Yesterday we looked at positive and negative aspects of culture and I said that today we would discuss how to change/create a culture or sub-culture.

Repeating yesterday’s warning: if you want a culture that is fundamentally different from the overall company culutre be sure you’re willing to shield your people and take the heat.

Remembering that culture is a function of your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), here are 7 critical points that you need to think through before starting—whether you are CEO of a startup or a first level supervisor in a large company.

1. Know who you are: Since this step is strictly between you and yourself you need to be brutally frank as to your attitudes towards people, motivation, what’s important, what’s OK to do, etc., in other words, know your MAP! You need to know exactly what you think, are comfortable with the elements you embrace and understand that you need to hire people who will flourish in the environment you create.
2. Define your cultural goals: Use the knowledge of your MAP to determine the kind of culture you want and write a description including your vision and the specific infrastructure, processes, practices, etc., that are needed to make it reality. Test the attractiveness of your cultural vision by whether you would want to work in a similar culture. If the answer is yes then you can proceed with it; however, if your response is “no way” then you need to rethink what you want because over the long haul there is no way you can sustain a culture in which you don’t believe. Also, people tend to gravitate to people like themselves (likes really do attract). In other words, you will be hired by, work with and hire those with synergistic MAP.
3. Know what you have: Honestly assess (warts and all) whatever culture currently exists in your company and department (if you have one or more people you have some kind of culture); without a detailed assessment you won’t know what you need to tweak, change, circumvent, ignore or avoid.
4. Be aware of the cost of change: Changing culture often results in turnover and turnover can be costly no matter the condition of the labor market. People join companies because they feel comfortable and change is rarely comfortable. If they don’t like the end result (or the direction it’s heading) they are likely to start looking. If you are aware and prepared that isn’t always a bad thing; cultural changes can’t happen if employees aren’t willing to change their mindset; worse, those who won’t change will make every effort to sabotage the emerging culture. By being prepared you can not only circumvent that, but often turn the saboteur into a new culture evangelist.
5. Don’t assume: The human race functions to a great extent on various sets of unconscious assumptions. In the workplace people tend to assume that people with similar educations, experience levels, positions, etc., have similar mindsets, attitudes and philosophies. The next assumption is that based on those similarities everybody would create similar cultures; the third assumption is that the first 2 guarantee people’s willingness to buy into the vision. Predicating acceptance of cultural change on the assumption of deep, unproven commonality is a recipe for disaster.
6. Don’t overwhelm the troops: Whether you are changing an entire corporation (Gerstner and IBM), creating a culture for your startup, tweaking it within your department or group, or revamping it in your small business, recognize that you can’t just come in, make an announcement and expect people to buy into the vision. Present it in small bite-size pieces and in such a way that people feel they have input in the process, thus creating a strong feeling of ownership. Better yet, listen to the input and adjust if it makes sense.
7. Communicate and sell—don’t order and tell! Even if your goal is a truly collaborative, nurturing culture that challenges and then helps people to realize their full potential you can’t just walk in on Monday and announce that that’s the way it will be from then on.

• First, it’s unlikely that anybody will believe you (talk’s cheap);
• second, if you’re new it’s unlikely they’ll trust you (no track record with them); and
• third, whether you’re proposing a radically different culture or just fine tuning the current one they have no reason to get on the bandwagon if it means changing.

In the final analysis what you do will carry far more weight than anything you say about your culture.

It boils down to your having the courage to walk your talk.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

I love George Bernard Shaw; he was brilliant and had a rapier wit with which he skewered deserving people, ideas and situations, while supplying pithy commentary on the events of his time as well as inspirational ideas.

Some of the things he said have passed into such common usage that few people even realize they are quotes. How many times have you seen this on cards, plaques and samplers?

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”

Sound familiar? It’s a favorite of mine; in fact, I have it on my office wall.

So I went looking for a few of the more esoteric Shawisms.

The first is an important heads-up for all of us, but especially anyone in a leadership role; you might even find that it accurately describes the problems you’re having.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Progress is something that both people and business expend great effort to do; what we often forget is that progress means things will be different.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Because we progress we are all constantly changing, but too often people don’t take the time to find out who you are now; Shaw sums the problem and solution up in just a few words.

“The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them”

Collaboration boosts progress; Shaw understood this and explained why it’s so important.

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

Progress requires innovation, but real progress requires thinking as opposed to rephrasing previous ideas to sound new, but if Shaw was correct it accounts for the lack of progress in so many areas.

“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”

Those who don’t think often lean on ideology to support their agenda. The problem with ideology is that it doesn’t lend itself to seeing another’s world-view. Shaw understood how ridiculous this was.

“The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.”

My last choice is one I would like to apply to all politicians and educators. Perhaps, if we did, it would significantly improve the quality of those who claim to serve. (Hmm, it probably wouldn’t hurt to apply it to everybody else, too, including yours truly.)

“We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence…on pain of liquidation.”

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

An angry email berated me for Saturday’s post, saying in part, “Why don’t you ever choose more typical CEOs and cultures to write about? I read blogs to help me manage more effectively and the stuff you talk about is almost impossible to implement.”

The answer, in a nutshell, is that you can’t implement anything at odds with your own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)

Therefore:

• If you don’t believe in a happy workplace where people have fun then there is nothing that Tony Hsieh or anybody else can teach you that will help you create one.
• If you stand on your dignity and can’t laugh at yourself there is no way you can implement The Levity Effect.

I could keep giving examples, but you get the point.

I, and dozens of other experts, have said over and over that people can’t sell something they don’t believe themselves.

Nor can they implement cultural features that are out of sync with their MAP.

This is especially true for managers because they typically hire in their own image, so that their team has similar MAP—and the same problem.

If you find yourself on this treadmill, rather than write an angry email or complain to your buddies look in the mirror and know that you can change if you want to.

It’s your choice.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

See all mY generation posts here.

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

2010 is not only a new year it’s a new decade; are you looking forward to big changes in your life? I am.

I thought I’d take today to tell you about mine and you can use comments to talk about yours.

Fortunately it’s not just good things that end, but also the not-so-good and the downright rotten. That includes 2009 and converting a consulting service into easily useable software and creating a new form of “Help” that is actually useful and useable.

• The biggest change on my horizon is (finally) the release Q1 of Option Sanity™, a SAAS (software as a service) product that’s been a bear to develop.

• Another change stems from the demise of Leadership Turn, the blog I’ve written for b5 Media for the last two-and-a-half years.
  • Many of my regular readers from LT are joining our community and that will increase our interaction, i.e., more comments, discussions and requests to address topics of interest to you.
  • I’m incorporating 3 of Leadership Turn’s weekly features
    • Tuesday’s Ducks in a Row: offering what-to’s, why-to’s and how-to’s about culture, managing and motivation;
    • Thursday’s Leadership’s Future: musings and commentary on topics that affect where we go in the future, such as education, attitudes, etc.;
    • Sunday’s Quotable Quotes which will run in addition to the mY generation comic
  • Saturday’s article links will be  under the new category of Expand Your Mind;
  • More of my own take on ‘leadership’—why initiative equates to leadership and how it should be a core competency and not just a vision by the person out front;
  • By the end of the month all my content from Leadership Turn (there were other authors previously) will be posted here and searchable from the main search box (we’re working out the technicalities now).

I have other major changes in the works, either too personal or too boring to share, but since those I’ve mentioned account for 85% of my focus you aren’t missing anything—suffice it to say I’m one of those dinosaurs who chooses not to live my private life online.

That’s what’s up with me—what’s up with you?

Image credit: richcianci on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

How do you feel when you read something presented as a unique insight into a subject and it turns out to be the same old tire stuff that you’ve seen for years?

That’s how I felt when I read The Coming Leadership Gap: What You Can Do About It by John Ryan, president of the Center for Creative Leadership.

I’ve been hearing the term ‘leadership gap’ for years, yet Ryan writes that his company just coined it.

Based on our [global] survey, there are four skills that executives all over the world believe will be most important just five years from now: leading people, strategic planning, inspiring commitment, and managing change.

Most important starting 2015?

Good grief, I haven’t done a survey, but I’d say those four skills have been important for decades hundreds of years, more actually.

I’m sure Attila the Hun found them critical when he conquered the known world. In fact, odds are that they were on the mind of the first Cro-Magnon clan chieftain when he fought his neighbor.

Pity our poor world when the people running global enterprise think they have five years before they need to master these skills.

One of the comments was especially perceptive; in part it said,

Various management gurus from the 1950’s have said the same thing over and over again. Yet despite this each generation of corporate leaders repeat the mistakes off their predecessors in that they fail to invest in leadership and management development. I believe the answer lies firstly in a change of mindset. –John Coxon

Now we are getting somewhere.

It’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™); it’s always been MAP and it will always be MAP that is the problem—or the solution.

Before and after 2015 it will be the executives and managers who get it; who understand that these skills need to be embedded in the company’s DNA; they are not CEO skills, but core competency requirements to thrive in the 21^st Century.

Image credit: hikingartist.com on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

As you probably know by now there is change afoot at Leadership Turn. Specifically it’s ending, as all good things end, and that means change for me and you.

But that’s good.

As Harold Wilson said, “He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

Edwards Deming said it more simply, “It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.”

Well, I plan to survive and we sure aren’t dead, so change it is.

When change hits have you noticed how much energy people expend looking for reasons not to change? John Kenneth Galbraith said it best, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

I don’t mind big changes, such as moving from California to Washington, but I hate changing little stuff, especially personnel changes in the companies with which I frequently deal.

When that resistance kicks in I remind myself of something I read years ago—if nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies. Good thought—change as metamorphosis.

Pauline R. Kezer said, “Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.”

Kurt Lewin opines, “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” Boy, is that true.

But it is John Lilly who really understands what change means, “Our only security is our ability to change.”

Change should be embraced, even when you’re not sure what it will bring.

Since b5 notified me the Leadership Turn was ending I’ve wondered what the change would mean to me. Will you migrate to MAPping Company Success and continue inspiring me to explore articles I read and share my off-the-wall ideas? Will you read a blog that doesn’t have ‘leadership’ in the name?  What will I do with the extra time?

What kind of butterflies will this change bring?

You can answer some of these questions by subscribing today via RSS or EMAIL.

Your comments—priceless

Image credit: David Reece on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

There are many ways to build a career and Brian T. Moynihan chose one of the most unlikely—he fell up the corporate ladder into the CEO job at Bank of America.

It was a familiar role for Mr. Moynihan, who, in many ways, has had a career of falling into bigger jobs at the bank when executives were fired or shunted aside.

What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents.

Nope, biologists are finding that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others—unfortunately they (we) grow up.

Would you like to live to be 100 or more? Several Wharton professors offer up a thoughtful overview of what that kind of longevity could mean.

Last, and maybe least, I decided that I shouldn’t miss the Tiger Woods band wagon, but only because KG Charles-Harris sent a scan of a great satirical take on the whole thing and it was just too good to resist.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

Welcome to all my readers from Leadership Turn

Image credit: romulusnr on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content

Have you ever wondered what the perfect attitude is? Not just a top dog or the person out front, but for any entrepreneur who aspires to succeed and, for that matter, every person who lives and breaths.

I recognize it when I see it, know when I’m doing it, and can explain it when I’m coaching, but I’ve never seen it so perfectly boiled down to ten short words—all self-explanatory, nothing to look-up or study or requiring training.

I found those words in a friend’s description of how his daughter lives.

Like 3 year olds, be passionate, humble, impatient, grateful…daily.

Do it and change your life—and your world—guaranteed!

Image credit: LizMarie on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Sphere: Related Content