What you’ve been told about culture is wrong: PART 1

I got a call from 'Jonathan' an old colleague from my days as a management consultant. He had stayed in consulting while I had left to make change happen from inside organizations. Jonathan had made his way up through the ranks and had recently been promoted to Partner at one of the big consulting firms. “I need your advice on culture change”, he shouted over the background noise of a city street.

The following week we sat down for breakfast at a city café and I enquired “How’s it all going in the new role?” Jonathan glanced through the menu as he responded “I really have to get serious about changing the culture in my team Siobhan. We are getting hammered by competitors and have lost the last four submissions in a row to niche players or the big consulting firms. The feedback we’re getting from clients is that they want us to be more innovative rather than trotting out the same old thinking.”

The Values book

We ordered breakfast and drinks – a latte for Jonathan and my usual pot of Earl Grey tea. “What have you done so far to change the culture?” I asked as the waiter walked off.

Jonathan’s eyes widened, and he leaned over to pull out a booklet from his briefcase, which was titled ‘Our Values’. “I thought you might ask! Well, as you know, culture is all about the Values & Behaviors, so we’ve redesigned our Values with a heavy emphasis on innovation. Take a look!” he said as he tossed the book across the table.

The Values booklet was a well put-together document with beautiful images and galvanizing values statements

“Impressive production” I commented as I flicked through the pages. “What’s happened since you launched these?” 

“Well that’s the problem, not a lot! We still seem to be bringing the same tried and tested solutions to clients who are wanting more innovative thinking. I thought that getting the Values & Behaviours right would fix things, but we are still being outmanoeuvred by competitors at every turn!”

The BIG lie that John had been told

Jonathan had been taught that Values & Behaviours are what constitute workplace culture. This is incorrect. At the heart of culture lie the deeply embedded patterns that shape how people think and respond at work. The patterns are the unwritten rules that sit at the collective level in the organization. People may come and go from your business, but the patterns typically remain the same.

Let me illustrate what I mean by patterns by using Jonathan’s example and how our café conversation progressed.

How the proposal was lost

The waiter arrived with our drinks order as I enquired further “Can you tell me about what happened when you lost the last proposal Jonathan?” He took a first sip of his latte, “It was a digital transformation project for a FMCG client and one of the big 4 consulting firms wiped the floor with us. They came in under our price with a much more creative solution, according to the feedback from the client”.

I asked “What happened before you submitted the proposal. Did you review it in your role as Partner in charge?”

Our food arrived as Jonathan responded, “Yes, I did look over it and recognised that we were trotting out the same ideas we’d submitted before but we ran out of time and just needed to get it to the client before the deadline.”

The pattern in the consulting firm

I took a notepad from my bag and began to draw the pattern in Jonathan's team (shown in the diagram below). The unwritten rule in this culture appeared to be that “We deliver tried and tested solutions around here”. The consultants were in the role of Traditional Thinkers who relied on the same old ways of thinking in creating client solutions. This was leading to poor clients outcomes on projects and, more recently, to loss-making proposals where the firm wasn't even getting shortlisted for work.

Jonathan desperately wanted the culture to change and had implemented the new Values but his behaviour indicated something different. When he approved the proposal to the client he was fuelling the pattern of lack of innovation and messaging his team that it was ok to deliver the tried and tested ways.

The market had shifted

It turned out that the “tried and tested ways” pattern had emerged over many years at the consulting firm. It had, in fact, contributed the firm’s success in the past. Clients had flocked to the firm as a “safe pair of hands” during significant restructures and major IT project implementations. But now the market had shifted, and clients were demanding more agile and innovative change solutions.

The market had changed but the culture at the consulting firm had remained the same

You can't blame employees for the culture

Jonathan nodded “It’s a bit worrying that I’m co-creating the lack of innovation in my team, but it does makes sense to me.”

“Yes, the pattern is co-created” I explained. "This means that you cannot point the finger at employees and blame them for the lack of innovation in the culture” I added. As Jonathan tucked into his breakfast he asked, “So how can I change the pattern and get people to think outside the box Siobhan?”

The emerging pattern at the consulting firm

I drew a second diagram in my notepad (shown below), “The new culture pattern that you are emerging is ‘We think outside the box around here’. You have enormous power to create this new pattern simply by shifting out of the role of ‘Approver’ of the old ways and into the role of ‘Change Leader’ in accelerating the shift to a more innovative culture.”

I sketched the next part of the diagram and explained to Jonathan, “By putting your consultants into the role of ‘Innovative Thinkers’ rather than in their current role of ‘Traditional Thinkers’ you can also accelerate the shift to a more innovative culture.”

Jonathan seemed deep in thought, “So I need to step into the role of Innovation Leader and refuse to settle for the same tired, old solutions. I can also help people to take up their role of ‘Innovative Thinkers’ by equipping them with the tools and training to think outside the box. That way we can start to move towards a more innovative culture and give clients what they need.”

As we left the café Jonathan said, “The pattern seems so clear to me now Siobhan. We should be taught this stuff in management courses! I will let you know how I go and it’s my shout* for breakfast!” he grinned.

What leaders have been told

Like Jonathan, many leaders have been told that culture is the ‘Behaviours & Values’ in the workplace. This is only partly true (I will define the core elements of workplace culture in my next LinkedIn article). The reality is that:

• Patterns are at the heart of workplace culture. The pattern of lack of innovation was sitting at the collective level in the consulting firm. It was showing up, not just in individual actions, but in the ways of relating at a systemic level.
• We are taught to see the individual behaviors but not the co-created patterns at the systemic level. 
• The invisible patterns are the reason that workplace culture is so difficult to change. You must be able to see the patterns before you can successfully change the culture.

Please like, comment or share this post if you, like Jonathan, believe that leaders (and HR folk) need a better understanding of how the underlying patterns shape workplace culture.

Here is the link the PART 2 of Jonathan's story if you are interested understanding more about workplace culture.

* 'My shout' is Australian slang for 'my turn to pay'