Are You Absolutely Sure?

So here we are again. Even though I’ve mused on the topic of organisational culture for 1000s of words already, it appears I have not thought all the things I want to think or written all I need to write. For those new to my blog, this topic is going to be an extension of a series I wrote back in 2018 starting here.

There is a tendency amongst all of us to go straight from “I have an itch” to “use this tool to scratch it” without any pause to ask why. The more expertise you have in backscratching, the more familiarity you have with itches, the more times you have used a backscratcher, the quicker you leap from A to B. Yet I think we can all agree that you might have an itch for any number of reasons. The root cause could be dry skin, a scratchy garment, a bug bite, or just a random impulse of the brain to try to drive you mad. However, while that backscratcher might provide short term relief, in by far the majority of itch cases it doesn’t do a thing to address the underlying pain point, the Real Problem™, if you will. I see this in the business context all the time. Present a problem to a team and the team immediately leaps to solution mode. Even in generalised planning and gap analysis conversations, there is this deep, almost atavistic, urge to figure it out, identify the next action, dig into it, get it fixed, scratch the itch.

It seems a bit reductivist to raise my hand and ask why, doesn’t it? I always feel a wee bit like a change resister myself when I dig my heels in and demand of leaders, “Um… do we have to? How come? What’s the pain point?” For example, imagine an organisation that feels that they ‘do X badly’. It could be project management, prioritisation, planning, change management. It doesn’t really matter. There is an inchoate and group-think consensus that we have a Problem for which the solution inevitably is the business magazine equivalent of a backscratcher. I have run into this with Change, of course. Even now in 2021, much of the business community has little or no lived experience of the Change Management process or discipline; Therefore, Change is one of those things that businesses routinely say, ‘We need to get me somma that.’

While they are not exactly wrong… and I do so love a good lucrative contract… I feel compelled to ask, “Are you sure? What’s the evidence? What do you see going pear shaped that you think a well-structured Change Management Plan and a Change Manager will address?” As the backscratcher in this relationship, I want to make sure that I’m not a temporary fix to a more challenging problem somewhere in the leadership, organisational structure, or complexity of your technical initiatives. You can not simply train, comms, engage, or coach around many foundational business problem sets.

The quandary of the backscratcher problem is multiplied at least tenfold when the ask is to change or improve or uplift ‘culture’. Before you reach for a Change Lead to scratch that itch, I really insist that you consider a few challenging questions.

Am I sure this is a culture problem and not a structural one?
Maybe your people don’t ask ‘how high’ when you tell them to jump. Are you sure that’s because the culture of the organisation is broken or is it perhaps because you built your office with the ceilings too low.  Is the problem deeply engrained in the default norms and behaviours of your workforce or can we find it in the tools, processes or organisational design?

Too often, we attribute underlying deficiencies in our business model or structural hierarchy to a problem with our people. Unlocking people’s potential isn’t always about making them feel differently; It’s sometimes about opening the cage we’ve put them into.

Am I sure this is a culture problem and not a me problem?
Be honest with yourself. If you don’t connect to the way your workforce functions, is the problem the workforce or you? Just because you run the company doesn’t mean you are necessarily the best person to run the company. If everyone on your team disagrees with how to go forward and improve the business, are they necessarily wrong? I know you got this role to solve this problem, but maybe – just maybe – you are the bug doing the biting.

What is my evidence of how culture materially and negatively impacts the organisation?
I don’t care what you build or deliver, ultimately the purpose of you and your people is to add value. If you can’t point me to some direct evidence that the current organisational norms, customs, and behaviours are negatively impacting the bottom line or preventing the long-term survivability of the company, you’re not going to be able to explain to me the backscratcher let alone your executive team or board why we should spend a lot of time, effort, and coin to ‘fix it’. I feel like this should be your Jerry McGuire moment. “Show me the money!” Because let’s make no mistake, organisational culture changes are spendy.

Am I willing to bet the company on this?
People came to work for your organisation – and have largely stayed – within the existing purpose, values, behaviours and norms. This is who they believe they are. Now maybe they’ll get on board for a different ‘vibe’. It’s a distinct possibility if it’s cocreated, built slowly and ruthlessly, and you invest a good deal of your internal reputational capital on shifting this dial. If they don’t, however, you break it and in doing so break trust and dramatically reduce the credibility of your leadership. Weigh the perceived upside value to be gained against the downside risk that you make the place a lot worse than when you arrived on the scene.

I don’t want to be That Guy. The enthusiasm with which leaders tackle a ‘culture challenge’ is impressive and ofttimes inspiring. It also somewhat terrifies me, probably because I’ve been there and done that and know how risky and how hard and how LONG it takes. Please, just make sure this is really the thing we want to do.

“Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.” ~ Edward T Hall