“With culture, you're dealing with changes in values, but I think even more important: changes in behaviors, how we do things around here."
James L. Heskett, is UPS Foundation Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and author of his latest book,?Win From Within: Build Organizational Culture for Competitive Advantage
.?Since 2000, he has authored a blog on the school's Working Knowledge
web site. He has served as a consultant to companies in North America, Latin America, and Europe.
James was the 1974 recipient of the John Drury Sheahan Award of the Council of Logistics Management, the 1992 Marketing Educator of the Year Award of Sales and Marketing Executives International, and the 2010 Distinguished Career Contribution Award in Services Management of American Marketing Association. Among his publications are books?The Culture Cycle
, co-authorship of?The Ownership Quotient
,?The Value Profit Chain
;?The Service Profit Chain
;?Corporate Culture and Performance
,?among many others, and numerous articles in such publications as the?Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Sloan Management Review,?and?California Management Review.
Heskett joined the Outthinkers podcast to share his findings on what steps to take to create lasting, effective cultural change—more quickly than you would think.
- Culture can be an element of strategy: Effective organizational culture leads to higher levels of customer and employee engagement, increased productivity, and employee loyalty. This leads to greater revenue generation thus, more profit. An organization's culture is vital to its strategic success and has a measurable impact on its bottom line. The effect of a good culture on business strategy is reflective both quantitatively and quantitatively. Culture can be an essential element of strategy, and culture combined with strategy can be an effective way of competing. Having a strong culture enables an organization to manage change and disruption more easily.
- Culture change doesn't require a long time: Despite knowing they should improve culture, many organizations don't take action to transform. The belief that culture change takes a long time discourages them from transforming. Many CEOs don't believe they will be around long enough to see the results. Heskett's research has found that because so many organizations are easily distracted by quarterly results, culture change should not take a long time to accomplish. Effective changes can be put into motion in a short time if strategized well.?
- Recommendations for culture transformation: Companies that have really effective cultures aren't always the most pleasant places to work. Many people take the pressure upon themselves and are always at risk of burnout. However, good leadership can help resolve this and relieve the pressure. Rather than focusing on values, which can be interpreted in many different ways, organizations should establish behaviors that reflect their desired culture. Active communication, a thorough understanding of the working landscape, and association with the right people can reap great successes. Each decision has to be built in coherence with the organization’s culture. These are all interdependent and correlated spectrums.
