Cultural change

Change is inevitable. This is the biggest lesson that nature has taught us and yet many organisations talk about it a LOT but never actually take a bold step towards making change happen. Change goes much deeper that restructuring the organisation and changing reporting lines. It goes to the very heart of the organisation…its culture. There is a lot of talk but the only action often seems to be a presentation at a conference.

This blog tries to demystify the chemistry behind cultural change and people who are driving change inside an organisation. Let’s begin :)

Most people join an organisation with a level of passion and enthusiasm (highlighted as blue in figure). They are often hired to move the organisation ahead and solve complex business problems in new ways. The standard trajectory goes something like this:

• Spend time observing how things are done inside the organisation to learn about business, organisation, people, how efficiencies can be improved and so on.
• Start to get an understanding of the gap between how the organisation is doing things compared to industry best practices.
• Devise change management strategies to set the organisation on the path to change. These strategies often involve changing organisational culture, how things are being reported, how proactive decision making can be done, new technology tools, and empowering people with new capabilities, etc.

Then the rubber hits the road! And the ride gets bumpy! From here on, change takes a twist and your new starter starts to realise that cultural change is going to `be much harder than expected. Organisation resists but new starter’s persistence in driving change results in organisational response of retaliating against the change. Often the first question that gets asked is “Why fix something unless it is broken?”; Cultural change goes to the very heart of an organisation and there are many reasons why it is hard, including no leadership buy-in, less awareness about their business operations, no strategic vision, confusion in business functionalities, no buy-in from people towards organisation vision, no structure in decision making process, no/ less visibility of decision making, no/less transparency of KPIs, business stakeholders’ disconnection with leadership team, no one know what KPIs to be measured, (in fact no one understands what to measure ) and so on.

They don’t know what they don’t know and they are not receptive to listen

The new starter now has to make a decision since change is clearly not happening. An inflection comes where the new starter’s enthusiasm and the organisations level of retaliation are both at a peak (highlighted as red in figure). At this point, they want the authority/control to implement change but this is the thing that they most often don’t have!. This is the point where many people quit the organisation. It questions people’s commitment, knowledge and passion. They quit because the constant butting up against the brick wall of organisation retaliation to change effects them both physiologically, and emotionally.

Some people choose to stay hoping that change will come in the future, but they stay with diminishing enthusiasm. There is another inflection point (highlighted as green in figure) where they get sucked into the system and they are no longer drivers of change — instead they will join part of organisation’s group of people (often secret society). The secret society will use a lethal weapon called “gossips” to blame about the system.

At this inflection point people lose their spirit and have no motivation left in them to take any initiatives. They somehow unconsciously sucked into an organisation’s culture which they wish to change when they started! Ironical!

So which inflection point are you in organisation change?

What should leaders do when they find out about these inflection points?They can

• Provide support for new starter to make change happen
• Have an open conversation with new starter and ask them what they want to succeed
• Voice strong commitment towards change

If someone is starting new in an organisation, executives should make them feel welcomed and empower them to be a change driver.

What should an employee can do when they hit an inflection point?They can

• Simply give up and move on to another job if it takes toll on their health
• Consciously aware of the how their initiatives are knocked back and not get sucked into the system….and keep pushing

PS: If you are passionate about change, think (and talk) about how much value you can add to your colleagues and organisation