My work currently has a big focus on culture change, providing us with some new behaviors it expects everyone to demonstrate. This seems like a very difficult subject to grapple with. I like to think that we can change, since we live in a fast paced world. But then behaviors are based on deeper values and, to steal a currently popular sports phrase, 'it is what it is' (http://www.slate.com/id/2184503/)
I read up a bit on corporate culture. Deal and Kennedy (Corporate Cultures) and Kotter and Heskett (Corporate Culture and Performance) wrote on this subject.
D&K argue that organizations by their very nature are social enterprises with tribal habits, well-defined cultural roles for individuals and various strategies for determining inclusion, reinforcing identity and adapting to change. When these are not defined well enough nor practised and demonstrated, the culture suffers.
K&H tried to link high performance to strong cultures. Strength is a matter of pervasiveness not type. But long-term performance comes only comes if the pervasive culture is both appropriate and adaptive to the environment. For companies or individuals, like the personal iceberg model, our behaviors are reflections of our values. It is harder to change values than behaviors.
I believe successful organizations must be those who make their values and behaviors clear to new recruits and so ensure they add to it or choose to leave. I also think they need to be true to themselves, and go where there values lead, rather than try to create new values through 'culture change'.
These Values often sound utterly platitudinous to outsiders but truly can be more than slogans if deeply believed. The danger to a growing or volatile business is that there are too many outsiders - new recruits who were not there at the start. The episode in Band of Brothers when the new recruits come on board after the first significant action of Normandy provides a stark example of the issues of moving forward while keeping the live the values.
So the clear pitfall is the obsolescence of values if circumstances change and resistance to change. In these cases, I feel like I have seen too many attempts to redefine values, rather than go back to what was true, and tell the story. There need to be true believers and leaders in the business who make time for the values not with effort but because they are intuitive to them. Mavericks too keep a strong culture evolving (or leave a weak culture). These guys don't necessarily need charisma, since it sometimes pays to be hard even insensitive to keep consistence with goals/values. But you can't just pick some people and say 'Hey, go live these values'
I often see an unrealistic drive by execs and HR to make the values come alive amongst everyone, just because they have spent some intensive time to get to a place where they feel they can own them. Unwilling almost to believe that we're all the same and need time and experience to understand and chose to align ourselves to the values of a company or group.
The activity of running the business must itself demonstrate the culture. The Rites and Rituals of cultural orientation, and explicit rules (e.g. Code of Business Principles), as well as the Role Models. Communication is then more than an email from HR or the exec team.
The most powerful cultural communication is the informal channel of storytelling - at the Christmas party, over a drink after work at the pub. As humans we thrive on stories and always have throughout our lives. It is how we learn about the world from when we are an infant. How exciting are stories and their tellers - priests, whisperers, gossips, spies, cabals.
So, I am not sure that I buy a company trying to change its behaviors by an emphasis on the new, or bringing in some culture guru to get us all fired up. I think there needs to be enough people already on the team with enough shared experience to share enough tales. There need to be enough of us who choose to add to the whole, not just take or go for the ride.
So, perhaps the whole culture change journey is really a diversion. I find myself more than a little sceptical of Leadership driven culture change as outlined in K&H. It clearly comes up when the business is struggling, and strategic missteps have been taken. Perhaps execs feel that cultural change helps them share the burden of the wrong decisions they made. Certainly, those with the best stories often seem to have been around longer than most execs.
How do I know if I can become a storyteller? Only if my own belief and drive align with the organization. Economic progress is an empty promise if we all become one, the same empty raincoat. Handy helps us question our motivations
Sense of continuity - do i feel that my efforts build something tangible for the future?
Connection - do I feel a sense of kinship with my colleagues?
Direction - do I feel that I am making the important decisions to fashion my own directions?
Covey 7 habits sold millions for a good reason. We must win that private victory, that move from dependence to independence. We then have the strength to be inner directed and best interact with others. Then we can make the decision to become a storyteller in this town, or move on elsewhere
I read up a bit on corporate culture. Deal and Kennedy (Corporate Cultures) and Kotter and Heskett (Corporate Culture and Performance) wrote on this subject.
D&K argue that organizations by their very nature are social enterprises with tribal habits, well-defined cultural roles for individuals and various strategies for determining inclusion, reinforcing identity and adapting to change. When these are not defined well enough nor practised and demonstrated, the culture suffers.
K&H tried to link high performance to strong cultures. Strength is a matter of pervasiveness not type. But long-term performance comes only comes if the pervasive culture is both appropriate and adaptive to the environment. For companies or individuals, like the personal iceberg model, our behaviors are reflections of our values. It is harder to change values than behaviors.
I believe successful organizations must be those who make their values and behaviors clear to new recruits and so ensure they add to it or choose to leave. I also think they need to be true to themselves, and go where there values lead, rather than try to create new values through 'culture change'.
These Values often sound utterly platitudinous to outsiders but truly can be more than slogans if deeply believed. The danger to a growing or volatile business is that there are too many outsiders - new recruits who were not there at the start. The episode in Band of Brothers when the new recruits come on board after the first significant action of Normandy provides a stark example of the issues of moving forward while keeping the live the values.
So the clear pitfall is the obsolescence of values if circumstances change and resistance to change. In these cases, I feel like I have seen too many attempts to redefine values, rather than go back to what was true, and tell the story. There need to be true believers and leaders in the business who make time for the values not with effort but because they are intuitive to them. Mavericks too keep a strong culture evolving (or leave a weak culture). These guys don't necessarily need charisma, since it sometimes pays to be hard even insensitive to keep consistence with goals/values. But you can't just pick some people and say 'Hey, go live these values'
I often see an unrealistic drive by execs and HR to make the values come alive amongst everyone, just because they have spent some intensive time to get to a place where they feel they can own them. Unwilling almost to believe that we're all the same and need time and experience to understand and chose to align ourselves to the values of a company or group.
The activity of running the business must itself demonstrate the culture. The Rites and Rituals of cultural orientation, and explicit rules (e.g. Code of Business Principles), as well as the Role Models. Communication is then more than an email from HR or the exec team.
The most powerful cultural communication is the informal channel of storytelling - at the Christmas party, over a drink after work at the pub. As humans we thrive on stories and always have throughout our lives. It is how we learn about the world from when we are an infant. How exciting are stories and their tellers - priests, whisperers, gossips, spies, cabals.
So, I am not sure that I buy a company trying to change its behaviors by an emphasis on the new, or bringing in some culture guru to get us all fired up. I think there needs to be enough people already on the team with enough shared experience to share enough tales. There need to be enough of us who choose to add to the whole, not just take or go for the ride.
So, perhaps the whole culture change journey is really a diversion. I find myself more than a little sceptical of Leadership driven culture change as outlined in K&H. It clearly comes up when the business is struggling, and strategic missteps have been taken. Perhaps execs feel that cultural change helps them share the burden of the wrong decisions they made. Certainly, those with the best stories often seem to have been around longer than most execs.
How do I know if I can become a storyteller? Only if my own belief and drive align with the organization. Economic progress is an empty promise if we all become one, the same empty raincoat. Handy helps us question our motivations
Sense of continuity - do i feel that my efforts build something tangible for the future?
Connection - do I feel a sense of kinship with my colleagues?
Direction - do I feel that I am making the important decisions to fashion my own directions?
Covey 7 habits sold millions for a good reason. We must win that private victory, that move from dependence to independence. We then have the strength to be inner directed and best interact with others. Then we can make the decision to become a storyteller in this town, or move on elsewhere
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