Leading Culture Change – Part 4
Links to parts 1, 2, and 3 are at the bottom of this page.
Leading Culture Change: Delegate at Your Peril
Dear Leader in Chief:
You’re delegating the essential leadership actions of culture change?
Not a good idea.
Why?
Failure.
Consider yourself the Chief Culture Change Officer. Success relies on your sustained commitment to four ongoing actions. Others can join you, but you are Chief #1 in charge of:
- Igniting the flames of change
- Fueling momentum
- Celebrating success markers and makers
- Holding your team accountable
Ignite the Flames of Culture Change
Be a role model. Implement changes related to the vision in your ongoing leadership actions. Start the transformation process with yourself.
Example: Your vision includes more women in key leadership roles. To achieve this goal the culture has to change and will continue changing as more women come on board.
Be the change.
Invite a council of women to honest conversations about the culture, on a regular basis. Ask open questions. “What’s working? What isn’t? What should I be doing?” Spread the word about the council and what you’re learning. Invite members of your team, as appropriate.
Added benefit: Council members ignite more fires.
Fuel the Momentum
When Moses led the Israelites out of slavery, they wanted to turn back…often. Moses’ father-in-law advised Moses to appoint minions. They helped build the tribe’s momentum to meet forty years of challenges.
Like Moses and the Israelites, you and your tribe’s people will stumble and fall. Some will rise up to meet the challenges. Uphold these heroes of the new culture to fuel momentum. Watch the resistance fizzle.
Example: A front line team member suggests that an onboarding process will make new members and the team more effective faster. He volunteers to onboard a new member and simultaneously design a process for onboarding other new members in the future.
Your culture change vision is all about collaboration, and this team member is a collaborator. Seize the opportunity to fuel momentum. Get the team, and other teams, on a conference call. SHOUT about the on-boarding initiative. CONGRATULATE the person who stepped up. In a few weeks you’ll see new fires for change elsewhere.
Celebrate Success Markers and Makers
Click your camera, when you site markers and makers of progress. Broadcast the picture and the story.
Example: You’re moving away from a culture of silos to a culture of collaboration. At the 8 month mark, over 50% of new product development teams include marketing, design engineering, manufacturing and customer service. Some teams include a customer advisory council. Stop! Snap! Literally – get pictures of these teams. Publish them in the company’s online Culture Change Journal. Within a week more cross functional teams will be born.
Hold Your Team Accountable
Once, twice and thrice upon many times, an executive painted a vision, set goals, informed his team, and appointed an executive sponsor. Then he went back to business as usual, expecting they would lead the change. “Monkey See. Monkey Do.” Monkey sees nothing. Monkey does nothing. The culture change fizzled.
When neon lights flashed FAILURE, the executive stepped up. At every quarterly meeting team members were expected to discuss progress towards the vision. Together the team identified obstacles and put solutions in place to resolve them. Performance reviews were revised to include progress towards and rewards for achieving the culture change goals.
GO! LEAD! GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY and HAVE FUN!
Part 1 – To Change the Culture Change the Stories and the Heroes
Part 2 – Molding Culture Change: Get Their Fingerprints on It
Part 3 – Leading Culture Change: Three Principles and One Success Story
Need expert advice on culture change in your organization? Contact Dr. Anne Perschel for your complimentary consultation