Breaking Down Culture Change
Steve Vamos
Author, speaker, advisor and former CEO at Xero, Microsoft Australia, Apple Asia Pacific
There are few things more inconsistently defined than Culture.
Unless you break Culture down into useful parts you can’t build or change it.
Culture is an outcome of two critical things; “why we do what we do†and “how we do what we doâ€.
1. Why we do what we do.
The culture of Macquarie Bank is very different to the culture of The Smith Family, because the purpose and motivations of the organisations and their people are so different.
Changing culture has to start by reflecting on your purpose and ambition and changing it if need be.
At ninemsn, our culture evolved and changed as we became clearer about our purpose and ambition.
That clarity lead us to stop doing some things and start others which resulted in some people leaving us and others being attracted to us. It changed our culture.
2. How we do what we do.
This is how we work together and treat each other.
Leaders and managers are responsible for making sure how things are done is productive and brings out the best in their people.
This requires constant focus on improving processes like setting clear objectives, communication and resource allocation, to mention just a few.
This also depends on managers setting a clear understanding of how people are expected to behave and treat each other, and on them being great examples.
The culture of an organisation can only be as good as its managers and as Sir Ralph Norris (former CEO of Commonwealth bank) and Chairman of Fletcher Building once said to me “You can change culture of a workgroup quickly by changing the manager.â€
Culture is an “all inclusive†reflection of what we are as individuals and an organisation. It touches what we do everyday.
Leadership ? Operations ? Delivery ? Transformation
6 å¹´Awesome post, Steve!
Navigating complexity to solve problems, enhance financial performance, and make better commercial decisions.
7 å¹´Couldn't agree with you more. We had an offsite for my team last year (most of the team were new) and we ran three sessions. The first, was Why we exist? The second was How we do things (and very much about the behaviours of how we want to operate....Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team featured heavily). Finally we spent a day on what we were going to focus on/our priorities above all the other day to day distractions. I am not sure we really knew what we were doing at the time but definitely agree with you that getting clarity around why, what and how is a brilliant foundation to driving/reinforcing a team culture.
CIO / IT Director, Healthcare, Government, Higher Education, Manufacturing & Start Ups
7 年I must have read this 6 or 7 times Steve and struggled with it. Yes I agree with your closing line, but my observation is that the organisation’s culture is a direct result of the leadership team’s values and actions. Actions particularly in changing and confronting times in grasping opportunities and behaving coherently to their values. I’d even say that culture carries with it remnants of past leadership teams - a sort of echo that remains - and staff don’t necessarily do a clean ‘re-boot’ mentally when major change is afoot with new managers or whatever.
Digital Transformation through AI | Strategy |Financial Services
7 å¹´Steve, Great article and write up, this articulates the culture value and change required in this dyna-age to effectively collaborate with distributed teams!
Integrator of Strategy, Culture, Change and Leadership. Facilitator, Executive Team Coach, Company Director
7 å¹´Two key questions that need to be asked consistently and challenged fundamentally. Thank you Steve.