Bringing about Culture Change

My company, Oranje Training has been drafted by an American Pharma Co. to work with their entire Indian workforce (leadership et al) on helping them understand and walk-together on their recently re-created Core Values and Org. Culture Norms. What started as a series of massively engaging orientation workshops, has now become quite an interesting mini-revolution. An intervention replete with work-arounds and monumental discoveries.

All the stakeholders, us included, learnt a few lessons as we very carefully pushed forward with the initiative. We figured out that culture change can’t be achieved through a top-down mandate. We may have created the Culture Norms or toiled hard to get the Values organised, but we soon realised that culture change lives in the collective hearts and habits of people and their shared perception of “how things are done around here.” Someone with authority can demand compliance, but they can’t dictate optimism, trust, conviction, or creativity.

We thought earlier that we could achieve the goal by plastering the walls of the manufacturing units and corporate HQ with a series of attractive multilingual posters and other visually attractive displays that carried the Core Values and Culture norms. But instead of plastering walls and repeating the Core Values in all-hands meetings, we have started to realise that the best way to take things forward would be to let these Values start guiding their own decisions. Though, this is easier said than done, we are making a definite progress, with the plant work-hands being the most receptive, especially as they are witnessing actions being taken in support of these values. Talk is cheap to them; ACTIONS DO SPEAK louder than words.

THE MOVEMENT HAS BEGUN : But how long will it take for culture change to take effect?

On September 3, 1967, the entire country of Sweden transitioned from driving on the left side of the road (UK-style) to driving on the right side.

The transition took a mere 10 minutes.

At 4:50 AM drivers were instructed (via the radio) to stop their vehicles, transition carefully to the right side of the road, and wait. At 5:00 AM a brief countdown commenced and everyone started driving again. Mission accomplished.

Of course, the transitional period, that in-between time before you’ve successfully moved from the left to the right side of the road so to speak, can be awkward if not downright painful. 

Unfortunately, culture change is measured in months and years rather than mere minutes. When we consider that the worldwide web became publicly available in 1991 and 30 years later we’re still adapting organizationally to the implications, it should come as no surprise that sorting out how an organization might best fit within a world of organizations will take time.

That said, there is also a case to be made for not dwelling too long in “organizational limbo.”