Changing Corporate Culture is More Than a Communications Task

"We need to change the culture," is a phrase bantered about when the organization's ability to respond to changing business conditions isn't working very well. But how do you change something as abstract as corporate culture?

Most organizations believe if the CEO communicates his or her strategic intent long enough or with enough conviction it will breed the type of behavior (and culture) needed to fulfill the corporate vision. In short, they hope the culture will adapt. This is naive thinking - and the organization rarely has time to wait.

While culture may lie in the abstract, it is ultimately linked to discrete business processes. Organizations that use communications campaigns to attempt cultural shifts either fail - or wait a long time for change to occur.

The key to changing culture is getting it out of the abstract and into the reality of execution. 

Demystifying Culture
In their book, Execution, authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, define culture as the sum of an organization's shared values, beliefs and norms of behavior. It is the goal of GE, for example, to be either first or second in each business they operate. That translates into behaviors that make up GE's culture, or "way of operating."

When Should Cultures Change?
CEOs set out to change cultures when their renewed vision for competitiveness is inhibited by the values and beliefs of their people. For example: GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt believes that, in today's global economy, the key to being number one or two is more about innovation, versus the existing culture, which is all about grinding costs down and increasing share through acquisition.

Immelt's new initiatives reward behavior differently. Sure, costs and margins are hugely relevant, but an executive's ability to innovate has taken on a much different level of appreciation in Immelt's new GE. Immelt's focus on innovation has also changed GE's process for evaluating proposed acquisitions. 

 The Intersection of Culture and Process
Getting people to behave, in a style that supports an executive vision takes more than posters, town meetings and pep talks (which is what most companies try). With every desired cultural attribute, such as "we're customer oriented" lies a series of processes and behaviors that need to be deliberately put into place.

Having worked at both Digital and HP I speak from my own experience. Digital had a strong cultural value of "making your numbers" and missing them wasn't tolerated. Near the end, when executives were presiding over dwindling numbers, the culture didn't change. And neither did the numbers (except that they went down). The pressure on numbers encouraged sales people to sell - including products that customers often didn't need.

At HP, satisfied customers was an overriding cultural value. If you blew out your numbers, but had unhappy customers (or co-workers that disliked working with you), you received a bad performance review. If you delivered happy, loyal customers, but missed your numbers, you didn't necessarily get a bad report card. You got advice and guidance on how to get more happy customers.

So before you roll out an internal communications campaign to rally the troops around a new set of desired values, identify the behavior (and processes) that connect your idea of cultural nirvana to a working engine with the cogs and wheels it needs to properly deliver. Redefine reward structures. Map processes around your new vision of what it means to be competitive. Then get the communications campaign rolling. Without process, you have nothing to communicate other than a nice dream. 

For some addtional insight on the relationship between culture and execution, check out Execution, by Bossidy and Charan.