Culture change? Try befriending a cat

Prepare yourself. I’m getting ready to make an excessive number of metaphors and analogies about a topic that many people find annoying: culture.

Here’s a choice analogy to start with. Culture is like a butt. Everybody has one but it’s difficult to look at your own. It is extremely important to how our body functions, yet we don’t like to talk about it. Perhaps another go? Culture is like water that’s been sitting in a barrel for too long. It can cover every surface and still be hard to see. You hardly notice it when things are going well. But when things get funky it smells like shit and everyone complains. And again? Culture is like a sausage. It is filled with a dizzying array of different things. You don’t want to know what’s in there or how it’s made; you only care about the way it manifests (on your plate). Culture is like a lot things. But what IS it?

A former coach gave me the best definition of culture I’ve heard: “Culture is the way things get done around here.” It’s perfect. Rather than using arcane nouns and terms to define some abstract description of an equally fuzzy concept, this definition grounds culture in action. Because culture matters in the ways that it influences action. Perhaps some PhD candidates care about defining culture for the sake of fitting it into an epistemological framework (built on top of philosophical frameworks built on top of linguist frameworks built on top of…). For most of us, culture matters because it shapes how we interact and communicate with each other. Culture is the way that things get done around here.

Invisible patterns of who speaks when and how you address different people in the group? That’s culture. Prioritizing quality over efficiency? That's culture. The ways a group of people address or acknowledge their emotions (or don't)? That's culture. Different styles of communication (i.e. direct vs indirect, speaking vs. yelling, etc.)? That’s culture. Listening to each other or constantly talking over colleagues? That's culture.

"The way that things get done around here” includes a lot of territory. And things get done differently in different cultures, so the “here” is an important part of our definition. Culture can be described in countless ways, but it’s fundamentally important to human beings because it shapes how we act. Also, how we act constantly shapes it. NON-LINEAR RECURSIVE LOOPS! Wrap your heads around that…

In business, when people say things like “I love our culture!” or “OMG the culture suuuucks here,” they’re usually implying that they like or dislike the way things get done with their colleagues in their offices. Though it is shortsighted to say that one culture is wholly good or bad, it is obvious that the “way things get done around here” can be better or worse in certain areas and can be improved over time.

Like human actions and interactions, culture is constantly evolving. That’s because it is the convoluted and emergent sausage of our interactions. Before we go any further down the road of abstract systems thinking and non-linear emergence, let’s get back to the reason we’re here.

Culture shapes how we do things and sometimes we want to change that. What is our best analogy for culture change? What is it like to change “the way things get done around here?”

As an animal lover, a very specific metaphor comes to mind. Ever tried to make friends with a cat? Exactly. You do not MAKE friends with the cat. The cat makes friends with you. We, as the humans, have very little agency in the matter unless we involve heavy incentives (read: bribery). Culture change is similar to this. You, me, frantic middle-manager, big-ego CEO, Gandhi, whomever, cannot change the culture. Much like you cannot get that disgruntled cat to do something it does not want to do.

One can merely establish the right conditions and incentives where culture will change itself. We cannot force culture to change and expect it to last, just like we cannot coerce a cat to like us (again, heavy bribery could be your way around this). Culture change means changing the way things get done, which means changing behavior. Forced behavior change never lasts in a positive way (again, excessive bribery or coercion can help one get around this, but it is not advised).

I’m not saying that culture change should be entirely grassroots. Cats don’t often decide to walk up to you on their own in the middle of the street (obviously there are always exception). You need structure and a consistent message from the top and it needs to be visible. Don’t talk to the cat in a cute voice and then pet it in an aggressive way — it will bite you (employees don’t have the luxury of that response). You’ve got to back up your words with visible action.

Employees, like cats, can easily spot when leadership says one thing but does another. You need to set the right conditions and incentives so the cat (employees) feel like it’s the downhill path to change. But ultimately it’s up to them to decide and act on the change.

That is the fundamental challenge of culture change: it must grow on its own in the hearts and minds of the employees in order for it to be sustainable and meaningful.

Everyone knows super friendly cats who are game to try anything instantly. I love those cats. Everyone also knows those demon terror cats who will run or attack you if you even glance at them. Fuck those cats. Most cats are somewhere in the middle. Same thing with people. There's a whole normal distribution of people out there in terms of their willingness to change, and you have to understand that some will move quicker than others.

By setting the conditions for culture change and then providing consistent messages to reinforce it, we can hope to make cats / employees feel ready to change themselves. When enough feel that way, then we’ve got a culture change on our hands. But we cannot yell and scream at the cat and expect it to like us. Nor can we act erratic and expect it to buy-in to what we’re selling.

Perhaps our definition of culture was too complicated. Part of the magic of cats lies in their invisible complexity and unpredictable ways. Culture is quite similar. The phenomena of emergence and the non-linear interactions of many people make cultures defy easy categorization. Perhaps we are trying too hard to understand analyze culture, when we should really just try to listen to it. Ever try to analyze a cat? The joy with cats comes from playing with them and being surprised. Maybe culture is the same way.

The only major difference I see between cats and culture change is quality of the Google-search binge on either topic. I assure you that a “grumpy cat” search on Google images is about as good as life gets, whereas a Google image search for “Culture change” was bland.

Otherwise, the similarities are striking. We should focus less on forcing change that we want for the organization (or the cat), and instead try to better understand what changes are already taking place. Then we can better set conditions that move things toward our desired outcome. I have another coach who gave me a slightly simpler definition of culture. It goes like this: “culture is.” No time wasted trying to control it. Just accept it, pay attention to it, and maybe you’ll learn how to influence it.

Treat culture change like befriending a new cat and maybe you’ll have some success. But you better grab some catnip put your patience cap on first…