Speeches Don’t Change Cultures

My friend Becky Okamoto posted a remarkable story on Evoke.Pro. She recalled her days as the Human Resources manager at a P&G Manufacturing Plant in Modesto, California where I was Comptroller at the time.

Her story is how the plant nurse made the organization’s very challenging business mission her own.

Context:  We were in an all-or-nothing fight to keep the plant off the restructuring block. In Becky’s post she describes how she took the time to engage all of her direct reports to understand the plant’s new mission, and then how the nurse brought this mission to life inside her specific health and safety work objectives.

LISTEN UP! If you are trying to change the direction of an organization, implement a new strategy or build a new team, THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO!

As Becky writes, lip service to goals and objectives … “compelling language” … is NOT enough. You have to take the objectives down to the troops, every last one. If you cannot connect their daily work to the broader mission, then either the mission is flawed or you don’t get it!

Becky’s story brought me back to the whole topic of our Culture Key series (see below). Strategy change, no matter how sophisticated and elegant, fails every time leaders don’t address the challenge of culture. Speechifying and clever charts simply don’t get it done!

Leaders who avoid the messy work of consulting, convincing, enrolling and aligning … of stair-stepping the new direction down to their lowest level employees … deserve the results they typically achieve.

 The Culture Key Series…

The Fatal Conceit … how poor corporate cultures kill strategic change. A story here about Anheuser-Busch before In-Bev.

Hard Work … some quick thoughts on why culture change is so hard, especially for hired guns.

It Ain’t About Process … some thoughts on why “process” oriented solutions don’t overcome cultural resistance to innovation.

Too Much Strategy Talk Isn’t Always Helpful … my take on the thoughts of some local leaders and entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses and winning cultures.

Overcoming Cultural Antibodies … thoughts on why cultures resist change and what is required to overcome this resistance.