Culture Balances: Affecting Change
Using balances to influence company culture
This is the third and final article in my short series on Culture Balances. The first part introduces the concept and explains how balances can help to make sense of company culture. In part two, I walk through a framework to map balances visually. From the intro article:
I especially like to use this way of thinking when it comes to Culture. Culture is one of those broad-ranging and connected topics, that it is hard to wrap one’s head around it. But the concept of Balances provides me with a universal framework to make sense — and stay objective.
To round this topic out, we will attempt to influence culture change with the use of balances.
We pick up right where we left off last time: Our culture aspect of choice is once again prioritisation. In particular the spectrum between a task-driven and purpose-driven approach. Here is the mapping we concluded with, in the previous article:
In the illustration above we can see four groups: yourself (Y), your team (T), department (D), and the whole company (C). Each group is represented as a range on the spectrum — the span of behaviour they display in their interactions.
This way of visualising is an easy way to see and explain the current state. It is also useful when mapping a desired future state.
In our example, it might be the case that the department (D) and the company (C) are constantly clashing. To provide some relieve, we want to bring the department closer to the company. The illustration below shows our desired end state (let us ignore for now the tricky situation the team is left in):
Disclaimer: I am not advocating that a task-driven culture is better than a purpose-driven approach. It all depends on your company and situation. Our example is just that, an example.
Culture Change
There are lots of books, articles, and theories about affecting culture in an organisation or group. And there is one thing all of them agree on: It is bloody hard!
100% agreed. What is relatively easy though, is to define a succinct high-level framework. Some might even call it a checklist:
- What behaviours are being displayed in the group at the moment?
- What behaviours are desired?
- Get the group leader(s) to lead by example.
- Reward the new behaviour and stop recognising the old behaviour.
Simple, right? It might sound simple with this generic list, but it requires quite a bit of effort and time.
Back to our example and changing the culture of the department to be more task-driven (and closer to the company):
What behaviours are being displayed in the group at the moment?
The department is, at the moment, very purpose-driven. The dominant behaviours are:
- Everybody is thinking about the product and business end to end
- Everybody makes decisions, on every level
- The company mission is used as a tool during prioritisation
What behaviours are desired?
Contrast that with behaviour that is more prevalent in a task-driven group:
- People focus on their area, without spending a lot of time thinking about other parts of the business
- The group trusts leadership with prioritisation
- Autonomy stretches only as far as the assigned task
Get the group leader(s) to lead by example
The first two steps of our framework identify what to do. Next up: Implementation. And this is where the grind begins. And also where companies feel the pain or even give up.
Culture is hard to measure, requires consistent attention, and is constantly changing. But the good thing is: You can actively influence it.
If you want to encourage more task-driven behaviour, you — as well as other leaders — need to behave more task-driven. You could start by:
- Limiting your engagements and interactions with adjacent groups. For example by declining meetings or leaving chat rooms.
- Show and highlight you are trusting your leadership with their decisions and priorities. For example by focusing on the tasks that have been identified for your group.
- Start giving out more concrete tasks to your team.
Reward the new behaviour and stop recognising the old behaviour
Leading by example is a good start, but it will not get you far by itself. The other aspect is to influence the behaviour of others. (Note: This is a massive topic and warrants more than a small section here. I plan on following up with a more focused piece soon.)
At a high level, a solid and proven way to influence others is about two important leadership skills: Setting expectations and giving feedback.
Firstly, you need to share what the desired behaviours are. Without that, folks will have to guess what is expected of them which often leads to frustrations. In our example, you could do the following:
- Announce the aim to be more task-driven to the department and even the company
- Hold workshops where you work through examples of task-driven behaviour with the department
- Touch on the topic and expected behaviours regularly in team meetings
Now that the expectations are set, it is on you to hold people accountable. The aim is to start encouraging the desired behaviour and discourage undesired. Again, applying this to our example:
- Give folks constructive feedback if they do not trust decisions from leadership
- Call out if someone has a high focus on their assigned task
As soon as you give someone positive feedback about a behaviour they are more likely to repeat it. The same goes for constructive feedback in reverse.
Culture change is a long process and does not happen overnight. Be deliberate about the direction you want to go. Then show consistency with your behaviours and with the behaviours you reward.
And in case you have missed the first two parts of this series:
