This blog is about culture change.

Culture Change

“We need to change our culture“, said the CEO, “if we want to execute our strategy“.
We often talk lightly about culture change. We know that culture is a determining factor in strategy execution. It can be both a lever and an obstacle. Whenever culture change is an explicit part of strategy, it’s an expression of doubt. Leaders doubt that the strategy will find fertile soil in the current culture. And so, there’s a decision to change the culture. But it’s easier to write that in a plan, it’s much more difficult to make it happen.
Here’s a story to illustrate why we should not take culture change too lightly.
 

So why is it so difficult to change a company culture?

• Culture is Intangible

  Culture is intangible. You cannot touch it. But you can feel it. When you enter an organization you can inhale it. The way people greet you, the way they interact, how they walk, how they look at you, what they do, what they don’t do, the use of words, the gestures, the rituals … these are all emanations of culture.
  The consequence of this is that culture is the result of many big and small acts across many circumstances. Changing the values is too often a cosmetic operation.
  The CEO thought he could make culture tangible by introducing 4 words. The words meant nothing to the new company. Making culture tangible through words, gadgets, … does not work if people do not experience the culture first).

• Culture is Robust

  Culture is robust and resists change. People who enter the company and announce they want to change the culture are most likely to fail. More, the culture will eat them.Why? Saying you want to change the culture is an insult to the people who have been working for years in a culture they love. So culture change will meet resistance, sometimes in a subtle way. Instead to impose culture leaders should work with the culture, embrace its strengths, integrate. Because culture is stronger than any individual leader.
  The CEO thought he could change the culture on his own. Personal energy is not enough to change culture. Culture change requires a great deal of effort and is a very slow process. The CEO wanted to force this, but the culture did not bend. It felt attacked and it defended itself. 

• Culture is Collective

  Culture is the result of all behaviours people of a certain group display. It’s about shared ideas, habits, rituals. Culture gives people a sense of belonging, certainty, direction, norms. Culture is created by the behaviours of many people. So to change the culture, you need to change enough people. People need to learn new ways of behaving and unlearn others. We all know how difficult it is to unlearn.
  The CEO did not involve people. He started the change and surprised his managers with it. Instead he could have involved a group of enthusiast. In that way the change would not have been linked to his person, but would have been a collective endeavour.

• Culture is Unique
  

  You cannot transplant a culture of one organization into another. Every culture is unique. Culture to an organization is what personality is to a human being.The biggest mistake this CEO had made was to make assumptions about the recipe of culture change. He just introduced 4 values that had worked in his previous company. There is no reason to believe these values would stick in the new company.

Unbearable Lightness

Because of the above reasons changing a culture is difficult. So if culture change is part of strategy, take care. It might even be better to adapt the strategy to the culture than vice versa. There is an unbearable lightness to the notion of culture change. Too often we think that if we change processes, technology and context, culture will follow. Too often we think culture change is a rational decision. And too often we think that culture is generic.
It will not. People who think it’s easy overestimate an organisation’s capacity to evolve (fast) and they underestimate people’s reluctance to change. That lightness is unbearable and very counterproductive. In a next blog I will discuss how culture change can be facilitated.