The Unbearable Lightness of Culture Change
We often talk lightly about culture change. We know that culture is a determining factor in strategy execution. It can be both a lever and an obstacle. Whenever culture change is an explicit part of strategy, it's an expression of doubt. Leaders doubt that the strategy will find fertile soil in the current culture. And so there's a decision to change the culture. I's easier to write that in a plan; it's much more difficult to make it happen.
Originally published on 27 June 2017. Republished with minor corrections; the argument is unchanged.
Story — the WARP culture
This story is based on true events, but the details have been changed.
A CEO was hired to turn around an international creative agency. He came from a very successful retail company. After thirty days in the job he gathered all the managers of the new company and told them what the future culture would look like. He projected only one slide. "This is our new culture," he said. There were only four words on the screen: WARP — winning, agile, relentless, profitable. For fans of Star Trek, warp is the drive that allows travel faster than the speed of light.
The managers in the room looked at each other with great unease. They knew these were the words that had been used in his previous company. So their new CEO had decided to copy the culture of the retail company and paste it into the agency
It got worse. In every meeting, managers had to declare their adherence to WARP. There were WARP meetings, WARP posters, WARP messages, WARP gadgets, WARP stationery. After a couple of months people were fed up. There were many jokes about WARP. People talked about the WARP zone. The Star Trek quotes were abundant. When the CEO sent yet another WARP message, the parodies and cartoons circulated immediately. What did he expect? After all, he was working in a creative company.
The CEO was startled. He could not understand why people resisted. He was full of good intentions and yet people were making fun of him. The people in the company rejected the WARP culture, and in the end the CEO had to leave.
So why is it so difficult to change a company culture?
Culture is intangible
Culture is intangible. You cannot touch it. But you can feel it. When you enter an organisation you can inhale it. The way people greet you, the way they interact, how they walk, how they look at you, what they do, what they don't do, the use of words, the gestures, the rituals — these are all emanations of culture.
The consequence of this is that culture is the result of many big and small acts across many circumstances. Changing the values is too often a cosmetic operation.
The CEO thought he could make culture tangible by introducing four words. The words meant nothing to the new company. Making culture tangible through words and gadgets does not work if people do not experience the culture first.
Culture is robust
Culture is robust and resists change. People who enter the company and announce they want to change the culture are most likely to fail. More than that, the culture will eat them. Why? Saying you want to change the culture is an insult to the people who have been working for years in a culture they love. So culture change will meet resistance, sometimes in a subtle way. Instead of imposing culture, leaders should work with the culture, embrace its strengths and integrate into it. Because culture is stronger than any individual leader.
The CEO thought he could change the culture on his own. Personal energy is not enough to change culture. Culture change requires a great deal of effort and is a very slow process. The CEO wanted to force this, but the culture did not bend. It felt attacked and it defended itself.
Culture is collective
Culture is the result of all the behaviours people in a certain group display. It's about shared ideas, habits, rituals. Culture gives people a sense of belonging, certainty, direction, norms. Culture is created by the behaviours of many people. So to change the culture, you need to change enough people. People need to learn new ways of behaving and unlearn others. We all know how difficult it is to unlearn.
The CEO did not involve people. He started the change and surprised his managers with it. Instead, he could have involved a group of enthusiasts. In that way the change would not have been linked to his person, but would have been a collective endeavour.
Culture is unique
You cannot transplant the culture of one organisation into another. Every culture is unique. Culture is to an organisation what personality is to a human being.
The biggest mistake this CEO made was to make assumptions about the recipe for culture change. He simply introduced four values that had worked in his previous company. There is no reason to believe these values would stick in the new one.
Unbearable lightness
Because of the above reasons, changing a culture is difficult. So if culture change is part of strategy, take care. It might even be better to adapt the strategy to the culture than the other way around.
There is an unbearable lightness to the notion of culture change. Too often we think that if we change processes, technology and context, culture will follow. Too often we think culture change is a rational decision. And too often we think that culture is generic.
Culture will not follow. People who think it's easy overestimate an organisation's capacity to evolve (fast) and they underestimate people's reluctance to change. That lightness is unbearable and very counterproductive.
