their individual schedules and fondness for promptness dictated. I jokingly made mention one time that if you were not 5 minutes early, you were ten minutes late. People quickly realized that this meeting would always start early, and they responded by being there before the hour. It not only made the meeting a more efficient usage of everybody’s time, more importantly it emphasized our value of TIMELINESS. Our customers expect that our deliverables meet their demanding schedules, and as a result, we need to be timely in everything we do. If an outsider were to observe this meeting, they might define one aspect of our culture as being timely. And so it goes. The way we lead, the expectations we lay out and the performance we accept creates an environment that others will refer to as our culture. I realize that the topic of culture is much deeper and more complicated than such simple examples, but at the end of the day it, like everything else, it all comes down to leadership.

This is the reason that so many corporate culture re-engineering efforts die slow deaths, the changes are expected of others, without the requisite changes of leadership. If an organization is to change culturally, it’s leaders must be the first to change. If there is an expectation that people will work faster and take more risk, but the ramifications of making errors does not change, you can forget about people taking more risks. If you want people to be more collaborative in their operations, but the structure and relations of various departments do not collaborate, it will never happen. Just as a parent knows the folly of telling a child not to curse while they themselves speak profanity with ease, a true leader needs to understand the long shadow that their own leadership behaviors cast upon their entire area of responsibility.

Perhaps the point is best made in the child’s quote, “Your actions are speaking so loud to me, I cannot hear what it is that you are saying.” If we see flaws in our culture, or areas that need to change and adapt to a dynamic environment, as leaders we need to first look within, and let the change start there.

Stay Strong,

Terry

My son Justin reading in the early morning joined by his daughter doing the same.

My son Justin reading in the early morning joined by his daughter doing the same.


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