I have a new set of hearing aids. In the instruction manual, well before the explanation of how to change amplification and programming, is this:
You are not allowed to operate the equipment within 20 km of the centre of Ny Ålesund, Norway.
There’s no explanation for the rule, just the fact, which is why my wife and I were briefly tempted to burn some frequent flier miles, just to break it.
But cooler heads prevailed. Actually, colder heads — we live in Minnesota, which we figured is bad enough (Google Maps reveals Ny Ålesund is on an island roughly 1,000 km due north of Lapland).
Which gets us to another disadvantage of relying on policies, standards, and enforcement to make sure how you want everyone to do things around here becomes how everyone actually does do things around here, beyond those mentioned last week: You have to explain your reasons, which makes your policies and standards burdensomely long. If you don’t, you’ll tempt employees to violate the ones that make no apparent sense, just to see what happens.
Changing the culture simply works better. When enough people internalize how we do things around here, peer pressure becomes your primary means of enforcement.
How to change it? You’ll find a detailed account in Leading IT: <Still> The Toughest Job in the World. Glad you asked.
The short version is to change your own behavior, because culture is the learned behavior people exhibit in response to their environment, and leader behavior is the dominant aspect of their environment.
Before you do, you have to describe the culture you want, and there’s a gotcha. The temptation in describing “how we do things around here” is to be procedural: “When someone contacts the service desk, we first identify the caller, next assign a ticket number, then get a description of their issue,” and so on.
But culture isn’t a matter of procedure. It’s a reflection of shared attitudes. Your behavioral description of culture should reflect this — something like, “When someone contacts the service desk we assume they’re experiencing a real problem, and we take ownership of it.”
<SnideComment>Given my experience with service desks, and in particular with my current mailing service after many subscribers received five copies of last week’s column, I’d say this would represent a radical cultural shift in far too many.</SnideComment>
To change your culture you have to describe both the culture you have and the culture you want. You have to figure out what about how you currently behave results in the culture you currently have, and how you’ll need to behave to get the culture you want.
If there are other managers between you and the employees whose behavior you want to change, you have to pay close attention to how those managers are behaving, how you want them to behave, and what you have to do so they’ll behave that way.
A few subscribers asked if there’s a way to change the culture quickly.
The answer is yes. Actually, there are two.
The first is to lay off a significant number of the employees you have and hire to the new culture. It’s unpleasant to say the least — unpleasant for you, more unpleasant for the surviving employees, and … and I hope this is obvious … even more unpleasant for the dear departed.
Although to be fair, on the pleasantness scale the employees you hire as replacements might very well find the change quite positive, all in all.
Anyway, massive layoffs are quick-culture-change tactic #1. The second one is slightly less draconian — fire all of the managers whose behavior seems to be driving the old culture and replace them with managers who seem to have the attitude you’re looking for.
Yes, it’s ugly. No, I don’t generally recommend it. But if you need to turn around a seriously dysfunctional culture quickly, this is your most efficient alternative.
Start with the ringleader, and perhaps his/her chief acolyte. Reason #1: Fire all the managers at once and the disruption will be too great. Reason #2: Persuading HR to go along will be a challenge. Reason #3: Do you really want to be that kind of person? And most important, Reason #4: Once you’ve fired one or two, the rest will usually figure out you’re serious and change their behavior to match what you’re looking for.
And, in case this isn’t clear, you still have to change your behavior (and attitudes) too. Otherwise, the culture will gradually revert back to the one you say you don’t like.
And you’ll have to go through the unpleasantness all over again.
* * *
Four years ago in Keep the Joint Running, Gartner predicted that in just two short years, 20% of all companies would have no IT assets of their own — it will all have moved to third parties and the cloud. KJR’s rebuttal was suitably pungent.
And eight years ago you read about a popular technique for manipulating people.
You probably already looked this up. In case you haven’t, , states that “Ny-Ålesund is an international research station and is only open to scientists and invited guests.”
Below that, a number of rules for visitors are listed, as “vital for the environment and researchers”. One of those rules is “- Switch off all wireless equipment as mobile phone, Bluetooth, wireless LAN etc.”, which probably applies to your new hearing aids.
Why they chose that particular injunction to put into the instructions on your hearing aids is something else. Perhaps just to inspire the curious, or because of a previous lawsuit.
Or maybe Ny-Ålesund is quite literally the only place on earth where use of these hearing aids is not allowed.
According to Wikipedia, there are Very Long Baseline Interferometry antennae located there that make use of the same frequencies.
I’m actually somewhat disappointed that there’s a rational explanation for this. It was so much more fun speculating.
One question for you, sir.
What if you are unable to fire anybody?
As in an ongoing volunteer situation. Does one just make the best of it?
Thanks – love your column since early infoworld.
If you can’t fire anyone, then the quick path to culture change is closed to you. What’s left is the slow one – figure out what about your current behavior is resulting in the culture you have, and how you have to change your behavior to get the culture you want.
If a manager or two who report to you are clearly part of the problem and won’t get on board with the program, even if you can’t fire them (as is generally the case with volunteers) you can usually reorganize so as to move them to a situation where they can’t do as much damage.
hey, I’m only getting 2 copies of your newsletter, so your email service has improved. 5 copies down to 2 is a 60% improvement?
Implementing objectives with measures and targets will hasten culture change. If people don’t buy in,from my experience, they usually leave on their own.
Critical Success Factors, such as education, must be taken into account to determine if the employees have the capacity to change. HR should be of assistance rather than a hindrance in evaluating personnel with expectations required of them developing a development plan.
That’s assuming, of course, that you want a culture driven by measures and targets. If you’re suggesting a system of culture measurements and targets, though, I suspect you’ll find the data collection system will end up being surprisingly messy.