Editor’s Note: It’s an annual tradition for TLNT to count down the most popular posts of the previous 12 months. We’re reposting each of the top 25 articles between now and January 2nd. This is No. 7 of 2016. You can find the complete list here.
I spent 15 years learning and applying culture insights as a senior executive, consultant, and coach across multiple organizations before I started to proactively reach out to top culture pioneers and experts to learn about their culture facts and fundamentals.
We can’t learn much about culture from the popular press and most social media is dominated by over-simplified culture content. Critical insights from the top culture experts in history are unfortunately “secrets” to the vast majority of leaders. Other leaders turn away from the fundamentals of culture to more exotic and superficial solutions.
Edgar Schein, arguably the top culture pioneer, said in his closing comments at the Ultimate Culture Conference last year that we need to put the culture principles next to a good theory of change. So what are some of the most important culture and change principles?
Below are 8 critical culture change secrets I have learned that most leaders and self-anointed culture experts typically don’t understand or know how to leverage to improve results. Individual tips and keys have little use with a subject like culture so I’ll connect the explanation of these insights.
1.Culture is built through shared learning and mutual experience.
Edgar Schein mentioned this in an interview last year and I immediately connected it with habits that worked for me to consistently engage my leadership team and the broader organization when I was an industry executive. The foundation of effectively shifting or evolving culture does not come from popular approaches like:
- Defining values and “aligning” everything in the organization to them (even though this approach is widely advocated)
- Training masses of people on values and expected behaviors
- Focusing on clarity and alignment, engagement, or other areas of the work climate
- Focusing on improving a few systems like hiring, performance management or reward and recognition
Change efforts will likely include work in some or all of these areas but engaging leadership and the broader organization in a journey of shared learning and mutual experience is at the core of effective culture change or shaping efforts. Leaders can intentionally facilitate shared learning and mutual experience so improvements are clearly identified, captured, and spread to deliver results across their team in a phased improvement approach.
2.Don’t focus on trying to change culture. Focus on a problem, challenge or goal and how culture is impacting the related work.
I was a top leader and on the hook for growth, profit, customer experience, quality, safety and other critical performance priorities. I also cared tremendously about culture and felt it would be a key to our success. Zeroing in on a top mission or performance priority and engaging the broader organization more extensively in this one critical area delivered results. It also accelerated the shared learning and mutual experience since it was also focused on a meaningful priority for our entire team.
Don’t create a general “culture plan” where the connection to the results of the organization is unclear or debatable. Engage the organization to a much greater degree on one of your top priorities so you drive the shared learning, mutual experience and results faster than general culture work.
3.Results or consequences are necessary for any new cultural attribute to form.
Results will actually precede the cultural change. This important insight runs counter to arguments from some leaders who think they don’t have time for culture since they need results now, and culture change takes a long time. Focusing the work on a top mission or performance priority will actually increase the likelihood of seeing results in a meaningful area and will support the targeted cultural shift.
Behaviors that lead to positive results will spread. Schein said these behaviors will not be spreading because employees were “told to” but because “they work.” I love his explanation: “If it’s successful, and people like it, and it becomes a norm then you can say it’s become a culture change.” So, what’s a norm? That question brings us to our next secret.
4.The vast majority of what you hear about culture is actually focused on climate. It’s critical to understand the underlying cultural norms or expectations that are actually driving the vast majority of behavior we see.
I like calling these expectations the “unwritten rules” that drive our behavior. For many years, I thought I was effectively dealing with the subject of culture when we worked on improvements related to our values, involvement activities, management systems, communication habits, recognition, and other areas. Some of these changes had an impact on culture, but I struggled to gain a clear language around the behavioral problems we encountered and our “culture” survey results had already improved dramatically. I later found that engagement and nearly all “culture” surveys actually only measure aspects of the organizational climate. The climate is incredibly important but gaining an understanding of the underlying culture is critical for accelerating change efforts and delivering sustainable results.
My world changed when I met Rob Cooke and learned about the language, measurement, and power of behavioral norms. People are bombarded by cultural norms at work. Schein once said that 90% of our behavior in organizations is driven by cultural rules. The basic language of constructive, aggressive-defensive, and passive-defensive expectations or norms from Human Synergistics helps me deal with client challenges every day.
- Aggressive-defensive expectations such as maintaining unquestioned authority, outperforming peers, never making a mistake, opposing things indirectly, and many others don’t lead to sustainable effectiveness.
- Passive-defensive expectations also exist in organizations and these expectations such as not “rocking the boat,” making a good impression, asking everybody what they think before acting, and doing things for the approval of others may also undermine effectiveness.
- Constructive expectations such as taking on challenging tasks, treating people as more important than things, and resolving conflicts constructively do lead to sustainable effectiveness for individuals, teams and the overall organization.
It’s critical to move beyond the behavior we see in the organizational climate and understand the underlying culture. Leaders need to specifically understand how the climate and culture are impacting their work on top mission or performance priorities.
5.Define a “FROM-TO shift” from defensive to constructive expectations.
I first learned about the FROM-TO shift language from Larry Senn. The “TO” side of this concept is advocated all over the place. Organizations are defining values and expected behaviors but most have no language for the “FROM” side. I believe the defensive expectations I previously mentioned, both passive and aggressive, are the most critical part of understanding the “FROM” side of this concept. We need to understand these norms as a foundation for understanding beliefs, assumptions, mind-sets, and other factors that help to explain why they exist.
Some leaders consistently misdiagnose their culture problems and jump to conclusions without gaining any deeper cultural insight. My favorite example is a top leader who thinks there is a major accountability or ownership problem in the organization. The actual cultural issue could be driven by perfectionist, approval, avoidant, oppositional, or other norms in the current culture that current leadership, including the top leader, is perpetuating. Focusing on the “TO” behaviors we want does not address the root cause of the problems we see on the surface.
6.Repeatedly engage groups to define and continuously refine plans to improve results with a meaningful mission priority and support the targeted FROM-TO shift.
Leaders who engage their organization in defining focused improvement plans for a top mission priority, and supporting the associated FROM-TO shift will dramatically increase the likelihood of success. The key is to move beyond general feedback approaches on mission priorities or culture-related areas (behaviors, values, etc.).
Instead, engage groups in prioritized improvement feedback for a key mission or performance priority that will also support the targeted FROM-TO shift.
For example: How should we improve our new customer growth plans and shift FROM perfectionist aspects of our culture TO an achievement-oriented focus as a team? Far more explanation and sharing of specific stories, behaviors, and examples are obviously needed but you get the idea. Focus improvements on a mission priority (what) and the targeted cultural shift (how). It’s also important to identify any positive aspects of the culture that may be further leveraged as part of improvement efforts.
Plan ahead to re-engage groups periodically to provide prioritized feedback on what’s working and what’s not after you make progress on implementation (typically every 3-6 months). Identify the top improvements to know what’s working and to address what’s not.
7.It’s critical to adjust management, communication and motivation systems or habits to translate plans to effective action and shift the operating model.
The problem in most organizations is not identifying improvements that will have a positive impact on culture, but implementing them. I am sure we all can relate to Edgar Schein’s point that you only begin to fully understand a culture when you try to change it. It’s far easier to engage leadership and the broader organization in defining improvement plans than implementing them.
Jim Collins said, “A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.” There are three areas of discipline nearly all organizations involved in culture related change efforts must refine and connect:
- Management systems– especially the basic habits for senior leadership to define, monitor and manage strategic priorities, measures, and improvement plans.
- Communication systems– especially implementing or improving the formal and informal habits for communicating the status of priorities and plans along with regularly obtaining feedback for improvement.
- Motivation systems– especially intentional efforts to dramatically increase the recognition of team members that display the targeted constructive “TO” behavior in the FROM-TO shift and achieve results.
The lack of rigor in these three areas dramatically amplifies culture related problems and substantial adjustments are nearly always a part of major transformation efforts.
8.Culture transformation starts with personal transformation.
I love this point from Larry Senn. You can effectively cover the first seven “secrets” but your change efforts will bog down as individual behavior and mindset issues continue to persist, especially with top leaders. Top leaders must gain an understanding of how their behavior is impacting the behavior of others. Is that impact constructive, passive, or aggressive? How are they reinforcing the current culture? What individual and team development efforts need to be managed in parallel with the overall organization transformation?
My favorite questions in initial executive interviews are:
- Why is this change effort important to you personally?
- How are you reinforcing the current culture and contributing to the culture frustrations that persist?
The answers to these questions may lead to important leadership “aha’s”, as Larry Senn calls them, or reveal how difficult the journey will be to uncover those aha’s.
If you’re ready to apply these insights as part of your improvement plans and unlock the power of culture to support your purpose or mission, here’s what you need to do:
- Define the purpose of your improvement effort and complete qualitative (focus groups, interviews, etc.), and likely, quantitative culture analysis (survey). Obtain external support if you are not experienced with this work or want to increase the likelihood of success.
- Engage top leadership to review the results of the culture analysis and capture key learnings. Define a top mission or performance priority (growth, customer experience, etc.). Develop initial plans to engage the organization in new ways to improve related strategies / plans and support a FROM-TO shift in the culture.
- Engage the broader organization and obtain prioritized feedback as part of the effort to finalize improvement plans. Define when these groups will be re-engaged to provide prioritized feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
- Manage the change as part of refined management, communication, and motivation systems. Connect any organization development plans to individual development efforts, starting with top leaders.
These insights are only a small part of what’s necessary for meaningful culture change and sustainable results. They help to build initial momentum and results necessary for any new cultural attribute to emerge.
I couldn’t be happier that most culture pioneers and experts are open to the idea of sharing their insights and collaborating to make a meaningful difference. It will take time but these and other “secrets” will eventually be discovered by the average leader. It will be exciting when more leaders gain the confidence to proactively deal with this topic in a serious, diligent, energizing, and impactful way.
We need more culturally intelligent leaders. What culture insights or “secrets” can you add to help leaders make a meaningful difference?