I’ve been thinking a lot about why it seems so hard to effect change in organizations. The change I’m referring to could be related to product strategy, processes, or improving engineering / operational excellence.
I’ve come to realize that in many situations our efforts and plans don’t always align with the organization’s culture. When that happens, change is difficult.
I’m using culture here to mean something deeper than espresso machines, foosball tables, and edgy office decor — the visible parts of an organization’s culture. I’m talking about an organization’s beliefs, values, and basic assumptions — the things people take for granted and guide decisions. These may have started from the founders, but they’ve evolved over time as we praise and recognize specific behavior.
From Edgar Schein’s “Organizational Culture and Leadership“:
The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.
We need to become aware of the organization’s culture and learn to manage it in the direction of our desired outcomes.
From Schein’s framework for changing culture:
Change creates learning anxiety. The higher the learning anxiety, the stronger the resistance.
- The only way to overcome resistance is to reduce the learning anxiety by making the learner feel “psychologically safe”.
- The change goal must be defined concretely in terms of the specific problem you are trying to fix, not as culture change.
I find myself trying to learn what people value about an existing behavior and how it relates to a purpose or mission. If I want to change to a different behavior, I must show a higher value in the new behavior. This can sometimes be easier if I can create an association to our existing basic assumptions.
From a Kellan Elliott-McCrea post:
Culture is what you celebrate. Rituals are the tools you use to shape culture
Celebrate work and actions that align with strategy. We need to reinforce what we think is important. Reinforcement requires consistent messaging.
- Create a brief and to the point mission or high-level purpose
- Establish a few simple & crisp principles that support the mission
Use these as a framework to scope & define objectives and strategy. They also provide a foundation for shaping culture.