Changing cultures through changing minds

Six simple ways to achieve effective change at work

Yesterday evening I was at an event where the speaker remarked that

over 80% of change programmes fail. This figure challenged me - I
have a background in cultural anthropology and have spent 25 years
working on culture change in organisations - why do some
organisations fail? This is an important question because of the
financial and emotional damage caused by repeated failed attempts. I
have seen multi-million dollar change programmes embraced with
almost religious zeal. Unfortunately, all too often these programmes
have resulted in two permanent outcomes; the consultancy makes a
lot of profit by ‘milking’ the organisation and employees become
disillusioned and mistrustful of change.

I don’t think that change is difficult. Change simply requires clarity,

focus and persistent leadership communication. Believe it or not, much
of the common sense approach below is consistent with recent brain
research showing that we can all change – if we change our thinking.
The brain changes all the time in response to constant repetition (this
is termed ‘plasticity’) – and so will the culture of an organisation.
Collective thinking seems even more susceptible to this. Change isn’t
an intellectual exercise; it is a simple and practical one. The rationale
behind a change can be well understood in theory but fail to
materialise in practice. The fact is that we will change our minds if we
hear, see, do things consistently as long as they don’t conflict with our
values or beliefs; we will change our minds even sooner if we perceive
the change to align with our values and beliefs. That’s it.

So here is my executive action list for practical culture change. This is

built on recent scientific research and 25 years of ‘hands-on’
experience of organisational culture change.

1. Executive team. Build a strong executive team around the

vision of the organisation. Identify the core (DNA) of the
organisation’s new culture. This develops the simple focus for
the whole organisation to align with. It also builds a team of
leaders who can act as role models.
2. Leadership Community. Develop a leadership community.
Involve all leaders throughout the organisation in supporting
each other to understand and lead the change. This principle is
often overlooked, or only applied to senior level leaders. All
leaders need to work together throughout the organisation to
 create the change. Leaders are the basis for employee
involvement and they need a supportive community within which
to identify. This breaks down ‘silo’ tendencies at all levels.
3. Organisation framework. Integrate systems and build the
language and ideas of the new culture into the framework of the
organisation. People become confused when existing structures
and systems fail to support the ‘DNA’ focus of the new culture;
this is often referred to as cultural dissonance.
4. Align everyone through leaders. Introduce or re-vamp Team
Align. This system will regularly reinforce the ideas and language
of the change through local leaders. It is the constant talking
about the change that will cause the change in individuals. It
also creates strategic focus. This is not about information; it is
about alignment of strategic priorities in all parts of the whole
through leaders.
5. Monitor results through a few surveys. Use surveys to
measure progress; what is measured is focused upon. Keep
surveys simple, use as few as possible and try to adapt existing
ones to create continuity. Change the wording to reflect the
required change. Talk about survey results with everyone at
Team Align meetings and develop awareness though
involvement.
6. Involve everyone immediately. Set short term, simple but
aligned local and cross organisational challenges. Involve
everyone in a small way immediately the change is announced.
Avoid large scale ‘launches’ that will build up expectations of
‘miracles that will just happen’. Choose challenges that will
address current work issues. Make the change relevant to
everyone.

For more details about engagement – see the previous post ‘Alignment
comes before Engagement’
I would be interested to hear your comments………

Janis Grummitt offers advice, speeches and workshops on Changing

cultures through changing minds. You can contact her to talk further
about this at: www.workplacewisdom.co.nz

©Janis Grummitt 2010