The Culture of Pretend
Recently, I have posted articles that classify culture using a color scheme. The classifications are based on my own personal experiences and observations. Red Culture, is where everyone cares; Blue Culture, where nobody cares; Pink Culture, where people pretend to care; and Black Culture, is where everyone hates each other.
Pink Culture can be tricky and elusive to identify. As I have written, Red Culture, which is the most desired and perhaps least common, centers on trust, self-sacrifice, leadership, and action. In Red Culture, there is accountability. In Pink Culture, there is a loss of accountability.
In Pink Culture, everyone is nice to one another. Everyone wants to get along. Downstream process owners are tolerant of defective or incomplete upstream processes, and so there is rework. Co-workers are friends. Managers and bosses are friends with not only their peers, but their individual contributor direct reports. No one wants to rock the boat.
In Pink Culture there are parties and social events. Human Resources is organized around compliance and party planning. Hiring decisions are made based on personality and gut feelings. Pink cultures have signs on the walls and sayings and slogans that drive management. Performance reviews are cursory and devoid of real feedback if they are done at all.
Crisis and task management are prevalent in Pink Culture. People work in the business and not on the business. Family businesses often take on the traits of Pink Culture, especially when ownership roles and management roles among family members are co-mingled. The organization will start to manage around incompetency in Pink Culture. Managers become tribal leaders and not managers, with the size and influence of the tribe a function of the manager’s influence.
Pink Culture turns nasty when niceness turns into passive aggression. As the organization moves further away from results, people move to trade in influence as opposed to outcomes. Managers and team members may start to undermine or undercut one another. Because there is no accountability in Pink Culture, power starts to concentrate into the hands of the people who are best at working the system.
If the leadership in a Pink Culture is weak, then Pink Culture can evolve towards Blue Culture, where no one cares. High performers leave for greener pastures leaving nice mediocre people to carry on. Nice people start to realize that they have little or no effect on outcome, and no accountability. “Why should I care?” becomes the operating mantra.
If leadership in Pink Culture is strong-willed, or perhaps evil, Pink Culture can turn to Black Culture, where everyone hates each other. In Black Culture, everyone is out for themselves and nice turns to spite. Perhaps the White House is sitting in Black Culture right now.
Ironically, to move a culture from Pink to Red probably will require a phase through Black Culture. At some point, leadership must impose accountability. That requires a strong leader. The strong leader will likely first address accountability in management. Incompetent and nice managers in Pink Culture may undermine strong change managers, stimulating disdain. As the strong leader changes management, previously comfortable nice individual contributors from the Pink Culture may turn spiteful when suddenly they are accountable to results.
When changing a Pink Culture to a Red Culture, consistency is everything. The change manager must be consistent and resolute. When nice people know that the rules, boundaries, and expectations are the same— always, they will refrain from renegotiating the terms. Effort will move from petition and comment, to execution and outcomes. As outcomes are achieved and recognized, trust will develop. Culture will move from hatred, to indignation, to trial, to commitment, and finally, to execution. Duly rewarded and acknowledged successful people will evangelize the Pink organization, and it will slowly turn to Red, where everyone cares.
It is not easy but it can be done.