Change Culture. Make a Decision.

12/23/10…A thought or two more on this idea of culture change. Many times when leadership is facing the need for change, they soon realize it is culture related. The culture is what is holding everyone back. Many times this insight is seen from the middle management side of companies. The front line supervisors and team leaders are usually caught up in firefighting and are normally worried about what today brings. Therefore by the nature of their job, even if they know change needs to occur, they still are unable to get past today.

On the other hand, middle management is not so involved in the daily as to know change needs to occur, and sometimes can be the one to enact change. However what you may often hear is we need to change the culture. If senior and top management are not supportive then culture change cannot happen. By supportive, this means engaged, and not solely by delegation. There has to be an active element involved otherwise sustainment will not occur and only pockets of change will happen here and there.

What most fail to realize is this. Changing the culture is what happens now. It is every decision made on a daily basis to get to an end target. By saying we need to change the culture, then this means someone is waiting for a magical event to occur. No. Set the vision. Then start making decisions towards that vision. Pretty soon you will look back and realize the culture changed at the point that different decisions started to be made.

Consultants who teach Lean principles commonly say that 70% of a transformation is culture related and 30% is using the tools. TBM, an accredited training organization, says they teach the same tools to all companies, but some are successful and some are not. Why? It all has to do with the culture. If all we ever talk about is a need to change the culture, then the culture will never change. Culture change starts today and starts with a decision. Each decision then builds on itself, pretty soon creating a wave of decisions that are impacting the culture.

When I think of this I can think of the parallel in my spiritual life. I can read the Bible and in essence, bear with me, learn the tools to become more Christ-like; i.e. spend time alone with my Father, fast ever so often, meditate on the word, pray, entertain strangers, and so on and so on. Those are the tools. But if I do not start making decisions today to support God’s desire for me to model my life after Christ, then the culture change within my heart will never start. One cannot change culture until one begins making decisions to change culture.

I will end this post for now, somehow feeling I have left a loose thread or two. I feel like there is more to be written on this subject and maybe I have not quite grasped all the connections in a yet undefined beautifully woven tapestry.