Key Messages
How To Change Your Company’s Culture From The Ground Up
If you want to energize your organization’s culture, you need to make sure that change reaches all levels of the company.
People often make the mistake of thinking that simply stating “We want a higher profit margin” will motivate their employees, but it doesn’t work like that.
Instead, you have to take the time to look at everything that affects how your organization functions—its experience, beliefs, and practices—and work out how they all contribute to the bigger picture.
In Change the Culture, Change the Game, learn how General Motors managed to turn itself around by overhauling its corporate culture; why change is a transition from one state to another rather than a sudden transformation; and why giving tokens can create an atmosphere of appreciation and care within an organization.
By understanding what makes an organizational culture tick, you can give your team more strength, motivation and recognition—all elements needed for energizing your organization!
Leaders Must Follow The Results Pyramid To Create An Effective Organizational Culture
It’s clear that a company’s culture is shaped by the experiences that its managers create, and it ultimately has a big impact on how things are done in terms of results.
To ensure a successful outcome for their organization, it is essential for leaders to prioritize creating the right kind of culture
That’s why the key to achieving this lies in something called the Results Pyramid.
This pyramid helps focus on all three components: experiences, beliefs and actions that can help shape an organization’s culture and lead to positive results.
To demonstrate this concept, General Motors advanced with a strategy of “Making decisions.
Taking risks.
Moving fast.
Being accountable” – each step was designed as an experience to foster desired beliefs and eventually lead to effective actions which would yield their desired target results.
Similarly, Alaris Medical Systems turned to this model in order to change their negative reputation and reshape their corporate image within six months.
Every level of employee was mobilised and motivated by devised strategies discussed among managers that focused on setting up experiences, fostering desired beliefs and leading toward effective actions that would generate the ultimate goal of successful results at Alaris!
Create An Accountability Culture In Your Organization To Improve Performance
A culture of accountability is key when it comes to ensuring that your organization performs at the highest possible level.
In order to establish such a culture, everyone within the organization should adhere to certain principles and actions which promote accountability.
The main goal of an accountable culture is ultimately to accept responsibility for achieving results by considering other people’s views, communicating honestly, exchanging feedback openly and being able to confront difficult truths.
Once those goals have been fulfilled, you should strive to own it by embracing the company’s mission as your own – thus taking ownership of the desired results.
After these two steps have been accomplished, you need to move onto solving it – ask what else can be done in order to reach desired results – and finally do it by performing expected tasks with focus on priorities, reliability and trustworthiness.
Creating Lasting Culture Change Takes More Than Just Quick Fixes Or Shortcuts
It’s impossible to achieve desired results without shifting the culture.
In order to transition and create a new culture, C2, that generates improved results R2, you have to shift both the experiences, E2, and beliefs, B2, within the organization.
This is because these two elements are the fundamental building blocks necessary for new actions A2 which will lead to success in achieving R2.
Making this culture shift can take effort on multiple levels and take more time than expected.
However once rooted it will have lasting changes that create a strong basis for your desired outcomes.
For example an optical retailer ran a pilot for their organizational culture change in select stores and saw successful results after only 2 months with business improving over 5% .
This was due to a shift in thinking and working habits from the employees, demonstrated by their different approach taken to daily work tasks as part of their new culture C2 , which then achieved the intended success – R2.
The company eventually took these changes company-wide further increasing their success rate.
Alignment: The Secret To Getting Everyone On The Same Page And Achieving Your Key R2 Results
Before you set out on a mission to make a big change within your organization, it’s important to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
This means having everyone in your organization aligned around the same goals and objectives.
Alignment isn’t just about making sure everyone is aware of the same results you’re aiming for, it also involves deliberate actions that works towards that common goal.
When there’s clarity and alignment around shared objectives, decision-making processes are much faster and more efficient, as well as other processes across the organization.
On the other hand, if people don’t understand what your desired outcomes are then chaos will ensue and momentum for positive change will be stunted.
Just take for example Fast Grill.
Their top management knew their objective was to improve profitability so they could expand – but even when asked further questions about what exact margins they aimed to hit, not one person gave the same answer!
Without alignment within their team they were doomed from success in trying to make big changes in their company structure.
To avoid such hiccups, make sure that everyone in your organization is totally aligned before putting those plans into action!
Alignment can happen in many ways but remember it’s an ongoing process not just something you tick off once its achieved.
The Necessary Leadership Skills For Guiding A Culture Change In Your Organization
Leading a culture change is no small feat.
Taking your organization from C1 to C2 requires the skills to take on this responsibility, respond to criticisms, and be faciliative of true dialogue.
As a leader of a major cultural change, you must be able to understand the entire process at every level.
You’ll also need the skill to respond back appropriately when confronted with feedback, which can be done through a five-step process.
First, identify shared beliefs; second, communicate them; third target experiences; fourth encourages feedback; and finally engage in feedback as progress is being made.
Lastly, your role as leader should involve facilitation of dialogue within the team so meaningful conversations take place that help build upon the plan.
For example, Steven Nickel of VAIO Service motivated his employees by giving them an opportunity to express their improvement ideas while aiming to improve repair-related customer satisfaction scores by 15 percent over previous year.
This proved fruitful as meaningful dialogues occurred that helped surpass the goal!
How To Sustain Culture Change In Your Organization Through Three Simple Steps
When trying to implement lasting change in an organization, you need to ensure that your culture change is effectively integrated in all aspects of the organization.
This means integrating it into all meetings, policies and procedures, systems and everyday practices.
One example of this kind of integration can be found with Eastside Health Plans.
Here, the management team took three simple steps: First they listed their organizational systems, then they looked for where they could integrate culture change into these systems and finally applied the changes accordingly.
As a result, teams were formed to address waste as well as other inefficiencies within the organization which led to line-item cost savings of over $200 million!
In addition to integrating the concept of culture change into its organizational systems, you can also make sure that it becomes an enjoyable experience for your employees by adding fun elements like rewards.
One example is a local bookstore where tokens are given out when employees see each other doing a good job.
This incentivizes workers and allows them to feel rewarded for their efforts; making it easier for them to stay motivated and embrace the culture change you’re trying to introduce.
Wrap Up
This book encourages us to take our organizations to the next level by implementing culture changes and promoting accountability across all levels.
It emphasizes the importance of relationships between experiences, beliefs, and results.
Change the Culture, Change the Game provides actionable advice on how to achieve these desired changes.
The 6 step process — participation, accountability, discussion, ownership communications and follow-up — is an effective way of ensuring alignment across key decisions throughout an organization.
Ultimately, this book can be summarized as a call to arms for leaders everywhere who want to foster lasting change in their organization through culture shifts and improved accountability.
Change is possible when you start small and stay consistent with your expectations and communication.
