Changing the Organizational Cutlure - Final Part of the series

Creating a Bad Organizational Culture:

At the outset, due to the improper design, Organization A has a lot of inefficient and confusing processes and procedures. As a result, managers of the organization have to constantly “fire-fights” and “put the screws” to the operating personnel thus adopting the roles of “fire fighter” and “butt buster”.

Over the time, the behaviors associated with these roles take on a life of their own and now become the expected behaviors for that role (as a result of the inadequate processes and procedures). These behaviors morph into attitudes about how business operates. That is, all people are lazy and need their butts kicked to do things right.

As the original managers move up the organization, they seek to hire people of like mind or attitude so the behaviors can continue to support the historical roles to compensate for the poorly designed processes and procedures. As time passes, “fire fighting” and solving problems become sacred values of the organization. As these values become accepted by all, you now have an organizational culture that thrives on chaos and mayhem that continues to attract other people who are nourished by this environment.

We all know of such organizations. They appear as “ducks”…calm on the surface put paddling like crazy below. So in the end, you have created an organizational culture that values chaos, where the attitude is that the behavior of “fire fighting” is accepted in the role of manager who compensates for poorly designed processes and procedures. So, how are we going to change that culture?

Creating a Good Organizational Culture?

The first step is to implement a quality and improvement philosophy to focus on improving the key processes of the organization. Led by senior management, this approach will utilize the Voice of the Customer to determine what is important. Also the policies and procedures will be put in place to improve these processes and eliminate defects (defined in Six Sigma as any event which does not meet the customer’s requirements).

Since the processes are designed to be efficient and productive, the role of the manager will change to be one of mentor, strategist and coach. The behaviors associated with these roles are quite different then those required of the “fire fighter” and “butt buster”. Better designed processes and positive outcomes as a result of changed behaviors might cause people to reconsider their views of how a business operates (attitudes). Given time, the collective might consider that how they treat people and customers are worthy of being a corporate value.

Once the value has had a chance to become widely accepted, the organization can be described in terms of those values and thus we have defined a cultural element of the organization.

The thought process seems to hold up under scrutiny.

So, if you want to improve your organizational culture, consider starting at the root cause and don’t try to treat the symptom. Just a thought!