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Matthew Hudson | November 11, 2008

In this blog, we have discussed self-esteem and culture earlier. Is it any wonder we can predict the rule of thirds? The third who support you are the ones who have already separated who they are from what they do. That is why they can so easily support you. The third who rides the fence is just waiting to see who wins. Why go to all of the effort if it’s all for naught? The resisting third is your outwardly vocal group. You must prepare for them. They will bolster together and try to gather support at lunch, coffee and smoke-break times. It will be informal. We have not witnessed a revolt or civil uprising from a culture change, so don’t worry. But this final third will be very frustrating for you.

The two-thirds who are not fully supporting you, can you blame them? Have you introduced new policies or programs in the past only to backtrack and remove or rescind them? You know the answer is yes, so don’t try to deny it. With this being the case, there is some merit to the case of the fence riders and the outright resisters. There is a chance you will change your mind. They need to know up front the difference between a culture change and introducing new parking procedures.

What we can tell you is that there are two basic approaches to changing your culture: one is the sneaky way and one is the brass band way. We prefer the brass band way. The sneaky way is when management tries to slip in bits of culture change little by little. This little-by-little approach is so subtle that it rarely has any impact on the culture cycle.

You are looking for dramatic change within your organization. You have arrived at this decision based on careful analysis and study. You have also decided that this change is necessary if you are to survive. So why delay it or try to soften the blow to your company? You need it.

The best approach is the dramatic, big show method. It is sort of like setting a bomb off in the middle of your company and then rebuilding the pieces. When you use this method, you are trying to capture everyone’s attention immediately. You want them to know that you are serious, this is not another fruit-of-the-month club program, and that you expect results.

Next time, we will discuss the key “opening moves” in culture change.

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Matthew Hudson | November 8, 2008

What is the Casualty Rate?

At this point I would like to say, “Here are the statistics on how many people you will lose.” Unfortunately, that is not possible. There are no lines on exit interviews that ask, “Did you leave because of the culture?”—although there should be. We have no way of accounting for the reason people leave, and for the most part, people will not tell you the honest truth anyway. Remember, people draw the majority of their self-esteem from their jobs. They will fight and protect this to the death.

There are a few things we can tell you, though, to help.

1. Culture change follows the rule of thirds. A third of your people will follow you with excitement and support the change, a third will resist it and a third will ride the fence to see who is winning and then make their decision.

2. No matter what size the company, the amount of resistance and the splits will be the same. We have studied companies with 200,000 employees to the 25,000-employee size and some with less than 100. In all cases the distribution of reaction was the same. (Our hypothesis was that the smaller the company the easier it would be to change the culture. That idea was wrong and also number three on our list.)

3. No matter what the size of your company, the culture change will be hard. Granted, the number of “converts” you have to make to your new service culture has a direct impact on the effort of the change, but it really does not affect the difficulty of the change. Problems will surface quicker in the smaller company, but the employee will stay longer and be more challenging. We tend to find the willingness to let someone go who does not fit the culture to be almost non-existent in the smaller companies. After all, you have been working with this person for quite some time and there is more of a family atmosphere in your company. How can you tell your “brother” that you have to let him go because he does not fit the new service culture? Tough!

Remember, there is something worse than an employee who quits and leaves the company - its an employee who quits, but does NOT leave the company. These are the ones you have to worry about.

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Matthew Hudson | November 5, 2008

Over the next few posts, we are going to talk about resistance and culture change…

In the animal kingdom, there is a type of caterpillar known as the “line” worm. This worm gets its name from its simple behavior of always following in line one behind the other. A group of scientists were fascinated by this unusual behavior and wanted to see how far the worms would take it. So they “led” the lead worm in a circle instead of a straight line so that the lead worm came up behind the last worm. And what did the lead worm do? Exactly. He started to follow the last worm in the line.

The worms would continue this circular pattern for hours. Then the scientists did an amazing thing. (Actually, it’s probably the worms that were amazing.) They placed food in the middle of the ring of worms in plain sight. And the worms continued their marching following in line until – you guessed it – they died!

How does this relate to your company? Be careful of the line worms who will follow old systems, old processes and refuse to eat from the new “culture” even to the point of death. But that may not be so bad.

You must accept the fact now that there will be casualties. There are people working inside your organization right now who will not like, nor will they adapt to your new culture. They will resist and fight you all the way until either they leave you or you leave them. This is an unfortunate fact of culture change. It makes sense, though. When you have been involved in a project or organization outside of work and they have decided to change the “rules,” you may have decided to quit. There is nothing wrong with this. Believe it or not, there are people in this world who do not think integrity is such a great value to have. It’s better to let them go than to let them damage your new company. Accept the casualty fact now or do not attempt the change.

It will be okay. What you have is a vision of tomorrow. This vision must have visible and unvisible signs for the people if they are to understand it and accept it as their own. Plan for this.

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