The Constant of Change and the Culture Air Sandwich

Nothing was moving forwards. The project that I had been trying to get off the ground and get budget approval on for the last three months was in danger of never happening. 

"Look, there's no point doing anything until the reorg is announced. Let the Big Dogs sort things out amongst themselves. When they've done that, they'll announce the new structure and operating model, and then we'll have clarity and can get things moving again. Just keep doing what you're doing."

And so ended my weekly check-in with my boss. The same way as it had ended the week before and, basically, the same way it had ended for weeks. Nothing was happening. Of course, we were still as manic as ever - days packed with meetings , conf calls and emails - but nothing was happening. We were all waiting for the reorg.

It's Reorg Time Again

Every organisation is going through change. Always has, always will.

Change is a constant theme. In 500BC the Greek philosopher Heraclitus shared the idea that "the only constant is change". He could have been a CEO announcing the reorg and, I'm sure, many a CEO has, indeed, introduced a reorg like that.

Reorgs. Reshuffles. Restructures. Transformation Programmes. Culture Change. Whatever they're called; work in any reasonably-sized organisation and you're probably going through one right now.

Maybe it's one or all (Poor you!) of these:

Programmes with competing priorities such as simultaneous cost-reduction and growth: working to reduce costs, while striving to maintain productivity, creativity, growth and edge in the market. Good luck with that.

Challenges such as teams and departments adopting Agile ways of working and expected to create the same results, while working with other departments and teams who are working the 'old way', who haven't transitioned to Agile, and are resistant because they haven't a clue what you're talking about when you introduce yourself as a Scrum Master or propose a new "Definition of Done".

Culture change initiatives that are out of balance because they are focused on the 'hard-wiring' of the organisation’s culture: such as organisational structure, processes, systems, performance, and reward. While the 'soft-wiring' emotional health of your organisation - how people are being - expressed in areas such as mindsets, motivations, communication, trust and authenticity, are either neglected or not given the focus and attention they deserve.

Whatever change you're going through. It's probably unsettling. Frequently, this is because there are disconnects between the management reasons for change and the practicalities of working through the changes while still delivering for the business. 

One of the reasons for this is because your organisation has a Culture Air Sandwich problem.

The Culture Air Sandwich

It had been a great management offsite. We'd got real clarity on our Purpose creating a simple, yet, powerful set of words. We'd had a great Visioning session. And we'd workshopped and agreed upon our values. We'd even had an ex-SAS officer talk to us about Ways of Working and creating Agile teams based on the "Commander's Intent". Hey, if it worked in Basra, it'll definitely work for us. All of us were looking forward to getting back to work and cascading all of this throughout the org.

6 months later. 

Why weren't we seeing work on Purpose like we'd expected? Why didn't my direct reports share in the Vision? Why could people only remember three of the seven values? And, why on earth weren't we working Agile. It worked in Basra...

Why? 

All of the fancy work we'd done on Purpose, Vision, Values and Ways of Working - we'd simply created the top layer of a Culture Air Sandwich.

We'd made our work as appealing as possible - even creating a video to share with everyone. That's the equivalent of sprinkling some cress on it to make it look pretty.

We cascaded this pretty top layer down the organisation to the bottom layer of our sandwich - where the work actually happens.

But nothing changed because there's a problem - it's an Air sandwich after all - there was nothing in the middle. Too many negative behaviours still occurring, teams fighting rather than collaborating, a severe lack of direction, inter-departmental politics, and all the other negatives that are the real truth of the culture we were tolerating.

Us smart management folk with our Basra-inspired thinking had simply lobbed a load of stuff at the organisation from a great height and expected positive changes in culture.

All we'd actually done is create a void between us and the people doing the work, the people living and sustaining the culture we didn't want.

We hadn't created the tasty filling that would help align everything we thought was important with how we expected people to think, feel and do.

We had created a Culture Air Sandwich, with no tasty filling. And as we all know, when we're standing there at Pret weighing up our options - it's the filling that really matters.

Back then we had created a Culture Air Sandwich because we had never heard of the Culture Air Sandwich and we certainly didn't know what the six fillings are.

Back then we didn't know any better.

We didn't know what we didn't know.

But now you do. You can look at your organisation and consider whether you have a Culture Air Sandwich problem and, after you've read the next six articles in this series, you can start to work out what to do about it.

Why not start now by reading the next article in this series: Purpose Beyond Profits: We do work we believe in.

You do have a purpose beyond profits you believe in, don't you?

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Previous article: What Is Culture And Why Should We Care About It?

Next article: We Need Purpose More than Ever In These Uncertain Times

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This is the second article in 'Cultivating Culture': an 8-article series on culture - its importance and impact; plus the six most powerful levers to create positive culture. Each article is based on a meta-analysis of culture thinking and research, combined with real-world insights from Conscious Work's Culture Diagnostic - a unique, personalised diagnostic into the positive and negative drivers of culture within an organisation. The culture diagnostic and outline actionable recommendations are provided by Conscious Work at no cost or commitment. Message me for details.