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Culture© by Arthur M. Schneiderman Nowadays, the words "culture" and "change" seem to appear in nearly every presentation, article or book related to management. But no one bothers to define it. Although I can't remember the source, the best definition of culture that I've seen is that it is the set of unwritten default rules that individuals in an organization use when there is no explicit policy to guide them. It's what helps them justify there decisions by telling them "how we do things around here." We try to change an organizations culture when we want people to behave differently in circumstances where the directions are vague or uncertain. In QIP, this translates to different way of changing processes in order to achieve our goals.
So why not just declare the new culture and tell everyone to change their behavior? Because that just doesn't work!! In 1990, I visited Florida Power and Light just after they had received the prestigious Deming Prize. One of their slides succinctly addressed this issue of culture change. It showed the following list: Culture Values Norms Attitudes Behaviors Roles Actions Systems & Structures The FPL presenter observed that most organizations try to start at the top of this list and work their way down. They describe the new culture and value system that they want and expect norms to change, followed sequentially by the other items on this list. However, one of their insights was that this approach cannot succeed. This list needs to be operationalized from the bottom up. Start by improving the systems and structures within the organization. Then people will begin to act differently. Their roles, behaviors and attitudes will change and new norms will emerge. Then and only then will the values and culture approach the desired state. They summarized their approach with the admonition: "You can't change culture by working directly on culture." If the processes are not consistent with the desired culture, change will not occur. The resulting conflicting messages will undermine the change process itself. A common example of this is the desire to have teamwork become a major cultural element. But most often reward and recognition systems still reward people based on their individual rather than team accomplishments. If you want teamwork to become part of your culture then you must first change your reward and recognition system to reinforce not undermine this objective. So it's critical to identify the processes within the organization that need to be changed so that they compliment and reinforce the objectives of the new culture and start with them. |
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©1999-2006, Arthur M. Schneiderman All Rights Reserved Last modified: August 13, 2006 |