Read much in the way of business discussion these days – including here – and you’ll find that culture is a central theme. The need for the right kind, the difficulty and process of changing that culture, the consequences and characteristics of an unhealthy one.
Culture is indeed a pivotal part of a sustainable, growth-directed business and one that’s poised to take advantage of emerging social characteristics. But.
Mindset and attitudinal changes cannot be created nor sustained without a systemic framework that they can live within. They need an infrastructure to survive, and this is the part where so many businesses fall down in the midst of their quest for innovation. Without frameworks in place, you can’t implement even the freshest and most culturally-forward ideas. In fact, systemic weakness can actually *create* culture weakness over time.
Unsupported Ideas
In the most forward-thinking of cultures, we still need the infrastructure that can enable and sustain innovation and change.
Without systems of some kind, the very best ideas and the most incremental of changes get swallowed up because they’ve got nowhere to go, no rails to run on. Nascent ideas and new business concepts need training wheels, because if they require changes or adjustments in the status quo in order to succeed, the same systems that we’re trying to change cannot simultaneously and in parallel support the change itself.
When that happens and our existing systems start to fail us, culture is almost immediately impacted. It starts with the people closest to a project, and ripples through an organization while the frustration of trying to get change to take hold brushes against all of the people impacted – directly or indirectly – by that change.
We feel uninformed. Uneducated or out of touch. Inefficient. Even undervalued, if we’re not given the tools, power, and authority to adjust our most immediate people, processes, and resources in order to respond to the emerging effects of the new ideas.
Systems To Consider
The simplest and most foundational of business systems are the ones that are the first to address. Simple in concept but vastly complex in strong execution, start with the fundamentals to help create an incubator for new ideas
1. Communication
Pivotal change needs the ability to get information from one place to another, and into the hands of everyone who needs it. Especially if that change impacts their ability to make decisions or requires them to change what or how they do things in their role. Be sure that systems can become more distributed, more accessible, and that everyone understands the importance of feeding the communication network.
2. Training & Education
People learn, but they also settle into routine and habit. If something new is emerging, that means a new viewpoint and new information is needed in order to take advantage. Teach people what you expect of them, what the new guidelines are, what you’re trying to achieve. Share everything from goals to process. You want change to be scalable and repeatable, not dependent upon tribal knowledge of a few people.
3. Budget & Expenditures
Rare is the meaningful change that doesn’t cost money, time, people, or all of the above. Are your budget systems, requisition, and approval processes flexible enough to accommodate change or reallocation? You have to let your people evaluate what the change will take to implement, and make recommendations for the resources they need accordingly.
4. Reward and Motivation
Individual support of new ideas and change requires that we can see ourselves in it, and understand our role in helping to make it happen. We want more than just more work to do. We want a sense of purpose or destination, and recognition for our role in a process. That can be title, responsibilities, compensation, bonuses, or even simply a key and discernible presence in the process. Change doesn’t happen and survive by mandate. Ever.
What else would you add, or what’s impacted your ability to implement change or innovate?
Are You Properly Diagnosed?
If you think you have a culture issue trying to implement change, you may very well have.
But most cultural roots have at least *something* to do with the systems that surround them and that keep them vibrant and full of momentum. Sometimes, we need new systems. We may even need to *remove* legacy systems that are obsolete or too cumbersome to support the nature of the innovation we’re striving for. Sometimes, existing systems can work, but need an overhaul. Next time you’re ready to simply say that there are mindset or attitude issues at hand or that it appears that people are simply resisting change, look to the reasons *why* that might be happening.
You might find some answers in the most unlikely – and mundane – of places.
Running a business is complex onto itself. With the high failure rate of new companies, it is so often blamed on product or competition or some non-human element when it can often point to culture. Leadership can be a lonely journey in a team environment and as the saying goes – bosses say “go”, leaders say “let’s go”. It’s not easy to “let go” of control and allow your team to flourish within their strengths while keeping your keen eye on that pesky bottom line. Then I point to Ricardo Semler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler
Posts like this are why I come back here. You crushed it. This post rings true for me because it speaks to the frustrations I have felt as my organizations Linchpin. A lot of the issues I’ve seen were with individuals who have been employed with the company for a long period of time. Plan A has always worked…why do we need Plan B? CHANGE for some is a very bad word indeed.
Posts like this are why I come back here. You crushed it. This post rings true for me because it speaks to the frustrations I have felt as my organizations Linchpin. A lot of the issues I’ve seen were with individuals who have been employed with the company for a long period of time. Plan A has always worked…why do we need Plan B? CHANGE for some is a very bad word indeed.
Amber: You have hit and nicely summarized what organizational change agents have been trying to get corporate America to see for 30 years now. But, I would add one more thing – Line of Sight. Somewhere between the training/education and motivation and building on communication, those invested in the process and the change need to be able to see how what they do makes a difference. It does not good to train people in something like Six Sigma quality and then reward them for making things happen if they can’t understand and easily see how the change in quality affects the every thing they are being rewarded for. As a real life example, the car companies a few decades ago all thought profit sharing was the great reward system – let’s motivate people by allowing them to improve quality which will improve the bottom line which will provide a bonus payout. So they installed profit sharing and the employees reacted by improving quality and as a result sales improved (who remembers Quality is Job 1). The trouble was, the car companies started selling more of the sub-compacts (gas crisis) which were lower margin cars and this coupled with overseas problems (exchange rates, etc.) caused profits to stagnate if not decline, reducing or eliminating the expected profit sharing payoff. I am sure everyone can guess the reaction. Had the car companies rewarded employees directly for the improved quality or productivity or whatever they wanted to measure (gainsharing), employees would have directly seen how their efforts affected what was being measured and everyone would have benefited in the long run.
By using open communications, training and education and reward and motivational programs in an integrated manner, employers can greatly increase the line of sight and increasing the chances that the efforts will succeed. The challenge is – how can we use the new communications technologies (blogs, wikis, social media, etc.) to establish this line of site, to enhance educational opportunities and to increase motivation? Oh, and if you haven’t read it, I highly suggest an older OD book entitled “Creating the ‘Open-Book’ Company” – one of the first books to talk about truly educating the employee in a manner that falls outside the job duties training most employers use as their sole means of skilling their employees.
I always see these types of problems in businesses where the people building and implimenting these systems are too far removed from the people actually using those systems. Even if the system works there tends to be this unease within the culture that resists the change. It didn’t come from within, it feels thrust upon us and gives us the willies. Culture to a business means walking the walk. If it even for a second feels like systematic lip service from on high, the wheels tend to come off the wagon.
Confession: my heart breaks over this in today’s workplaces, but not just. There’s political orgs, churches, families, local groups – all of them need better infrastructure, better basis for growing and moving forward. And I’m just seeing to much of it – overwhelmed. Normally I’d cut and paste and write my own whatever, but I’m not sure I can with this one. Not you :), it’s me – thanks again for writing just the right thing, Amber.
YES! Couldn’t agree more. “Teach people what you expect of them, what the new guidelines are, what you’re trying to achieve. Share everything from goals to process.” and “Individual support of new ideas and change requires that we can see ourselves in it, and understand our role in helping to make it happen.” These are both uber-important but I would also add that it is necessary to have support and communication help from executive management. Great post.