Leaders taking the helm of a team, department, division, or company often recognize that the organization’s existing culture may hinder successful strategy execution. Culture is often defined as the beliefs, values, norms and attitudes that form a group’s patterns of thought and action. Put another way, culture can be thought of as “unwritten rules about the way things are done around here.” Ultimately, changing a culture requires changing the ways that people feel, think, and act – which is a significant undertaking.

In my own work and research, I have identified eight best practices for culture change:

1.    Engage people in the process.

People commit to what they help create. The most successful changes happen when leaders actively engage people at all levels in all phases of the process and when there is a constant feedback loop between people on the front line and the leadership team.  Rather than hinting at the culture you want to see – be explicit about what changes are needed and collaborate with your people to implement the next seven practices.

Because I work in the arena of leading and communicating change, people often assume that I love change.  Here’s the truth: I don’t!  Like most people, I try to avoid change – especially when the change disrupts my routine, requires a lot of effort, or has the potential to cause me pain or loss.  And, like most people, I really only change when I want to, not when someone else tells me to.

The reality of change hit home for me over the holidays.  In the quieter time between Dec. 24th and Jan. 3rd I finally made a change I had put off for a long time.  I switched from Window XP to Windows 7 and from Office 2003 to Office 2010.  Not a big deal, right?  Wrong!  I hated it!  I couldn’t figure out how to do the most basic functions anymore.  I struggled for days to access old Outlook emails and I still can’t figure out how to get Word to show the screens I want it to.  I almost gave up and went back to my old software and operating system.

I’ve been busy this fall working on several initiatives for a variety of clients.  While the nature of the projects varies, three recent projects have involved sessions where we brought together the leaders who were working on a change with the people who were impacted by the change.  This in itself is not that unusual.  What is unusual is that in three successive weeks, three different leaders in three different industries all had the same epiphany.  After spending a day in working session with the people on the front line, all three leaders realized that while they thought they had been doing a good job communicating, their people did not share their own level of awareness and understanding.  Here’s what the three leaders said:

A few years ago, we worked with a technology company on the rollout of its new brand. We’d been asked to develop a training class that explained the new brand position. The changes that we were about to introduce would impact the work of every person in the company. There were new guidelines about how to talk to customers, new rules about how to use the logo and brand icons, and a new color palette for use in everything from external marketing to internal documents.

Any of you who have worked with high-tech companies know that the best way to kill an idea is that say that, “corporate says we have to do it this way.” How in the world could we get 7,000 “techies” to not only comply with the brand guidelines, but to want to? We knew that we needed every person to understand at a gut level why brand consistency, and therefore guidelines, were needed. So we started our program with a visual tour of some great brands—Apple, Starbucks, Ann Taylor, and Disney. We got people interacting and talking about why each brand was so recognizable. Time and time again, the audience saw that deliberate, consistent use of fonts, colors, and shapes helped to create a strong brand.

You already know that shared understanding is a key ingredient to alignment and strategy execution.  Now how do you get to shared understanding?

In the past, most good leaders would focus on articulating and repeating their points of view.  The idea was, “I am the leader, I know what the issues are and what we need to do.  I will explain it to you so that you understand and follow me.”

In a 3.0 world, this approach no longer works. According to Rod Collins, author of Leadership in a Wiki-World, leadership in the digital age is not about deciding and directing, but rather it is about leveraging collective knowledge.  Collins asserts that conversation is key to accessing this collective knowledge and that conversation is the catalyst that will drive the corporation of the future.

Fellow consultant and leadership expert Dan McCarthy posted this week about how important it is to clearly communicate expectations and how rarely we do it.

His post reminded me of a point that I made in an earlier blog post, “If we want to see it, we need to say it.”  In other words, often our expectations aren’t met because we haven’t communicated them in the first place.

He also shared the story below – and while you may have heard it before – I think it is a good reminder:

A CEO was getting very frustrated with one of her senior managers. She was so fed up, she was about to fire him. But before she did, she felt she should give him one last chance and hired an executive coach to work with the manager at a cost of $20,000.

Last week I posted about how important it is for change leaders to build a sense of urgency and act with speed, while at the same time avoiding the dangers of overdrive.  The delicate balance between urgency and overdrive has given rise to a phrase that I often use when teaching leaders how to lead and communicate change, “You’ve got to slow down in order to speed up.”  (Watch a video clip of me talking about this here.)

Interestingly, there are several new books and articles on this topic that are hitting the market right now.  In May 2010 Forum corporation released their new book, Strategic Speed.  The book addresses these critical concerns for leaders:

• What role does speed, or lack thereof, play in the high failure rate of strategic initiatives?
• What are the barriers, or traps, to execution?
• Do faster companies financially out-perform slower companies?
• How can I engage people in accelerating our strategy?

It is finally spring here in the Rocky Mountains.   Back in the east, spring unfolds slowly.  The forsythia blooms in February.  You start to see crocus and daffodils in March.  By April the fruit trees are flowering and by Mother’s Day, the dogwoods and azaleas are in full bloom.

Spring is very different at an altitude of 8700 feet in Colorado.  Two weeks ago our aspens and lilacs barely had buds.  Today everything is gloriously green and the lilacs are literally unfolding their flowers right before our eyes.

The difference in the two springs has me thinking about speed and urgency.  The trees and flowers here know that they only have a few weeks to execute so they make the most of every minute.

While the number of books and articles about change can be overwhelming, there are some universal truths that tend to appear in most.  The one I have been thinking about a lot lately is how important it is to be specific when we are attempting to change ourselves or influence others to change.

In his books, Mojo and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith uses the term “criteria” to get at the concept of being specific.  For example, when coaching an executive who wanted to spend more time with his kids – Goldsmith pushed the executive to be specific.  Exactly how much time with which kid? When?  Committing to spending 4 one-on-one hours with each child allowed this executive to track his progress and truly change.

The authors of Influencer present a similar idea in their book – claiming that for change to succeed, we need to get specific about who needs to change which exact behaviors.  They use the term “vital behaviors” to describe the concept and share scores of examples where change succeeded because the leader got specific.

In Myers-Briggs terms I am an EJ.  In the DISC, I am an I/D.  What this boils down to is that I get things done. I work fast. My personality style is often an asset because people can count on me to deliver. On the other hand, I know that my personality can also get in the way of my own effectiveness. I admit that I can be bossy. I sometimes plow ahead too quickly, neglect to get others opinions and ideas, and look past potential problems in the interest of quick wins and accomplishments.

I use the term “Overdrive” to describe this tendency.  Overdrive is basically the overuse of the “get it done” style. Many business leaders I work with move into overdrive without even realizing it and recognizing its consequences.

It so happens that two premier business publications (HBR and the MIT Sloan Management Review) addressed the issue of overdrive this month, using different terms.