Have you ever thought how unwritten rules and beliefs influence your behaviour and performance, and consequently the performance of your organisation?  You will know many of the rules in your social relationships:

• 'So-and-so doesn't like me to drop in without calling first'
• 'You can't ring these people between 6 and 8pm because they are busy with the children'
• 'If I don't call my mum every week she will worry / give me a hard time'
• 'You just don't talk about politics/religion/tax/the state of the world with so-and-so'

But with regard to your working life and relationships, how many of the rules and beliefs have you ever discussed or negotiated?  How many are you even aware of?  For example:

• 'Is it OK to take risks round here?'
• 'Can I take an issue to someone two levels higher in the hierarchy without offending my boss?'
• 'Do we really all have to stay until the boss goes home - does he/she really expect it, or are we just assuming it?'

What is an Organisation's 'Culture'?

What we call 'culture' at work is the sum total of the assumptions, rules, beliefs and attitudes by which we operate.  We pick these up from the people around us.  We train new recruits in them within the first few weeks of their appointment.  And we learn to operate inside the restraints they place on us, almost without realising it.  Culture usually just evolves. 

And that's the problem - it isn't designed to support the organisation, it's just left to happen.  Quite often the evolved culture ends up at odds with the strategic direction of the company.  One client we worked with had been through a major turnaround, during which they reassessed everything about the business, completely altered their pricing structure and rationalised their client base.  They had been in trouble, needing emergency measures and a lot of hard work to survive.  An entirely appropriate culture emerged of long hours and crisis management.

By the time we came on the scene, the business had enjoyed three or four years of consolidation and profitable trading.  The new strategy was to use the newly consolidated base of streamlined processes to go for growth.

But the culture hadn't caught up!  Senior management were caught in a loop of fire-fighting, 'quick-fix' problem-solving, long hours, and diving into the detail.  Other staff were increasingly frustrated that there was no direction from above, and no role for them, while management had its hands on every detail.  Good people started to leave and employee surveys showed morale to be very low.

Why?  No-one had stopped to examine the organisation culture inherited from the 'Old Era' and question its appropriateness for the 'New Era'.  The business had to undertake a systematic process of exposing and questioning the 'Old Era' culture, and design and embed a new culture for its new direction.

So Who Designed the Culture in Your Business?

The purpose of your organisation culture should be to support the delivery of the strategic objectives; it should be consciously changed whenever the strategic objectives change.  But how often over the last few years have you rewritten your strategic objectives and failed consciously to redesign your culture?

Look at the strategy of your organisation - is there consistency between where you are going and what people believe and say, or is there a mismatch?  Are you trumpeting innovation, while people complain that they get into trouble if they make a mistake?  Are you talking about growth, while sending messages about limiting expenditure and cutting costs? 

How do You Start to Change a Culture?

The first step is to identify the key elements of the 'Old Era'; and it's vital to get some outside help to do this. Because you are part of it, and it's all around you it's very difficult to see the culture and truly hear what's being said.  It's rather like asking a goldfish to change his own water - he doesn't even know it's there until it becomes a problem for him!  Some ways of 'listening in' to the existing culture are:

• Listen to the coffee-machine chat - what do people gossip about?
• What do people complain about, especially repeated complaints?
• What do new recruits say, about why they wanted to work for your organisation, and a few weeks on, about what they see are its 'blocks' and flaws?
• How do outsiders perceive your organisation?

Draw up two lists headed 'New Era' and 'Old Era', and start to distinguish those attitudes, habits, beliefs and rules which support your strategy and direction, from those which work against it.  Visit other organisations and ask questions to find out what's possible outside your own particular 'goldfish bowl'.  Use this outside experience to identify any gaps in your own organisation's 'New Era' list, and start to identify the behaviours and attitudes you consider essential to supporting your organisation in achieving its strategic objectives.

Include others in your organisation right from the beginning, and include as many as practically possible throughout the process: by definition, culture is about people - what they think, believe and do.  Run off-site events and open forums for people to identify and expose dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs, capture the great ones, and collaborate in creating the 'New Era'.  Remember to engage the help of outside coaches or consultants throughout the process of embedding 'New Era' attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in everything you do - it's really hard to facilitate a change of water from inside the goldfish bowl!

Shine Consulting is a partnership of business consultants brought together by a shared commitment to see people and organisations shine. 

We work with small, medium and large organisations whose leaders are excited by consciously designing and working towards an organisation where the people who work in it are consistently passionate, inspired and committed, and which produces results well beyond the predictable norm.  In short, an organisation that really shines. 

You can find out more about us and the work we do on our website, where you can find full details of our organisation, and also a full archive of all the previous issues of this newsletter.