Let's Start with Culture

The second most quoted success factor for any business change is 'a supportive culture'. The first of course is 'top management support'. We throw these terms around as though simply saying them will make things happen. Then if nothing changes, we can blame these amorphous concepts.

One of the least understood is 'culture'. Let's spend a few seconds on understanding how 'culture' came about in organizations. I like to define the 'culture' of an organization as the commonly understood way of doing and getting things done. It is behaviour oriented.

The example I most often give is our behaviour in religious situations; the wearing of traditional clothes, food taboos or preparation, or commonly understood codes of behaviour while attending rituals. In a commercial setting, the base is usually established by the founders' either explicit or implicit reinforcing of behaviours that work for them. Over time new people are recruited into the organization. These people go through a number of conversations in which they try to make sense of what is required to behave appropriately. The conversations subtly change the culture. Of course, over time these conversations get embodied into meetings, decision rights, formal and informal levels of authority and various processes. At some point, these matters become ever more rigid and change to them becomes more and more difficult.

This sets up the challenge for anyone wanting anything (but especially the culture) to change in an organization. It must start with a number of conversations in which people are able to process the required changes. It is important to understand the context around the use of the word people here. To divorce the person from their formal and informal power structures is impossible. So, in an organization what is the weight of the opinion of the CEO in these conversations versus that of the shop-floor worker? It is so easy for a strong successful CEO to kill off innovative ideas simply by saying 'we tried that..' or 'that is not how we do things around here ...'. Each time this happens, in spite of wishing or thinking that they have an innovative organization, the CEO destroys their capacity for innovation.

A culture of innovation is one where the CEO and other senior executives actively and continuously allow conversations throughout the organization to blossom into action. Action that yields experiments to challenge the way in which 'things are done around here'.