Cultural Change - What is it?

We regularly talk about Measurable Management as being a great vehicle for changing the culture of an organization but what does that mean? What is the culture of an organization?

In my view the culture of an organization is about the people, how they behave in order to achieve their business goals and satisfy customers. It shows itself in how people communicate, how they make decisions, how they treat each other and how they treat their customers and suppliers.

Organizations that struggle with change basically have a problem with culture. In these organizations negativity, fear and internal politics are easily identified and these elements conspire to strangle change initiatives and improvement projects.

The culture of an organization directly affects the health of the organization. It affects the agility and speed at which it can respond to change. The role of leadership is to develop a healthy culture in order to shape a healthy future for the organization, a culture where people work in association with one another, not in conflict, a culture that involves people and respects their contribution.

How healthy is your organization? Who makes decisions? Who’s involved? Who implements? The answers to these simple questions are the difference between a culture that embraces change and a culture that resists it.

While Lean and Six Sigma are excellent tools for process improvement they are weak culture changing initiatives. Dr Jeffrey Liker, author of the Toyota Way once told me that Toyota successfully changed their culture but it took them 10 years and they couldn’t tell you how they did it. Leadership somehow forced it to happen.

So when we say that Measurable Management is a great vehicle for changing the culture of the organization what exactly does that mean? We are saying that having identified a set of objectives to be achieved, Measurable Management focuses on how people behave, how they communicate and how they treat each other and their customers in order to achieve those objectives. It can do this alone or alongside other existing initiatives, working in association with one another, not in conflict.