Strategic and Systems Thinking:
The State of the Art Best Practices Report
By Stephen Haines
THE TOP 12 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT MISTAKES BY LARGE ORGANIZATIONS
MISTAKE #3:
Problem: Thinking that making cultural change is a series of seperate initiatives
Best Practice: A cascade of cultural change with three leverage points
"The best practitioners of cultural change are the dictators of the world"
How do organizations change? The truth of it is that organizations change when people change. Organizational change is a myth. To change and organizations culture is one of the most difficult things to do. It requires changing all of the people and their behaviors as well as the processes that run the business. It is not just a series of separate initiatives such as send out an e-mail, put everyone through training, hold a meeting, or changing the performance appraisal form. Culture is the way we do things around here and as a result of all the collective interactions of the organization. Thus, all of the singular initiatives above are called "quick fixes that fail".
If the culture or climate or environment is "the way we do things around here" then, there are three huge sets of issues.
First, change must be cascaded down through the entire organization, hitting and reinforcing it at all levels of the organization: a cascade of change. Just changing the top of the organization or just changing the first line supervisors will not change the culture.
Second, organizations typically do not just have one culture but many, many subcultures. For instance, during the Centre's work with Uganda Telecom, we calculated 43 different subcultures that existed. It included management and employee levels, it included professional orientations, it included functional cultures and it included ethnic, religious and male/female issues and cultures.
The third issue is that the holistic view of a culture and the way we do things around here is based on (1) the rational logical view of the world-what's in it for me (WIIFM), (2) the political alliances within the organization and (3) the core values that guide to behavior of individuals.
Now, it turns out that dictators of countries are able to change the culture of those countries far more effectively than CEOs in organizations. While we are not advocating the value system of dictators, there are lessons to be learned from them.
Question: what are the three or four levers that dictators use to change the culture of countries?
1. They immediately control the media and communications within the country. Any communications or media opposition is immediately shut down and closed. CEOs need to penetrate their organizations through communications in many forums to ensure that the entire organization hears the same message of the culture change over and over again. It is impossible to over-communicate within the organization during these times.
2. The dictators also immediately take over the schools and educational system to ensure that everything that children learn in school reinforces their power base and everything they stand for. Think of all the dictators that do this, from Korea, to Venezuela, to Cuba.
3. Thirdly, dictators take charge of the rewards, punishment, and consequences of people's actions to ensure that no one is allowed to oppose their direction. For CEOs, if you believe that Skinner was correct, then recognition of people and teams for progress in pursuing the new cultural values is paramount. While pay and incentives also drive behavior, what Skinner was clear on was that reinforcing positive behavior is the most effective means to change the behaviors that ultimately change the culture.
4. Lastly, dictators put in place a mechanism for tracking reporting a follow-up to ensure that all of these first three areas are being effectively utilized. In culture change it reinforces the point of the need for a Change Leadership Team, led by the CEO, to meet monthly to do the same thing; track, reinforce, and follow up and ensure there are consequences for the wrong behaviors.
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