Treat culture change as engineering: Form follows function

The question and answer that follow aren’t complete. My correspondent included a PowerPoint slide that had enough specifics regarding his company that sharing it would not be appropriate.

As a result, you’ll have to infer some of the specifics from context. I hope I’ve left enough in that you can figure out what’s going on without difficulty. – Bob

Dear Bob …

We haven’t corresponded for a while. I’ve been too busy trying to follow your advice …

[ Get sage advice on IT careers and management from Bob Lewis in InfoWorld’s Advice Line newsletter. ]

Some time ago, you published “Leadership Objectives” that hit home with me. Right now, I’m focused on your point about defining a style and culture. While I think we already have a pretty strong culture, I feel I need to do more to actively and overtly cultivate and preserve the right culture that gives us the best chance at long-term success.

Step 1, which was a lot of work but will probably be the simplest in the end, is complete. That is, I’ve identified the handful of cultural elements that I think are keys to the long-term success of my team, at AIPSO.

Step 2, putting those concepts down on one sheet of paper, is almost complete. I’ve attached what I’ve got so far. I feel pretty good about it, but in the test marketing phase, I’m sensing some discomfort with the term “adulthood.” [Note: One element was termed a “Culture of Adulthood” — Bob.] Some seem to feel that it’s a condescending way of describing desired behavior.

While it doesn’t have that kind of connotation for me, if there’s a way to replace the word and still nail the concept, I’d be happy with that. Do you have any suggestions (other than “maturity,” which is already used in the document)?

If you have any other feedback on Step 2 — or on Steps 3 thru ∞ (making these concepts stick) — I’d be more than interested.

Thanks a ton.

– Culture Maven

Dear Maven …

I like what you’ve put together. It’s concrete without being so behavioral that it turns into an instruction manual instead of a description of culture.

Everything in your description seems highly desirable; I wonder if you’ve included the cultural ramifications of specific organizational goals in your analysis. Two examples:

• Many IT leaders want employees to use a more process-focused approach to getting their work done. Pushing process into the organization doesn’t work — it’s like trying to play pool with a rope. What does work is fostering a “culture of process.”
• There’s a similar discussion to be had with respect to architecture. Establishing the “standards police” doesn’t work; creating an architecture-oriented culture does.

Among the benefits of incorporating organizational goals is that it makes the value of investing time and effort on culture more apparent.

I do understand the reaction to “adulthood,” even though it’s a phrase I’ve promoted. I think it’s easily addressed; just hang everything off of Responsibility instead [Note: In the original version, “Responsibility” is listed as one component of a culture of adulthood. – Bob]:

Responsibility

Initiative

• Do what is needed without waiting to be asked.
• Mistakes are OK. When you make one, own it, learn from it, and improve from it.

Maturity

• Treat others with respect; deal with issues, not personalities.
• Show perspective, fairness, objectivity, and judgment.
• Provide honest, objective, fair, unbiased information.

I’d also suggest “closing the loop” with respect to responsibility by adding (substituting, if necessary), something in a different area: “Foster responsibility rather than holding employees accountable.”

Regarding Step 3, three thoughts, but there’s a limit to how much I can accomplish in an e-mail exchange:

The first is a way to drill down a level. Culture is, after all, an engineering discipline when viewed correctly. We’ve found it useful to characterize culture by creating Situation/Response statements. For example:

Situation: Something goes wrong.

Current response: Manager finds someone to blame and screams like a rabid banshee; employees hide under their desks weeping.

Preferred response: Employee who first spots the problem collaborates with teammates to fix it. The team next figures out the root cause and alerts their manager as to how to prevent a recurrence. The manager authorizes the change and buys a bunch of pizza and beer.

The second is to work with your managers and teams to create an honest self-assessment as to how big the gaps are on each cultural descriptor. You might even consider a negative-to-positive scale (our approach) instead of the traditional 1 to 5; negative numbers mean your organization currently goes in the wrong direction; small positive numbers mean it goes in the right direction but not far enough.

The gap analysis will show you what needs the most attention, which is important since changing even three elements of a culture is a significant effort.

The third is to work with your managers and teams to identify what it is about the current environment that has caused the current culture and makes it stable. Culture is learned behavior, describing the safe and approved ways to respond to situations (which is why we use Situation/Response statements to characterize it). The factors that make current responses safe and approved are the levels you can pull and buttons you can push to change the culture.

That’s the best I can do in an e-mail — hope it helps.

And congratulations — there aren’t very many business leaders at any level who take the time to think their cultural issues through.

– Bob