Read the full transcript of Arthur Carmazzi’s talk titled “Creating Sustainable Organizational Culture Change In 80 Days” at TEDxMaitighar 2019 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Secret to Sustainable Organizational Culture Change
People always ask me, “Arthur, how is it that you can get such fast results in culture change with these big companies?” And I always tell them, “You’re asking the wrong question.” See, the question is not how fast, because that’s actually part of the solution. The question is, how can you keep sustainable organizational culture change in an organization?
There are a couple of things that happen when we try some kind of an initiative in our companies. Number one, people go, “Oh, not another one.” And, of course, the other one is that they come up with all of these people at the top, and they come up with all of these brilliant ideas, and they forget to ask the people that matter, the ones that they’re going to, quote, “change.”
The Need for Speed in Organizational Change
See, the thing is that speed these days is required for organizational culture change. We are in the PFB era. PFB, post Facebook. You know, when you’ve got your phone, and suddenly it’s like, “I sent a message 15 minutes ago, and they still haven’t replied.” You think something’s wrong?
Or, that email hasn’t been replied to in almost four hours. I think we should follow up. See, we are less patient than we used to be. We need to have things now. We are looking for instant gratification, instant change. And so, therefore, if we don’t see some kind of change, we immediately assume, “Oh, well, I’m just wasting my time.”
Do People Really Resist Change?
This brings us back to the idea that people resist change. Do you believe that people resist change? Because I don’t think so. If somebody showed up at your door and says, “Hi, we have a check for $1 million, and it’s going to change your life,” would you say, “No, no, I’m fine, thank you very much”? We don’t resist change. What we resist is stupid stuff.
We’re resisting the idea that if I am wasting my time and not getting a result, well then, I should be doing something different. I should be doing the same thing that I’m already doing in order to keep the results. On the other hand, if you start changing something, and you see that that is actually giving you results, well then, you embrace it, you accept it. And that is one of the key factors. Show results absolutely quickly so that people can start to get excited about culture change.
The Importance of Culture Change
But why should we do culture change in the first place? Well, maybe you’ve been there. It’s Monday morning. You get out of bed and you go, “Is it Monday again?” And then you go to work. And you’re not really excited, but you know, you need to work because you need the paycheck at the end of the month. And so oftentimes we go to these jobs as individuals and our lives are not really fulfilled.
Here’s the thing. If we are in a position to create an organization where somebody can get up in the morning and go, “Wow, it’s Monday, I get to go to work today, yay!” Then you’ve created not only an organization that will be more successful because your people are going to be more innovative, more excited, but you’re also going to create an organization that supports a greater purpose.
The Five Types of Organizational Culture
Let’s go through some of the stages of organizational culture change and why we need to know where we are in order to really achieve anything. First of all, there are five different types of organizational culture.
The Blame Culture: This is the one where people really don’t like to go to work. You know, you’ve been there. “It wasn’t my fault. In fact, if Judy had just given me the right information on time, I would have been fine. But she didn’t, so it’s not my fault.” And so what happens in this culture is trust diminishes. Nobody trusts each other. People are scared to do anything. There’s no innovation because there is too much fear. People wait for you to tell them what to do.
The Multidirectional Culture: Now the multidirectional culture, this is where you’ve got some cohesiveness in some departments, but the departments don’t really talk to each other. So you’ve got the accounting department, the finance department over on this side, and then maybe you’ve got the other guys in marketing on the other side. And they’re always fighting because the finance department has got their things that they’re supposed to do and the marketing department has got their things that they’re supposed to do and then of course the procurement department, they’re in the middle, and nobody is cooperating. And so everybody’s frustrated and they forget that there is one bigger, greater purpose for that organization.
The Live and Let Live Culture: Here’s an organization, they’re already doing something. It’s already good. We’re already making money. Why do we need to change anything? I mean, come on. We’re already doing okay. You know, I show up to work. I go home at night. Why do I need to do anything extra? It’s fine. Innovation doesn’t really happen. Why? People are complacent. You know, it’s my life, it’s my job. What can I do? And so we end up in a life and an organization of mediocrity. Never really kind of reaching for anything bigger. Never really feeling that potential of being extra valuable. Why? Because we have accepted mediocrity.
The Brand Congruent Culture: So you’ve got a brand, right? Whatever that brand may be. Whatever it is that your organization is doing. Maybe it’s a service, maybe it’s a product. And you go like, “Wow, that is such a cool thing.
Look, did you know that I work for this company? Yeah, that’s the company I work for because they produce such cool stuff or they create this super cool service that is happening.” And people are excited. Why? Because they believe in what they’re doing. And there is more innovation because they always want to improve on the product or the service. They’re always thinking of new ways. They’re throwing ideas around because they’re invested in what the organization is trying to do.
The Leadership Enriched Culture: And see, oftentimes we wonder, well, what is a leader supposed to do? A leader is supposed to tell you what to do so that you do it? Well, you know, maybe in the beginning if you need something, but at the end of the day, do you really want somebody constantly tell you what to do? I mean, have you ever had ideas that you knew would be really great, but nobody listened to you? And so a leadership enriched culture is one where the leaders leave their egos in their pockets. I know it sounds impossible. But when these leaders develop other leaders, then it doesn’t matter who’s doing what. The only thing that matters is the objective. What are you trying to achieve? And this gives the opportunity for everyone in the organization to have a sense of value, a sense of possibilities in their career. For even the janitor, the guy that cleans the toilets, to come up and say, “Hey, I’ve got a really cool idea.” And people listen to him. And even the new person that comes into the organization can take charge of a project and just happen to be more expert in that area than even the CEO. So the leadership enriched culture develops, cultivates leaders, leaders who are excited about the brand, excited about the organization, and people who take charge, never waiting for anything, never waiting for people to tell them what to do.
How to Evolve Your Culture
But it depends. How do you get, how do you evolve your culture? Well, the first thing you’ve got to do is you have to know where you are. Where is your culture now? Where have you started? I mean, doesn’t that make sense? You have to have a starting point before you can get to the next one.
So we developed a tool that helps organizations to, essentially, measure and then also test and check their progress. And this organizational culture evolution assessment basically gives you that foundation. And once you have that foundation, once you have that, now you see, okay, here we are. Maybe we’re at the blame culture. Maybe we’re at the live and let live culture. But now we know where we are. Now we can move up to the next level. And whatever strategies you use are going to support that.
The Five Pillars of Sustainable Culture Change
But what strategy do you use? How do you get people involved? How do you get people excited about culture change? I mean, you’ve been there with all these different initiatives. Everybody tries all these different things. Why don’t they work? Why don’t they last? Why aren’t they sustainable? And one of the biggest reasons, besides the fact that they take too long, is that they do not have the engagement of the people.
So the first thing you’ve got to understand is that it cannot be a top-down initiative. It can’t be the guys at the top. I mean, think about it. You’ve got like five, maybe 12 guys at the top. And maybe you have an organization with 1,000 people. Does it make sense five guys trying to convince 1,000 people to believe and think and value the same things they do? Or does it make more sense to get 1,000 people to come up with some ideas and convince the five guys at the top? It has to be a bottom-up initiative.
And oftentimes, a lot of organizations don’t trust their people enough. And it’s the people at the bottom. It’s the people in the middle. It’s the people all around that are interacting. They’re making things happen. They know the problems. They know how to solve problems. But oftentimes, they don’t have a voice. And when you give these people a voice, when you bring it in from a bottom-up initiative, that’s when things start to happen.
But there are five pillars to making this happen:
Greater Purpose: You must have a greater purpose. That means you have to have something that everybody in the organization believes in. Now you’re thinking, “But Arthur, how is that possible? I mean, there’s all these different diverse people and they all have different ideas.” Well, let me give you a little bit of research. In 53 different countries, we’ve asked one question: “What is your ideal working environment?” I want you to think about this. Your ideal working environment. So one of the things we found that no matter what culture, no matter what situation, no matter what education level, no matter what position, people more or less had the same ideas. The same ideas for the ideal working environment. They needed to have some kind of trust. Either trust people to do their jobs or let people trust you that you actually know what you’re doing. They had to have some kind of teamwork where they felt like, “Wow, people are really out to help me.” And then, of course, a supportive environment when that department over there was cooperating with my department. They needed to have some kind of clarity. They needed to see, “Okay, I know where I’m going. I know what I need to do. I need to have some structure maybe to help me understand what I need to achieve.” And finally, they needed to have some fun. And if you think about it, is it easy to get people to believe that they could achieve this ideal working environment? Is it possible that when you get people connected to this idea of this ideal working environment, that that becomes a greater purpose? Because it’s not just for them, it’s for everybody. It’s for the persons next to you. It’s for yourself, and it is also for the organization. And so, once you have the ideal working environment, then you have a greater purpose, something that everybody’s working towards.
Methodology: You must have a methodology that can help people to actually achieve it. Now, we, of course, use the directive communication psychology, the science of group dynamics. Now, there’s other stuff out there as well, but at the end of the day, how can you create that ideal working environment? What methodology do you have to get people connected, communicating, trusting each other, to get people to have more clarity, better communication, to help people to better be team members?
Common Language: The common language is about being able to communicate things that are big with small words. So, for example, there’s a lot of buzzwords out there, there’s a lot of things out there that are talking about, that you use like one word, or two words, or one phrase, and people already know what you’re talking about. So, for example, if I said, “Dude, you need sucked me.” People are going, “I understand what that means.” Only if they’ve had this training behind it, or this idea if they understand the whole thing. And that means because they understand, because they know what it means, now you can have communication without conflict. You can remind each other of what the methodology represents, of how to create that ideal working environment. So, once you have this common language, when you use it, you’re reminding people of what they’ve learned, of how to achieve this greater purpose.
Unified Identity: See, the unified identity is like a club. You have a club, and when you’re part of a club, the people in the club are kind of like your buddies. You know who they are, you accept them, you’re excited about them, and you work together, you create things together. But then there’s also the people that are outside of the club. See, to be in the club, this unified identity, you give it a name, because every club must have a name. Every club must have a purpose to create the ideal working environment. And if people are not in the club, that means they’re not really excited about your culture change, they’re not excited about creating your ideal working environment. So there’s two things you can do. You can just leave them aside and ignore them, or you can help them to join the club.
Supportive Environment: See, all of us want to change something in our lives, we want to improve something. See, sometimes we just say, “Well, you know, I want to stop smoking,” or maybe “I want to stop always being late.” And what happens is that within this club, within this group, you can trust each other, you can tell them, “This is what I personally want to achieve.” And the next time maybe you pull out a cigarette, the people around you say, “Hey, I thought you said you wanted to stop smoking.” And you go, “Yeah, that’s right, okay.” And you have this environment of people that hold you accountable for the person that you want to become, not what the organization wants you to become. Because quite honestly, you have higher standards for yourself than most organizations do. And if we can get the people around us to help us achieve those, the organization benefits in the process.
The Timeline of Culture Change
Let me show you a graph really quick. When we start this process, there’s a peak. Within two weeks, you can see very visible results. I mean, super visible results. I mean, people are excited, people are like, “Wow, this is amazing, we’re going to do great things.” That’s at the peak. That’s after about 15 days. But after a while, after about 30 days, this is where the adjustment comes. People start to say, “Okay, here’s part of reality and here’s how we can apply this.” And they start to adjust. Now, after that, about 50 days, that’s where they start to get the real confidence of how they’re going to put it together. And finally, 80 days, it settles. And there’s sustainability.
But in order to achieve this, you have to measure every part of the way. And we’ve even developed an app for that as well. It’s called Squadly, okay, with an I. And Squadly, see, the thing is that any time you have any kind of measurement, oftentimes people have like annual reviews. And it just takes too long. Because you know how whenever you achieve something, you don’t want to wait. It’s like, “Did I do it right? Did I do it wrong?” You need to know now. Because we’re in the PFB era.
So if you have an opportunity to give people feedback within 20 seconds, and then have that connected to an overall bigger picture of an entire year, you can see everything. And you’re giving people feedback to see, “Ah, okay, I’m doing this right. Wow, great, I got this at work. Great, okay.” And it’s simple, and it’s easy, and it helps you to maintain the behaviors that you as an organization, that you as a group of people have created, have designed in order to achieve your ideal working environment that requires measurement.
Measure where you are when you start your organizational culture. Measure it after a month. See how you’re doing. Compare it against the first time. And all along, identify the behaviors that the people have created for themselves, their guiding principles, in order to achieve this ideal working environment. Measuring the behaviors, not the KPIs. See, sometimes organizations focus on measuring the KPI and not the behavior that eventually gives the KPI. KPIs are way over here. Behaviors are here, here, here, here, here, here. So you know, you know I’m doing it right.
So when you go home today, when you go back to your jobs, I want you to think, how could you contribute to creating an ideal working environment? How could you contribute to just making people feel like they’re more valuable in your organizations? Thank you.
