A Better Workplace --- Meridian Group's Newsletter, Number 41, 2-15-05

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What Part of the Culture Can You Really Change?

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"Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Reinhold Niebuhr

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If you're the president or CEO you might effect culture change across the whole company. But what if you're a supervisor or middle manager? What can you realistically expect to change? What are your limits?

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Your Direct Reports

As with most things in a life, we can expect to influence those areas we have some control over. For most managers this would include their direct reports, and through them, people at lower levels. A manager who decides to change the culture of his or her business unit should expect success unless he or she is countermanded by the boss-and if that happened the manager should probably resign.

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Your Peers

You can expect to have a significant effect on your immediate team of peers because you are all members of the work team reporting to the same boss. You can effect change:

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Other Divisions

You can directly improved relationships across divisions and into remote parts of the company by using the Cultural Interview to build relationships and improve communications. See, http://www.companyculture.com/change/interview.htm .

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In the shipping department of one of my clients, the clerks decided to improve relationships with the buying department. They scheduled interviews with their counterparts, the clerks in the buying office. They did this informally by taking the clerks to lunch. One of the buying managers heard about the shipping department's actions and asked the shipping department manager to put a stop to it. But the deed was already done. Relationships began to improve. Six months later the shipping office clerks ventured out again, inviting the buying office clerks to lunch. This time the buying manager, seeing relationships much improved between the two offices, did not resist.

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Administrative Areas

You may find many culture change opportunities in administrative or human resource areas. These may not be directly under your control but you may be able to influence how these functions connect with your department. For example you might work with the staff employees in areas such as hiring, training, career planning, employee evaluation and feedback processes, employee surveys, and rewards and recognition programs. You can encourage them to better involve the people affected and to demonstrate more of the values you would like to see more all of in your workplace and in the broader company.

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As you are working with the HR department you might find a person who is very interested in collaborating with you on your own efforts to change the culture. Staff people frequently feel unappreciated by line departments and eagerly respond to positive invitations. Through them you might connect with people who are making similar efforts in other divisions.

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Culture change work can be lonely at times, particularly if you're working against a strongly entrenched corporate culture. Sharing your efforts with others who are doing similar things can make a world of difference.

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What you cannot change

It is unrealistic to expect that you can change the overall company culture from a position well below the top.

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Last year I learned of a poignant effort by Michael, a first-line employee to change the culture of the division of a railroad. Michael was verbally encouraged by the division managers to pursue his program to change the division's management style, but those managers did nothing to change their own behavior. Michael gradually became aware that he was being used by managers to pretend they were addressing employee grievances while not actually doing so.

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Michael was unusually upbeat. He did not lose his spirit, which was highly enthusiastic, energetic and contagious. Mostly written on his own time he self-published a beautifully written 90 page book documenting his experience. In it Michael laid out a philosophy of organizational improvement, detailed the kinds of problems his company experienced because of the disenfranchised workforce, and included an inspirational and hopeful agenda for improvement. As he said on the back cover " . . . a process about the connection between safety, attitudes and morale in the workplace. It is also a call to self-sovereignty and personal empowerment. It is a story of six employees who created a "grassroots" culture change of employees helping each other create a more positive work environment . . . ."

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Michael's personal efforts and enthusiasm brought some attention to the issues but in this very traditional old-line company the resistance at upper levels was overwhelming. Michael simply lacked the power of position. Without an active mentor at upper levels, he had no leverage. Little changed.

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It Helps to Have a Mentor

Early in the culture change program the division manager in one of my clients decided to encourage people across the company to try new ways of working. He was skeptical that his own management team would support the culture change effort without a little push from below. Every day, usually early in the morning and at the end of the day, he met with a different employee, usually a supervisor. He was interested in each person, listening to their story and telling them of his hopes to develop the overall division culture.

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There were 20 supervisors. The manager talked with each one at least once a week. He was mentoring them. He enjoyed the dialogue. So did they. These conversations provided so much encouragement that after a few months some supervisors experimented with new ways of leading in their own work areas. Their efforts became a significant part of a most successful culture change program, one that eventually expanded to include almost every operating division of this multinational corporation.

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Be Open to The Unexpected

Unlike planning improvements to a piece of equipment, the plan for culture change is mostly realized by encouraging the positive moves of others. During my work with many companies I have been struck over and over by the creativity and innovation of managers and employees.

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Sometimes cultural leaders feel they need to initiate culture change actions themselves. While it's true that they do need to initiate and support the overall process, they do not, and probably should not, be involved in the details. Every employee at every level is a gold mine of ideas and will take on the responsibility to act on them. If the leader is open and supportive, amazing and wonderful things will happen. People want to bring more of themselves to the workplace. The tragedy is that too many companies are not open to the needs and desires of employees to contribute more to the success of the company.

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This Month's Statistics

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Economic Trends and Retention--- from HR West, Volume 2, Issue 6, page12

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Work Trends is a program that annually surveys 10,000 US employees annually on topics such as job satisfaction, leadership effectiveness, business ethics and employee retention. A very conservative estimate of turnover costs is 30% of an employee's annual salary. This number rises to 2.5 times an employee's salary for management and sales positions. With such high costs it's worth knowing why are employees choosing to leave? Work Trends 2004 found five reasons. Employees lack:

  • Confidence in the future of one's organization.

  • Sense of accomplishment.

  • Pay satisfaction.

  • Job security.

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Suggestions to meet this lack include, career development programs, training and mentoring; having a clear mission, communicating what's going on in the company and asking for feedback and suggestions; letting people know how valuable their work is and how it contributes to the success of the company, and providing opportunities for people to initiate actions. Obviously pay should be in line with industry norms and people should have confidence in their future with the company.

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For more information on how Company Culture affects performance read http://www.companyculture.com/basics/benefits.htm