How to Build a Culture that Challenges the Status Quo

“We can't solve problems with the same mindset that created them."

Most people know Adrian Grenier as the actor who played Vinny Chase on Entourage. You might not know that he’s also a passionate environmental activist, documentary filmmaker, and sustainability expert. And there’s one title among his long list of professional achievements that is utterly unique: he is the Chief Earth Advocate for World View, a space tourism company.?

This might seem like an odd job for an environmentalist. Afterall, the space tourism industry faces criticism for distracting us from the problems that need our urgent attention here at home.???

Adrian was asked about this apparent contradiction at a recent ServiceNow Earth Day event, and I loved his response. Paraphrasing Einstein, he said, “We can't solve problems with the same mindset that created them."??

His point was that the view from space gives us a unique and valuable vantage and gets us closer to solving those pressing problems back on Earth.??

In other words, in order to impact the world, we need to change the way we see it.?

This idea resonated with me, and I realized there was a deeper truth there that spoke directly to the way I think about leadership and the way I try to lead.??

But of course, it’s not enough to see things differently. We have to do things differently. As business leaders, we won’t achieve our ambitious goals or fulfill our missions by doing things the same way we always have. If we want to build enduring businesses and value for all stakeholders, we must challenge the status quo.?

I’m not saying we tear up the old playbooks for the sake of it. We challenge the status quo in order to rethink what’s possible and redefine what great looks like for our customers.??

The world’s best companies all do this. Beloved brands like Apple, Disney, and Amazon are famous for their commitment to customer experience and their ability to continually innovate in service of those customers.??

If this seems like rarified air, that’s because it is. Challenging the status quo, at scale, is difficult. Operationalizing this mindset is a multi-variable equation, one that takes intentional leadership, broad buy-in, and trust up and down the org chart.???

But leading this way is both worthwhile and attainable. And it starts with the way you lead and the way you build culture. Here are three ways to ensure that challenging the status quo is part of your company’s DNA.?

1. Destigmatize Failure?

Let’s face it, challenging the status quo is scary. It involves the risk of failure, something that business cultures don’t typically incentivize – even ones that claim to value innovation. But along with innovation comes uncertainty. Teams must be comfortable with that uncertainty, and accept that failure is a possibility.???

The first step is to reframe and destigmatize failure. Leaders must recast it not as something to be avoided at all costs, but as an opportunity for learning and growth. In this light, risk taking becomes more palatable, and your people will be freer to see and do things differently.???

This starts at the top. As a leader, it’s critical to model this behavior yourself. You need to be seen taking big swings, even risking your reputation at times. Because that’s what we’re asking of our teams when we ask them to challenge the status quo.?

For me, this happened when I championed ServiceNow Impact, the value acceleration product we launched earlier this year.?Impact addresses perhaps the biggest challenge in our industry, time-to-value, and overall achievement of value. Previously, a customer would buy a solution, we would implement it, and then the engagement would basically end. The onus to derive value and prove ROI was on the customer, who wasn’t always equipped to do so. And while not a great experience, this was pretty standard practice in our space. ?

Impact flips that model on its head. Now we stay with that customer throughout their entire transformation journey.?Impact combines AI-powered recommendations, expert guidance, and premium tech support and tools to help customers accelerate the return on their digital transformation investments. To get this right, we needed to engage every function in the company to rethink how we did business and work together to create something holistic, new, and fundamentally different.??

Early indications are that Impact is a success – in fact, it's the fastest selling product in company history. But that outcome was never guaranteed. The Impact model was a bold disruption and a big bet from day one. Addressing the value gap at scale is fraught with potential pitfalls, and failure to live up to Impact’s customer promise would be hard to come back from. ?

In many ways my reputation was and is on the line.? But my team and I know that we won’t achieve our vision by running the same old plays.?Besides, if it were easy, someone else would have already done it.??

2. Create a Culture of Dreamers and Deliverers?

When we talk about challenging the status quo, we’re really talking about culture. And while it’s sometimes derided as “the soft stuff,” culture is at the heart of business strategy. Your company’s culture determines how your team sees the world, the norms that drive their behavior, and ultimately, how they make decisions and solve hard problems.??

You need to foster a culture that encourages people to be both dreamers and deliverers. To challenge the status quo, it’s not enough to envision what could be. You need people who can bring that vision to life.?And often, to really do something new, you need people who can work across organizations and functions, who?collaborate incredibly well to get something different done.?

This is, admittedly, a rare mix of traits. But you don't need to hunt for unicorn employees. You can hire for some of those traits and develop the rest through training and development.??

This dual mindset must show up everywhere within your organization. The key is to create a culture that celebrates both dreaming big and delivering big. Embed it in your values, recognize those who show up this way, celebrate cross functional teamwork aligned to a larger mission, and make it part of your company’s storytelling. When someone in your organization is faced with a hard decision, they should ask, am I dreaming big enough? If so, how can I work with a team of doers to bring this to life????

3. Flip the Script on Hiring?

When it comes to challenging the status quo, the more points of view, the more voices in the room, the better.??

It’s another strong argument for bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles into the way we hire. Not only is DEI the right thing to do, it helps create the diversity of thought you need to challenge the status quo.??

It’s important to widen the talent pool in other ways. The “perfect” resume and experience isn’t always ideal when it comes to innovation. When you hire someone with the exact experience for the job you need them to do, odds are that they’ll do it the way it’s always been done.??

This is a major reversal to the way most companies still hire. Most companies want to know that candidates can do the job, so they hire someone with that exact experience. But outsiders are an advantage in this context. Bring in people from different industries, with different skillsets and varied experience, and they’ll bring fresh ways of doing things.??

A great example is my colleague Paul Fipps, ServiceNow’s SVP of Customer and Partner Excellence. As the former chief experience officer at Under Armour, he comes from a completely different world. On paper, he might look like an outside-the-box choice for a SaaS company (performance apparel to enterprise software!?), but his consumer-focused mindset is exactly what we need. Paul brings an array of transferable skills to help our customers in their digital transformations. More than that, he brings an outsider's point of view and shares our belief that the best way to serve our customers is to do things differently.??

Challenging the status quo can feel unnatural and a bit scary. Large vertical organizations are prone to siloes, can be hard to steer in new directions, and often reinforce a risk-averse mindset. But while it might be scary to lead your team this way, ask yourself, which is scarier, challenging the status quo, or failing to unlock your team’s potential???