Move your mind - culture is an outcome not a construct

Currently, phrases like "We need to change our culture" or "How to digitally transform your culture for XY" are once again gaining popularity. It seems that when many successful and high-profile company transformations take place, people attempt to make the concept of culture something tangible and transferable, which seems difficult to explain. Whenever it becomes challenging to explain systemic relationships, successful measures, and positive attempts, culture is often invoked as the ghostly form of success. The idea is that if we just change the culture, everything will work out. Nonsense. We can't change culture because culture is merely a pattern that emerges from successful patterns. Those planning to change it should be clear about this.

Traditional change management assumes that culture is a construct that can be altered using methods or tools to support the approaches and positive effects of a change. However, the assumption that culture can be changed is based on misaligned descriptions and perceptions of culture. These perceptions are rooted in the following components of culture:

• Culture as a deliberate construct
• People as conscious drivers/enablers of culture
• Methods as tools for changing culture
• An overarching or sovereign view of culture-changing agents
• Culture as a controllable element of an organization

Certainly, there are many wonderful aspects of culture that one would like to harness for planned change, but just as culture is difficult to describe, it is equally challenging to grasp and shape according to one's ideas. I believe it is extremely important to manage expectations in a change initiative by not talking about the powerful entity of culture but rather focusing on the level that leads to culture during change. This level, in my view, is the level of successful patterns of social and communal actions.

Culture as a Deliberate Construct, People, and Agents

The conscious creation or emergence of culture, as such, does not exist. This would mean that the different aspects of culture were planned architecturally, strategically, and practically, and that actions and measures were implemented that then produced culture. Moreover, this would have to happen with full intent to create culture. But a planned culture does not exist.

If we look at the essence of culture, one could simplistically say that culture emerges from the coming together and repetition of successful behavior patterns. However, how culture forms from these patterns depends, in turn, on other successful patterns. Applying a planning approach here would be simply impossible.

Of course, one could argue, we take patterns that fit together and force them into a pattern that equates to culture. Why does this approach fail? Due to the absence of people in the patterns. Certainly, patterns only emerge with people, but the assembly happens without people, or only by people who assume they have identified the patterns and believe they have a perception far above those involved in the culture. These are the agents who think they have an overview and insight into culture and its influencing factors.

Methods as Tools for Change

Just as people, and from this perspective agents, do not have an insight or overview of culture, methods likewise have no influence on culture nor can they lead to its change. If we view culture as a pattern of successful interactions among people, then we cannot apply any instrument to culture because the pattern arises from patterns.

The level of successful patterns is a more appropriate point where methods can exert influence. However, this requires that the method is sustainable, lasting, and, above all, accepted as successful. Here, we are looking at a multitude of variables, which again are heavily dependent on people as the center of successful patterns.

The person must recognize that the behavior is meaningful and helpful. If the person then aims for success in collaboration, the pattern becomes successful in the communal context. The community around the person must then accept and replicate the behavior pattern as successful so that it is considered a successful pattern in interaction. Copying and continuing to be successful leads to a successful behavioral pattern. Cultures emerge from several such patterns. Methods have the potential to provide guidance for a successful pattern.

Culture as an Adjustable Element for Organizations

This element, too, must be dismissed from the minds of change drivers. Certainly, culture is always an important element for the success of a change, but trying to change culture to make a change successful is like trying to alter the Gulf Stream to make Munich's climate tropical because people feel more comfortable in the tropics. I would fail to change the Gulf Stream, and if I did manage it with enormous effort, it would not only have the positive impact I want but certainly far-reaching negative consequences for far more people than those who would feel more comfortable in Munich.

As I have already pointed out above, culture cannot be changed because the emergence of culture is not something deliberate or forced; it is always a result—a result of successful patterns. So, we have already lost the component of adjustability here. We could, of course, intervene at the level of successful patterns, but even here, the necessary variables for success would again require time and effort that are not proportionate to the goals.

So, What Do We Do Now?

My suggestion in this situation would be as follows:

• Culture is something that emerges but cannot be deliberately brought about > accept it.
• Successful patterns can be established through methods but do not create cultural change > accept and apply accordingly.
• Cultural change emerges through a threshold of a multitude of successful patterns as an independent pattern > accept it.
• Experience, learning, and autonomy are driving factors in making behavior into a successful pattern > encourage, empower, let go.
• Change is always part of the organization, work, and development, and plays an important role in learning. However, I cannot introduce a successful pattern into a pattern that contradicts my own > method and behavior must prove themselves and be recognized.

Above all, we must let go of the idea that change agents, change strategists, and change managers have all-encompassing insight and knowledge. Change management can only work if I approach change with the principle of the emptying teacup:

A professor once traveled far into the mountains to visit a famous Zen monk. When the professor found him, he introduced himself politely, listed all his academic titles, and asked for instruction. "Would you like some tea?" the monk asked. "Yes, please," said the professor. The old monk poured the tea. The cup was full, but the monk continued to pour until the tea overflowed, dripping onto the table and floor. "Enough!" the professor cried. "Don't you see that the cup is already full? Nothing more can go in." The monk replied, "Just like this cup, you are full of your own knowledge and prejudices. To learn something new, you must first empty your cup."

If change management moves in this direction, then this discipline also has a chance to align with agile principles and, above all, to be a helpful companion to upcoming changes and projects.