Accelerating culture change Myth: It takes years to change an organization's culture. Reality: Significant culture change can take place in months not years...we've seen it happen. While culture change is not easy, it is possible to make it happen and achieve concrete results in a matter of months and not years as popularly believed. We've seen numerous examples in all sizes of companies across a wide range of industries that support this statement. In some cases the change is dramatic as we observed in Sprint's buy-out of its PCS (wireless) joint venture from its cable partners in the late 1990's. In less than four months, PCS' culture made a significant shift towards a more disciplined focus on results from a very entrepreneurial, ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants' way of operating. This was intentional, and while there were examples of unintended negative consequences, the culture change was effective and has been sustained. Where do most culture change initiatives go wrong? The problem lies with many of the approaches commonly used to make culture change happen. One such approach is the 'sheep dip' tactic - immersing large numbers of staff into mandatory culture and values training initiatives to shift beliefs and behaviors, leading to culture change. Others use a 'change agent' approach. Bringing in large numbers of new people with the 'desired values' and tasking them to examine work processes and find better ways of getting the work done. Sometimes the 'charismatic leader' approach is used, senior managers try to role model the values and behaviors of the new culture and reinforce this with extensive communications and coaching. Unfortunately, each of these, either in isolation or combination is not very effective and, in fact, is a lot like throwing darts at a dartboard... blindfolded: hoping that the chosen approach will hit the mark. The solution? Culture change needs to occur at a systemic level, specifically at the level of organizational practices (how work gets done). By targeting the right set of inter-related practices in a disciplined manner, leaders can quickly and effectively shift organization behavior and, as a result, culture. In this way, culture change efforts hit the bull's eye and are dramatically accelerated. The timeline for progress in shifting key organizational behaviors can occur in a matter of weeks, and even better, the overall culture change timeline is reduced from years to months.  First know the reality of your culture Deeply-embedded and shared beliefs and assumptions, even when they are positive, can cause an organization to become non-adaptive and resistant to change. Strong cultures, attached to past strategy, can create a ‘stickiness' that gets in the way of business changes. Think of the strengths of the IBM culture during the 70's and 80's and how, by the 90's, that same culture constrained business insight and strategic action. Given the rate of change in organizations today, it is critical that leaders understand how organization's cultural strengths are acting as a ‘double-edged sword' and are starting to impede adaptability, flexibility and responsiveness. To ensure leaders have an accurate picture of the organization's culture, we use the Culture-Strategy Fit Profile™ to identify the key elements of the culture, its sub-cultures and how these are aligned with the organization's strategy. This includes extensive research into the contextual factors that are influencing the organization's culture that includes an interview with the Chief Executive Officer. As a result, we are able to develop a rich portrayal of the organization's culture and how it is both supporting and perhaps interfering with the implementation of strategy. Identify the levers to make change happen - fast! Knowing what the organization's culture is and what aspects of its culture need to change is only the first step. The second step is to identify the internal organization practices and leader behaviors that can accelerate culture change. Internal organizational practices are networked in ‘a structure of practices'; therefore identifying a small set of linked practices to use as a lever to drive culture change is extremely effective. For example, a culture shift from laissez-faire to discipline was achieved at PCS by implementing a handful of initiatives including requiring facts/data to support business decisions, introducing a meeting management discipline (including starting on time), implementing performance objectives and holding people accountable for achieving them, and implementing Activity Based Costing. However, the single most important factor that influences culture change is the extent the leader behaviors are consistent with the desired culture; consistent meaning that they support the desired culture and that the behaviors are observable on a moment-by-moment basis. Developing a coordinated plan of action to align leader behaviors to drive culture change is a key success factor. Case Study: A targeted plan to accelerate culture change A client organization was intent on finding ways to better utilize its team-oriented culture to achieve better results. Our culture survey quickly revealed that many of its members had a set of beliefs and behaviors about 'the way things are done around here' which were not consistent with this objective.
Staff and managers valued authority and sought clear direction from those in more senior positions. Most of them were hard workers from the same ethnic background, with highly-embedded beliefs. The subsequent scan of organizational practices resulted in the organization shifting its hiring practices, and introducing changes to its structure and coordinative practices that both supported a team-based environment but acknowledged the need for greater clarity with respect to authority and decision-making. All of this led to renewed energy and commitment to strategic goals. Make sure to measure the impact of change on culture? When making a shift in strategic direction, shifting to the next level of performance, merging organizations or forming alliances, many changes to organizational practices take place. Such changes can have intended positive or unintended negative impacts on organizational culture and on performance . Unintended consequences can be seen in the failure of 70% of acquisitions to add value to acquiring firms and the 25-33% success rate of transformational change projects in reaching intended goals. By establishing a culture baseline and then comparing culture change over time, leaders have the information they need to test whether they are building the strong, adaptive organizational culture they need. Benefits
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As specialists in organizational culture, Strategic Business Alignment helps business leaders accelerate strategy implementation, shift culture and achieve significant improvements in organizational performance. Our proprietary Culture-Strategy Fit Profile™; gives organizations an assessment of what their culture is, how it affects performance and achievement of strategy, and where to focus to improve culture-strategy fit. Our diagnostic tools and talent network bring leading-edge culture change approaches to clients in a broad range of industries and sectors. |