#20 What's Your View On How Best To Launch A Culture Change Programme?
Explore the limitations of big announcements and if there's a better way.
A note to listeners and readers of Helpful Questions Change Lives:
In my first series of posts, I covered how paying close attention to the why-do-you-experience-life-as-you-do question, holds the potential of changing the way we interpret events, other people, and circumstances that have come our way, and keep doing so. I invited you to see if what I pointed to there looks true to you. If so, one implication is that we become less wedded to old thinking habits, and more playful about what could help us most now, no matter what has gone before.
In this second series of posts, signalled by the yellow background in the picture below, I explore what makes sense to you and those around you in the different groups you’re a part of.
Here, the invitation is a different one - to wonder what you and other members of these groups might see anew, were you NOT bound by sense making that may have served you well at one time, but doesn’t so much now.
Enjoy playing with the questions in this series. Use what I share about my experiences as a springboard to finding what resonates most for you in your context. Let me know in the comments if what you discover helps or not.
Imagine you’re in the audience listening to a senior executive announce a new change programme to which he is “fully committed” and expects you to be the same.
His narrative has a familiar pattern to it.
First, something is wrong. It could be anything from a loss of market share, lower than expected growth in profitability, too much debt, the organisation has been embroiled in a scandal of one kind or another, and so on. Or there’s been a major change in the environment an enterprise operates in - a new piece of legislation or disruptive technology threatens, new social attitudes make the need for change more acute etc.
Second, the story takes on a do-or-die tone. “If we do nothing we simply won’t survive” or “We can’t stand still, to do so would wipe us out” or words to that effect. This is the so-called burning deck narrative. It implies survival depends on putting the fire on the ship out.
Third, the tale moves into its sunny uplands phase. What’s likely to follow if the change is implemented well: better financials, more satisfied customers, bigger bonuses, share options etc.
Fourth, the look-at-yourself-in-the-mirror bit: where some searching questions need to be asked if you’re to test your own and colleagues’ commitment. Do you want this organisation to survive? Are you willing to make changes to how you operate? Are you onboard for the journey to these sunnier uplands?
Finally, the different phases of the change programme are announced: the diagnostics that will be done, the reviews these will provoke, when key decisions will be made by, how you’ll be kept informed. The kind of information the designers of the change programme and their executive sponsors believe you need to have to stay informed of what they’re doing each step of the way.
There’s much razzamatazz surrounding the executive’s speech too. Carefully chosen music, and an MC whose job is to warm the audience up and build the executive’s reputation up before they arrive on stage. Free merchandise such as mugs, T shirts and bumper stickers is all around; it conveys some key messages linked to the change programme’s intentions.
In the past I’ve helped clients write such a speech and design a launch event for hundreds of their staff. I’ve also listened and finessed it during rehearsals, so getting the executive and event organisers feeling good about how it all fits together.
Then we go live. After the speech ends I overhear what audience members made of it. That heart-sinking feeling appears. Huge disappointment visits me the moment I tune into what people really felt about the speech, and the event as a whole. It hasn’t had the intended impact.
This low mood evokes a defensive response to begin with. I blame the audience. Then that seems a ridiculous thing to do.
As I settle, reflections on the difference between what is said from the stage and what the audience hears come to mind. Though intended to motivate, the burning-deck narrative is rooted in fear. It sends most of the audience into survival mode, which closes down their capacity to think creatively and communicate well. Claims that the organisation is sinking, therefore, either fall on deaf ears or are perceived as exaggerated. Calls to have all hands on deck, to save the day, get many worried about their jobs. Questions about whether their face fits, and whether they have what it takes to make the required changes add to these concerns.
This is what gets talked about over coffee and at the post-launch drinks event, once the razzamatazz dies down and the speech has ended. So much so, the sunny uplands segment of the talk gets completely ignored.
I’d ask myself searching questions; have we thrown the baby out with bathwater? Has the way we’ve just launched this change programme lowered the probability of its success?
As I thought more deeply, these provoked a change of mind on how best to initiate a programme of change in groups.
At the root of the problem lies a great opportunity
The case for changing or transforming a group’s culture usually springs from what I now see as the presenting problem. That is to say something isn’t right, or there’s been unexpected changes in the operating environment that sends lead and lag metrics in the wrong direction.
Consequently, a programme is needed to help turn the presenting problem around. The supporting logic goes something like this; get the indicators moving in the right direction and job done.
The presenting problem, however, is rarely the same as the root problem. To get to the origin of that, we need to explore how people feel about the relating patterns they’re in, and the way things get done.
In power-sharing relating patterns, for instance, partners see themselves as equals, working towards mutually beneficial goals. They build strong relationships in which they feel free to speak openly with each other; about anything pretty much. What partners are excited about, for instance. What they’re paying attention to. What’s concerning them. What new trends and developments are in their purview. What they’d like to have but don’t currently get. What new priorities are on the agenda and which are receding. Changes they’re experiencing at work and in their home life etc.
In other words the very stuff groups need to be on the table and can respond to, so as to maximise the probability that the very same metrics they’re judged by, head in the right direction.
Sure, challenges inevitably arise. As they do whenever we humans come together to get stuff done. They cause frustrations sometimes too. However, where relations are strong these are often seen as puzzles to resolve, not opportunities to blame. Partners want to get to the heart of what’s causing the frustration and remove it. They trust each other to do that. This is why problems that can loom large in a different culture, normally get sorted quite quickly in one founded on power-sharing partnerships.
Power-over relating patterns - think parent-child, master-servant, rich-vs-poor relations - have the opposite affect. They play out in rivalrous ways usually. Groups behave like factions, fiefdoms, and cliques. People in them keep their cards close to their chest. They know information is a source of power. They also learn which levers to pull to exert power over those they compete with - for attention, recognition, resources, bonuses, favour etc.
Tap into people’s lived experience of power-over relating patterns and you soon discover what pees them off. Being spoken down to. Not being heard, or at least others only listening for what they want to hear. Being blamed when things go wrong even if it’s not your fault. Being wary of others’ motives. Feeling powerless and drained by politicking, such as lobbying people to get what you want long before an issue ever reaches the round-table discussion point.
You could probably add to this list.
The net result is people end up hunkering down into a silo mentality that emphasises what divides not what unites them. Put another way, like any of us can, they live from a mentality that explains why speeches about change, however constructed and no matter how much razzmatazz accompanies them, evoke more scepticism and cynicism than enthusiasm. That’s the filter through which audience members hear the speech and what they share privately in the drinks reception afterwards. For people in this state of mind, change-related speeches are always going to be hard to digest and rarely motivate.
To boot, silo mentalities help explain why ‘the presenting problem’ exists in the first place. Locked into one, blinkered way of thinking, people simply cannot make sense of what’s going on for their ‘partners’, or ‘enemies’ as they might describe them. They have no access to subtle changes occurring all the time in these relationships and therefore cannot respond effectively enough in good time. More often than not, that’s why lead and lag indicators start flashing red.
My heart-sinking feeling after a programme launch event, like I described above, led me to a different approach. I begin by creating the conditions in which people could speak freely about their challenging lived experiences, in confidence. Not after a speech but as the starting point to any change initiative.
Once group members feel comfortable enough to open up - for the first time because in many cases they’d never been encouraged to do so before - I ask whether they want what they find difficult to continue. The answer, of course, is invariably no. Then comes the but: they don’t believe people can change. They’re locked onto ideas such ‘a leopard can’t change its spots’ or ‘that’s the way it’s always been around here.’
Dig deeper though and I find people long for change and want to help make it happen. Thought it’s assumed otherwise on many cases, they don’t come to work to be press-ganged into a silo. They care about doing good work for others. They want to feel proud of what they can contribute. To be better versions of themselves.
And that, as it looked to me several years ago, is the opportunity.
Solve for how to bring out the best in groups - even if some don’t believe that’s doable in the first instance - and your change initiative can be based around making their lived experience one to write home about.
Encourage conversations on questions such as…
What pees you off, which if fixed, could make a huge difference?
How would you advise your best mate on the best way to survive and thrive around here?
What would be happening if you felt over the moon about what you do and who you do it for?
If you felt trusted to do a great job, what would be happening in future that isn’t happening now?
Honest answers to questions like these point you to where power-over relating patterns are inhibiting progress. And where your change initiative could get quick wins, and so build confidence and momentum for more.
To the extent you feel your initiative needs a title, invariably conversations like these may also suggest one to you. For instance, rather than latch on to the commonly-used titles we see all over the business pages - culture change, digital transformation, high performance, being No. 1 etc., which can mean little to some - everyday phrases such as ‘being easy to do business with’ or ‘learning to trust’ or ‘bringing out the best in each other’ may have more resonance with those who will ultimately be responsible for its success.
Next time I’ll cover whether you think there’s a difference between change and transformation and the extent to which it matters.
Kindest,
Roger
Be In Conversation With Me
I set up HQCL to help those who feel stuck in all or bits of their life.
The content here may quench your thirst for what helps you change your inner life and have a better experience of your outer one.
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Other useful, free posts.
You can find all the posts in my first series here.
While it’s good to pick those whose titles speak to you most, I recommend these five in particular:
#3 Being Right Here Right Now - Hard To Do? - This covers the idea of being fully present and what distracts us from that.
#4 How We Experience Life Is Mysterious. Isn’t It? - This goes to the heart of the mystery surrounding why we get sensations, thoughts and feelings in the first place, and what the implications are of being at ease with this.
#5 What Influence Do You Have Over Your Experience In Each Moment? - Here I look at what is and is not within our control and where we can exert influence when changing our experience.
#6 If You Saw Wellbeing Like This, What Difference Would It Make? - If BEING WELL RIGHT NOW is the goal, this describes what that’s like and how our feelings can be a useful warning sign of wellbeing’s absence.
#8 Why Do You Respond To “Difficult” Others Like That? - Here I invite you to consider some of the deeper, often-hidden assumptions we hold about the nature of human nature and their impact on your experience of difficult others.