Why not culture innovation? Here are four ways to think differently when shaping the culture that will drive your business ambition. 1
that was able to be repurposed on what really matters. 3 FROM RISK AVERSION TO EXPERIMENTATION To truly embrace a mindset of innovation means accepting that some experiments and interventions will work, and others won’t. And that’s OK. Culture doesn’t stand still – it’s continually evolving and adapting. Embracing an experimental mindset means leveraging this and designing the interventions that are right for your business in the moment. After all, culture doesn’t have a finish date. 4 FROM SLOW ADOPTION TO RAPID SCALING For too long, we have just accepted that culture change is a lengthy process – but it doesn’t need to be. By focusing on a pilot area and developing innovative cultural interventions, you’ll learn quickly about what works, and what doesn’t. Monitor the interventions that are resulting in real change and scale these in other areas of the business. This way of approaching culture is fast and gets noticed by people in your business who feel emboldened and empowered to drive the shifts you need. It removes the impossible responsibility of one business function (which always seems to be HR) changing culture, and instead, builds a movement of people on the ground driving real, lasting change. These are the new rules. And for those who embrace them and the spirit of cultural innovation, the business rewards are immense.
FROM CHANGING AN ENTIRE SYSTEM TO TARGETED ACTION It’s easy to become paralyzed by the thought of culture change – it can be completely overwhelming. The key is to just start somewhere. If you’ve defined a desired behavioral shift or a cultural challenge, identify a pilot area to trial with a specific audience. Your chances of driving change (and getting noticed) are much greater. Then move on to the next area. And the next area. 2 FROM COMMUNICATIONS TO CULTURAL INTERVENTIONS Culture change often ends up as an internal communications campaign – values on meeting room walls, posters in kitchens – but fundamentally, nothing changes. Having identified a pilot area, focus on developing interventions that will influence desired behavior. We recently ran a program with the goal to build a culture where employees found it easier to get things done. One of the simplest interventions we implemented was reducing the number of CCs employees could include on an email – saving inboxes from unnecessary noise. This small change, made alongside other small interventions, created a big impact. With the success of these small interventions, we were able to focus on creating something much bigger. We posed an organizational-wide challenge to employees to save 1,000,000 hours. From the momentum created by involving people in the co-creation of solutions, the challenge was exceeded and 2 million hours were unlocked – time
stakeholders involved, and is too slow moving, too academic, or too expensive. But perhaps the biggest barrier is where these initiatives start from: A flawed perspective that you can change culture, as if it’s static, from one form to another. As Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, says, “culture change isn’t a project with a start and finish date; it’s an ongoing commitment to evolve and adapt to meet new challenges.” THIS IS THE LIGHTBULB MOMENT What if we stopped thinking of culture as a typical change program and instead embraced the same mindset evident in every other part of business? From products and services, to business models and partnerships. That is a mindset of perpetual innovation.
Issue 1 - Brandpie Energy 38
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator