Years ago I watched a 40 story office tower being built in San Francisco’s Financial District across the street from where I worked. I learned that when building in earthquake country enormous pilings are pounded down into the fill and the building goes on top of them. It’s all about flexibility; the pilings act like giant springs so the tower can sway during an earthquake instead of cracking because it’s rigid.

And I’m here to tell you that sway they do; I know having several years in an office on the 35th floor of 50 California Street (and in the bar on the floor above).

Your culture needs the same flexibility if it’s going to survive the quakes and storms implicit in the business world.

A few weeks ago I offered a list of what I call IBBs that provide structural support to culture and the stressed the importance of not allowing them to morph into bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy shouldn’t be confused with process.

• Process is good—it helps get things done smoothly and efficiently;
• bureaucracy is bad—it’s process calcified, convoluted, politically corrupted, or just plain unnecessary and it feeds on people’s fear of change.

Of the three categories of IBBs, philosophy, attitude/style and policy, the first shouldn’t change at all; the second may morph to take advantage of new technology or show different styles; the third, policy, is the most likely to cause problems.

Here are five actions you can implement to avoid those problems.

1. Watch out for dozens of variations of “because we’ve always done it that way…” attitude in you and in others—some are very convincing, so pay attention.
2. Review and revamp your IBBs regularly.
3. Encourage input and take suggestions from all levels of the company and act on them.
4. Understand, and make sure that your people understand, things will change based on company growth, the economy, etc., but that the really important stuff, such as fairness, open communications, etc., will be preserved.
5. Communicate any/all changes to everyone.

Culture is a living entity and IBBs are its limbs and organs. Every living organism requires TLC and feeding—culture is no different.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Culture, Ducks In A Row, Personal Development, What Leaders DO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: Culture, Ducks In A Row, IBB, infrastructure building blocks
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