PEr Chronicles: Changing the culture by helping people change

Karaoke KTV lounges, nightclubs and bars are fast becoming the new battleground in the fight against coronavirus pandemic as the nocturnal economy re-opens in some countries and coronavirus cases soar. In England, nightclubs were allowed to reopen with thousands of partygoers soaking up the lights, music and lack of face masks and social distancing. Holland and Spain reopened their nightclubs earlier in June but made rapid U-turns amid the resurgence of infections. Just weeks after issuing new guidelines for co-existing with Covid, Singapore tightened curbs after an outbreak at karaoke lounges.

The velocity of change coming out of the pandemic is generating new forms of financial and operational risk as companies grapple with serving customers, working with suppliers, and collaborating with colleagues—or just getting anything done.

Changes are hitting your people. Some are struggling, and some are thriving. As a leader, you’ve had to make sweeping changes in recent months to be present, action oriented, empathetic, and fully transparent.

But one question remains: what can be done to drive organizational and behaviour changes during a time of unprecedented change and a shift to remote working?

In some assignments, people expect me to change their culture of the sales organization right away. Culture is created by the people who work there every day. It is not my role to change their culture; they have to change their own culture. My role is to help them change.

I believe that great leaders set the direction, issue a clear challenge or goal for the people. And the provide support, help the people develop themselves as learners and leaders, and create the systems that enable their success.

Leaders need to create a culture where people are not afraid of making mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. We can learn many things from the mistakes we make. It is far better to know that we still have to improve than believe we know everything already. Most people come to work with the intention of doing a good job. And, more often than not, mistakes are the result of a bad process rather than malintent on the behalf of the person who made the error.

What does it look like, to work in an environment where leaders take ownership of failures in the system rather than blame people when mistakes happen? Where they see it as their responsibility as leaders to create the conditions for people to be successful in their work?

A leader is more than a job title. I go beyond my role and help others develop themselves. I make the extra effort to invest in my people’s development, to help others learn. Think back to your relationship with your first manager. How did that experience impact or shape your experience or definition of leadership? Who are some other influential people in your life? What did they do to go out of their way to help you learn to learn and learn to lead? What are some ways that you have gone out of your way to develop others?

As a leader, I try to allow the learner to have opportunities for struggle and mistakes made while pursuing their goal, while at the same time, provide support to build the learner’s capability and confidence. The learner owns the thinking and the doing. A leader owns creating the conditions for learning.

I get it: under time constraints, it can feel easier to shortcut the process, but I always try to hold myself back because I believe leaders teach the process of learning, not just the result.

One of the most important lesson I have learned is to demonstrate respect for people and that we make people first. You cannot change a mindset without doing things differently first, because experience is more powerful than being told. A classroom can introduce concepts, but it can’t change hearts.

Given the opportunity to see a different way of working, and given the right support, they could change their own culture.