Corporate Culture

The Unseen Enemy of Change

THE JAWS OF CULTURE

How healthy is your corporate culture?

WHY CHANGE INITIATIVES FAIL: ITS THE CULTURE, DUMMY!

Between plans and reality lie years of habits, customs, unwritten ground rules, parochialism, and vested interests: the corporate culture.

Culture cannot only stop a change effort dead in its tracks, it can also propel it to great heights.

Wisdom is understanding the power of culture and how to get it to work for you, instead of against you, during organizational change.

Why is it that initiatives and strategies with great promise don't live up to their expectations? A window of competitive opportunity is evident; sound planning and processes are often in place, but the advantage doesn't fully materialize.

The story often sounds like some version of the following:

The numbers showed the merger would really payoff, but we've lost some key customers: Our best executives are leaving for other companies, and we seem to be having a real clash of cultures.

The reorganization was supposed to have broken down the barriers between divisions and created a more collaborative organization. Instead, we seem to have created new boundaries and turf issues.

The new strategy sounded great, but we haven't been able to execute it with our slow-moving, risk-averse bureaucratic culture.

The new I.T. system was supposed to be up and running last quarter, saving us time and money. There is a lot of finger-pointing going on now because it's behind schedule and it looks like it won't deliver all we thought it would.

The analysis showed we'd make dramatic savings through reengineering, but they haven't come through yet. Where are the results? And why is everyone so upset?

We just completed another record quarter, and I know I should be feeling good. The fact is, I'm paying too big a price personally to get results around here and I don't know if I want to stay in this game.

We've got a few great quality improvement teams in place, but it is not widespread. We haven't been able to build it into the fabric of the organization.

More than just anecdotal evidence exists that change initiatives fail more often than they succeed.

A Harvard Business Review article by Nohia and Berkley cites a survey showing that 75 percent of the managers polled were unhappy with change initiatives underway.

Since the current business environment warrants these initiatives, why do they fail?

The answer is clear.

Most change initiatives focus on the operational and technical side. What they too often ignore, or, at best, give lip service to, is the human side-the behavioral side of change.

Anyone who has ever attempted to implement a change of any kind has experienced the phenomenon of resistance to change by people and institutions.

It is easier to decide on change than to get people to change!

People and organizations are creatures of habit, and changing habits is much harder than changing structures or systems.

It seems that organizations, like people, had personalities, and to ignore or not deal with an organization's personality trails could be fatal to your change efforts.

Today, people recognize those personality traits as Corporate Culture, and the business world is slowly beginning to appreciate the power of cultural habits. Most change initiatives have at least token elements of "change management."

Unfortunately, most organizations don't address cultural barriers as vigorously or systematically as needed.

It has long been known that the only way to ensure the maximum success of any broad-based change initiative is to systematically deal with the corporate culture.

To truly change the corporation, you need to change the culture.

It is also interesting to note that James Champy, in Reengineering Management, states:

Everything we've learned drives toward one solid conclusion: The rules of governance (and self-governance) for effective business enterprises today are being determined by their culture, not their organizational structure.

In the past two decades, many new approaches have emerged to improve business performance.

Too often, however, a new theory appears and is hailed as "the answer" only to be later tossed aside as ineffective.

We now know that this repeating pattern has less to do with the quality of the ideas than it does with the corporate culture that ground it down.

Trying to apply improvement methods to an unreceptive culture is like trying to apply a Band-Aid underwater.

There's nothing wrong with the Band-Aid, but it won't stick and therefore it's ineffective.

Some organizations benefited greatly from self-managed teams, empowerment, or TQM, but most tried them, decided they didn't work, and moved on to the next quick fix.

It wasn't that the theories didn't have value (even when they weren't absolutely perfect), it's that they were applied to an incompatible culture where the new approaches couldn't "take."

The reason it's hard to implement change, that teams are often dysfunctional, and people are so stressed at work, is because of what is known as the Jaws of Culture.

To get more details on how you can change Your corporate culture, simply fill in the enquiry form at the foot of this page, or e-mail us by clicking on the following link - Corporate Culture