Changing Company Culture
by Miki SaxonNo matter the size of your company, the true path to changing company culture is inherent in the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) of the CEO who must desire and support the changes or they won’t happen. It’s that simple.
In fact, that’s the main reason why culture so often changes when the top person changes. One of the most glaring examples of this was Robert Nardelli, who destroyed Home Depot’s culture and saw turnover rates at all levels soar.
Culture always looks like the boss, even when it bubbles up from the workers, since it’s the boss who allows and enables it to bubble up and then supports its implementation.
When seeking to change a culture it’s critical to identify the source(s) of each trait displayed in your Cultural Web (Power Structures, Organizational Structures, Rituals and Routines, Symbols, Control Systems, Myths and Stories).
If the source, CEO/boss, senior executive, etc., isn’t willing to change their MAP enough to let go of the previous approach then change is more than difficult, it’s unlikely.
Sometimes the bottleneck isn’t a person, its tradition, usually some variation of, “…we’ve always done it that way.”
But tradition is habit and habits are part of MAP.
Assuming that you aren’t the bottleneck, it’s your responsibility to not only engender, but also facilitate, MAP changes in those below you.
However, doing the same in those above you is far more difficult and often ends up as an exercise in futility.
Successful change, whether in your own MAP or in others, isn’t just a function of how open you/the person is, but of what level of trust is inherent in your organization. No one is going to admit to a problem, let alone to being the source of it, in a culture where the messenger is killed.
Finally, getting people to change their MAP is similar to getting alcoholics to stop drinking—you can explain the importance, appeal to their intelligence, threaten their livelihood, use any other coercion you dream up, but it won’t happen until they choose to change.
Moving forward means change and changing is a private decision that each of us makes consciously or not, in large and small ways on a daily basis—and that’s really the bottom line.
Image credit: nickwinch on sxc.hu
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July 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
[...] of the “truth” that some people hold about how things work, please see Miki Saxon for one way we are all affected by, and struggle with this, on a daily basis at [...]