Creating innovation cultures
carynvanstone November 8th, 2007
“Culture is not something an organization has but something it is.” Linda Smircich[1]
The nature of culture in organisations
Organisation culture is the pattern of daily conversations, interactions, relationships, practices and behaviours between the members of that organisation, or simply put, “the way we do things around here”. These are partly a consequence of deliberate attempts to foster certain behaviours (through leadership interventions, policies, reward systems etc), and partly the result of spontaneous and informal processes that occur as a normal part of everyday life. The culture is co-created in the act of conversation and communicated around the organisation through the stories that people tell about the business and each other.
An organisation’s culture is dynamic, not fixed – employees are constantly re-viewing the past, interpreting the present and anticipating new possibilities for the future. Therefore the notion of ‘unfreezing’ and ‘refreezing’ it does not sit comfortably with my experience of how culture actually changes. Symbolic or highly visible changes in culture will attract attention, but by ‘culture change’, I also mean those subtle evolutions in the ways people relate and do business everyday.
A company’s culture is typically experienced by employees and customers in two different ways (
- High profile symbols: the logos, slogans, texts, mission statements, official websites, speeches, publications, codes of conduct, policies, procedures, values statements, statements of strategic intent, posters, buildings, work space etc …
(These represent the espoused beliefs and values. They are often expressed in a stylized, carefully fashioned and staged way, in order to cultivate a desired impression. They are usually strongly influenced by top leaders and decision makers, and not always believed by employees or customers, if not consistent with customer or employee experience)
- Low profile symbols: the mundane, routine, taken-for-granted assumptions and truths of everyday organisational life. Unrehearsed, spontaneous, they include what people talk about, how they interact, how things get done, the stories that are told, the language used, the behaviours, the choices that people make in responding to changing conditions in their environment …
(These are the “real”, enacted values and beliefs. They are absorbed indirectly, through inference, story telling, imitating and osmosis. They are tacit knowledge, derived from behaviours more than from statements. They can be influenced by top leaders, but mostly through role-modelling.)
I believe that culture change requires a shift at four levels of employee and customer experience and interaction.
- Artifacts: the
- Behaviour: the spontaneous actions, routine responses, enacted realities and values, transmitted from one person to another via role models, and stories told about role models, “heroes” and “villains”.
- Mindset: the basic assumptions and worldviews which underpin thinking and behaviour. Mostly unconscious, and shared unconsciously from one person to another. This is often the most difficult thing to challenge, because it requires people to slow down long enough to ‘think about how they think’.
- Emotional ground: the passions, aspirations and aversions that constitute the emotional energy of the organisation. They are often contained within the stories that people tell.
Change initiatives are usually dominated by a focus on the formal artifacts (new posters, mission or value statements, mouse-mats, visions, systems, announcements, or declarations) and on behaviours (training and reward programs which attempt to change the way people work). These formalised changes are often delivered through workshops and ‘out of the workplace’ experiences. They usually start fast, make quick progress (as measured by the production of concrete outputs) but rarely deliver deep, sustainable change.
The few companies which have successfully changed their cultures, have invariably addressed all four levels of culture and have tackled change both in the formal infrastructure (through formalised interventions) and in the informal everyday (using localised and ‘viral’ methods of change and conversation).
Changing culture
Human learning (and change) from the smallest infants to the most sophisticated leaders has been proven through substantial research to be accelerated and deepened under positive and generative conditions. Essentially, this means that we learn more and change faster (as individuals) when we are being affirmed and supported, rather than being criticised or ‘gap-analysed’.
Organisational cultures are impacted in the same way.
As we talk with each other, ask questions and share stories, our lived experience of the culture moves in the direction of the conversations we are having. In short, we become more like the things that we talk about. Therefore if we bring people together to talk about, for example, poor customer satisfaction (even with the intent of improving it) we perversely make poor customer service more and more ‘normal round here’. The more ‘normal’ it feels, the more we are likely to act unconsciously in a way that sustains the poor performance. And so it goes on.
By actively inquiring into experiences of ‘great customer service’ we start to experience THIS as more and more normal and to be expected. By adding a rigor of analysis to this process (ie digging deep into the stories to find out what made the great service possible) we are able to individually and collectively choose to create the conditions for success again and again.
This is not advocating that problems should be avoided, and that we should only talk ‘positively’ about the best aspects of our current culture. I am advocating that we can take a generative approach, even when we are faced with quite difficult conditions, and that, when we do, we change faster and more deeply.
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Negative cultural trait that an organisation might want to eradicate through problem solving approaches to culture |
Generative topic that can be discovered, amplified and spread through an appreciative approach to culture |
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The critical role of storytelling in changing cultures
Storytelling plays a critical role in changing cultures. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves ARE a key source of our understanding of the culture.
As we hear organisational stories (heroes, villains, successes and failures…) we soon unconsciously pick up and start to model the behaviours and attitudes they convey. This is because human beings as social creatures, are naturally predisposed to ‘fit in’ and integrate themselves into social groups with a sense of identity. From our most ancient times, human beings have worked with stories to transmit and develop cultures. All the great religions of the work, for example, are transmitted through stories, as are familial cultures, and group social norms.
In organisations, when we have a new person in our team, we unconsciously start to tell them about the high points, memorable moments, terrible incidents etc, that have been formational for our team. Subtly we are letting them know how to navigate the ways of working round here – who to go to, who to avoid, who to please, who to challenge, where all the ‘work-arounds’ are – which may either comply, or subvert, the official policy or procedures.
Appreciative Inquiry is an example of a methodology and philosophy for change which works almost entirely through stories – rather than data, numbers, intellectual models or bullet points. By finding new stories, new heroes, new incidents (that represent the desired behaviour/culture) and encouraging people to tell and spread THOSE stories – you shift the culture and identity. It is simple, effective, and human.
Some challenges when trying to deliberately change a culture
Not top down, not bottom up – but all in it together
It is expected that leaders will want everyone to buy into their vision for the future, and their detailed articulation of the corporate values etc. This is not necessarily from a desire to control or manipulate, but often because they have an enduring passion for what they believe is right and a strong sense of accountability to make it happen.
Yet if they want a change process that ensures engagement, they need to provide the space for others to put their own individual voice and experience into it. However, if they pull away too far or become too silent, their absence and the loss of their unique perspectives and wisdom become constraints to change, and bottom up solutions will then be resisted at the top.
The challenge to leaders in an “all-in-it-together” change process includes:
- How comfortable are they with the ambiguity that is a pre-requisite of people taking genuine ownership?
- How prepared are they to accept that they cannot know everything about what will happen before they start? Collectively, we cannot plan for every detail of the work at the beginning – only for the principles of how, in good relationship together, we will make choices about steps as we go.
- How can we pre-empt the desire for deliverables and tangible progress in the first few months, when the most important steps are all about setting up the relationships for change?
Culture is most present in the mundane – so that is where we need to spend time
It is fairly easy to appreciate the extraordinary things in business life, and be excited by the radical ideas and big new initiatives. However, culture for the ordinary employee is a profoundly ordinary and mundane affair – it is what they have around them every day. It is sometimes hard to sustain leaders’ energy when asking them to ‘be curious and appreciative’ of such mundane shifts and it is my experience that Executives often ask “when is the real change going to start happening?” because they are waiting for some ‘big bang’.
Good culture change designs pay most attention to finding and rooting out the good experiences that are present in ordinary, everyday scenarios – as this will have the most long term impact on Employees’ working lives. To this end, a good deal of my work is in what I call the ‘informal system’ – which briefly means getting into the workplace and helping employees experiment there and then. We therefore listen to rumour, gossip, politics and humour as much as to Board Reports or formal Internal Comms. Rather than creating new and special events we might want to start to change those that are already happening. A good culture change consultant will contribute to local initiatives that are already underway – as I believe that culture will change fastest by challenging and supporting these experiences to ensure that they model the culture you aspire towards.
Change philosophy embedded in culture change designs
‘Change plans’ have no more power to change an organisation culture, than a ‘diet regime starting Monday’ has the power to make a person slim, fit and healthy. The diet regime is not the change – it is the choices, made daily, about what to eat and what to leave that make the difference.
My change work applies the same principle – you cannot change tomorrow, you can only change the way you do things today, which leads to new possibilities for the future. The change design therefore models the change you are seeking and requires leaders, employees and partners to step into the change experience from day one. I see culture change in the long term as something that happens almost by osmosis – by absorption of a new way of working that the project itself exemplifies.
As Gandhi once said “we need to be the change we wish to see in the world” (paraphrased).
This sounds obvious, but gives rise to some interesting complications. One of them is that any project designed to be an exemplar of a culture that is WANTED, but not yet present, is bound to sound strange, appear non-sensible and potentially radical within the paradigm of the current culture. This also means that any change proposal a team of Executives receive which sounds completely sensible, understandable, predictable and comfortable is almost by definition unlikely to change their organisation.
Additionally, I believe that it is unhelpful to see the existing culture as a ‘problem to be fixed’ – I know from experience that the seeds of a new culture are already present in what is happening in the organisation today – always, somewhere. Our role as change consultants is often to the organisational people discover this for themselves, and through this, help them to create the conditions for them to take root and amplify.
When culture change goes wrong ….
Risk – Push a solution too early
It is our experience that resistance to change is a phenomenon created by ‘push’ methods of change – when people feel that someone else’s vision is being imposed upon them. As Richard Beckhard[3], one of the pioneers and authorities in the field of Organisation Development, once said, “people do not resist change, they resist being changed”.
When solutions are imposed, no matter how well intentioned or beautifully articulated, employees tend to either push back with their own strong advocacy of what is needed, or to accommodate, and then comply reluctantly or without mindful attention. Both of these reactions reduce engagement, reduce innovation and reduce customer centricity and care.
It is better to base the approach NOT on overcoming resistance, but on avoiding creating it in the first place: I suggest the use of ‘pull’ (or self-organising) approaches that allow employees to join in with leaders to create the change. This means holding back on early articulations of the ‘right answer’ to the question of how culture should be experienced.
Risk – Start out in a non-engaging style
The first steps are fateful in our view. Engagement goes beyond ‘consultation’ or ‘involvement’ in that employees that are fully and truly engaged would say that they not only have the opportunity to describe the ‘how’ of change – but also the ‘what’.
If the topics and areas for change are NOT created by employees themselves, then the risk is that we fail a fundamental ‘engagement’ test at the start.
Then as we progress, it is important to really listen with open minds to the types of solutions and requests that are coming forward. It is too easy to believe that we (as experts, leaders or external consultants) know what is best for people. For example, we might already have an idea about what kind of change in a call centre would lead to greater honesty, humanness of contact with customers, or inspiration, and we might find the employees’ ideas naïve or less radical – but if it is what THEY believe would work for them, it should be paid really good attention to.
Risk – No preparation of the ground, so new initiatives die away
I would argue against only focusing on large group interventions, workshops and high-profile ‘selling’ or training campaigns to early in the process, because the energy and ideas they provoke ‘fade away’ when faced with an unchanged ‘back to work’ experience. This is one key reason why I work first in the everyday work experience – to ’prepare the ground’ and then use workshops, high energy Large Group Interventions and high gloss communications later in the process.
Risk – Be too corporate about the launch of the initiative
Very few employees believe the rhetoric of change in large organisations. Nowhere is this truer than in the arena of ‘brand’, ‘empowerment’, ‘innovation’ and ‘culture change’. Big fanfares for initiative launches feel like the right thing to do to show people that you are serious – but often they trigger cynicism and doubt. My approach to initiative communications is to ‘go quietly’ into things, use local communications and find interesting and well connected individuals who can ‘work inside the gossip system’. Again this is consistent with how normal human cultures ‘spread’ naturally.
As real changes actually start to have an impact – then it is the time to start talking more formally about it and shouting loudly about progress made.
Risk – Having a plan and sticking with it regardless of change
Over a 2-3 year change period, a lot will change. When the change approach starts working, then things will already be starting to look different after 12 months. To stick with a plan designed before these changes started to take root, is the equivalent of trying to negotiate the
Risk – senior management find a new project and ‘disappear’ half way through
This is more common that might be assumed. Typically people who make it to senior positions in today’s organisations are action oriented, future focused and often better at kicking things off (a great skill, which is much needed in a leader) than they are of being around supporting people over the long term of implementation. This can result in cut budgets, loss of presence and visibility amongst other issues.
Senior leaders need high levels of coaching and connection which are designed to try to avoid this throughout a long term culture change campaign. It is vital to keep senior leaders informed, engaged and excited about what is happening.
Additional benefits – A long lasting legacy of change orientation, energy and engagement
As an ‘appreciative’ culture change project develops, a very large number of people throughout the organisation become deeply connected, energised and highly skilled in facilitating ‘positive’ change. What is really exciting about this type of work is that, just when most traditional change projects cause people to be change-weary, exhausted, depressed or fed-up, the AI process is still engaging people, and will increasingly become part of the way that things get done.
Research[4] over the last 20 years has consistently shown that the one key differentiator between high performing and low performing teams, divisions and departments (where all other factors were the same) is ‘happiness’. This is not a ‘pink-and-fluffy’ definition of happiness – it breaks down into 3 very tangible elements:
- Pleasure and joy – connectedness, human relationships, enjoying what you do, having fun (interesting, this is the least impactful, least long-lasting and least correlating aspect of the three, and it is the one that most companies invest most money with high profile ‘fun’ events and ‘jollies’).
- Engagement – feeling that you are deploying your true, unique strengths to do something that you feel valued for doing, using your strengths more often than you are having to use or overcome your weaknesses. Having a voice and real influence in how you work. Having accountable freedom to find worthwhile activity with others, rather than be fitted, machine-like into a predetermined role.
- Meaning – believing and experiencing that what you are doing has a higher purpose – that you are part of something bigger than just yourself.
Sadly, in the last five years, according to a massive, global survey by Gallup[5] covering hundreds of thousands of people in a wide range of roles and organisations around the world, less than 17% in 2005 said that their work is organised “so that they can play to their strengths most of the time”. By 2007 this number had dropped to 12%. Unfortunately, in
Organisations that are working with Appreciative Inquiry, are finding that they can reverse this trend, by establishing a culture which is itself appreciative, human and strength-based.
Appreciative cultures have been conclusively demonstrated to be more innovative, and leaders who operate in an appreciative environment demonstrate greater capacity, broader attention, clearer thinking and more resilience to downturns and difficulties.
[1] Linda Smircich, Professor of Management,
[2] Adrian McLean, Ashridge Consulting, various publications and collaborative work.
[3] Richard Beckhard was a pioneer in the field of organizational development. He co-launched the Addison-Wesley Organization Development Series and began the Organization Development Network in 1967. His classic work, Organization Development: Strategies and Models, was published in 1969. Beckhard was an adjunct professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1963-1984.
[4] Drawing on the work of Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology, amongst many others.
[5] Drs J Harter and F Schmidt of the Gallup Organisation’s four year research into the difference underpinning high performance teams, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2002.
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