Natalie Wood once observed, "The only time you can change a man is when he is a baby." If there's even a morsel of truth in her comment, then imagine how difficult it must be to change the culture in a workplace. Many people feel that changing a workplace culture is akin to corralling a herd of feral cats while trying to nail jelly to the wall of the Titanic (yup, it's a cliche super storm).
Yes, it's challenging. And no, you can't do it overnight - especially since the job of nurturing an inspiring culture is never finished. But yes, you can do it, and, as many organizations have shown, you can make a dramatic change to your culture faster than you might think. Here are five ways to jump start a cultural shift in your organization:
1. Focus on the Important Stuff: The Denmark supermarket chain
Irma transformed their culture (and saved their business) when the CEO decided to try a revolutionary new approach:
putting people first. To achieve that goal the company focused on three
areas:
Leadership training based on personal development, open communication
(including a very personal and heartfelt weekly newsletter that
helped build trust and openness), and celebrating positive results.
Within less than a year Irma became profitable and today is recognized
as the fifth best workplace in Denmark and the best retailer to work for
in Europe.
2. Do a Values Blitz: AFA JCDecaux (a Copenhagen-based outdoor advertising company whose CEO I interviewed last year) transformed their culture within six months by relentlessly focusing on one of their four core values one week at a time, cycling through a different value each week until it became engrained into everyone's behaviors.
3. Create a 3 in 3 Culture Challenge: Challenge every employee and every team to do three things in the next three months to contribute to a more positive, inspiring culture.
4. Have Conversations, Not Meetings: Michael Abrashoff, the commander of the USS Benfold, changed the culture of his ship by having a conversation with every crew member about the kind of ship they wanted to serve aboard. That was it. Nothing fancy schmancy: in-depth conversations which led to a common understanding of the culture resulted in an increase in the crew retention rate from 29% to 100%.
5. Try a VCR Approach: Use signs, posters, badges, buttons, bumper stickers, or mascots to create a Visual reminder of the desired goal; Communicate success stories on a consistent basis (open meetings with a "culture moment" or create a story section on your intranet); Recognize employees and teams who model the desired behavior.
