The mission, or vision describes the organisation’s reason for being in existence. It is a brief statement which clearly captures the mandate under which the leadership of a company operates. The culture of a company is the behaviours and guiding principles that bring the mission and vision to life. In other words, organisational culture refers to the shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterise members of an organisation, defining how it works, how it makes decisions and how it presents itself to the market.
Culture transformation is the process of changing the hearts, minds, and skills of the workforce to support the desired attitude, beliefs and standards that produce the required business outcomes for an organisation.
Culture transformation is a behavioural shift that can be organisation-wide or in individual departments and teams. Organisational culture transformation involves changing the behaviour of all employees and leaders in the organisation. For a successful culture transformation, individuals in an organisation must successfully transition from a current state to a future state by first understanding the need for change; being willing to execute change; acquiring the needed knowledge about change; and lastly, building/acquiring the capacity to sustain change. The result of a successful cultural transformation process will be your employees knowing what the organisation stands for, what defines it, and what separates you from other organisations. A well-rounded cultural transformation will change the way employees think, act and deliver services and products to customers.
While it is different for every company, the behaviours that define a culture are always there. The question is: Is it the culture you want? Focusing on ‘keystone’ behaviours is one of the underlying principles of transforming organisational culture. According to Charles Duhigg – author of ‘The power of habits’, certain routines make success easier. These keystone habits lead to a cascade of many successful actions and outcomes. “A keystone habit is a pattern/habit that has the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as it moves through an organisation”. These keystone habits are tangible, repeatable, observable, and measurable behavioural patterns that will have a significant impact on business performance when exhibited by large numbers of people. Companies that recognize and promote such habits usually build an effective culture that goes beyond employment to raising the bottom line,
Though not all our business problems can be solved through such simple actions of identifying and promoting keystone behaviours, it is however a critical first step for organisational culture transformation.
Identifying keystone behaviours can be done by following a four-step process.
- Define the goal you want to achieve: Firstly, you must identify the area in the organisation where change is needed in alignment with the organisation’s strategic priorities. Knowing what you’re trying to accomplish will help you identify and understand the actions and outcomes required for a successful change.
- Define the behaviours that will contribute to the required change: After identifying the key goals to be accomplished, it’s time to define the necessary behaviours that will support the achievement of that goal. To promote innovation, creativity and problem solving, a company may encourage a thinking outside the box behaviour which would pave the way for new insights and faster successful outcomes. Identifying these behaviours can be done through brainstorming necessary behaviours that can drive the achievement of the set goals. You can do this by asking this question – “In a future state in which we’ve achieved the goals, what would people actually do(or do differently)?” Next will be to review your long list of behaviours from the brainstorming session to ensure all the behaviours are specific, repeatable, measurable, and preferably applicable to everyone in the organisation.
- Prioritize the critical few behaviours.A common way to do this is to plot the behaviours using the axes of implementation and impact.
Complete the analysis by ensuring that each of the behaviours identified is plotted relative to the ease of implementation or impact on the set goal
According to Kristy Hull – an advisor to executives on evolving culture; implementation criteria can include:
- Actionability:Are people able to perform the behaviour?
- Degree of visibility:Can people see others performing the behaviour?
- Measurability:Can the rate of utilization be measured? That is whether people are performing the behaviour or not
- Speed of results:Can people performing the behaviour deliver results in the short term?
- Ease of implementation:Given the current organisational environment, how easy/difficult will it be for people to perform the new behaviour?
In prioritizing the keystone behaviours, impact is exponentially more important than the implementation criteria. Ultimately, the best choices for the keystone behaviours are those that will move the needle furthest on the strategic and operational objectives of the organisation.
- Lastly, validate the shortlisted behaviours with the company leadership.
While it is important to define the desired keystone behaviours and measure their impact, it is even more imperative to break the established norms and habits. Breaking away from the norm, unlearning old ways of working and adopting a behavioural shift can be complex. This is culture change in its simplest form. Leadership and technical capabilities (Project Management) and People are levers you may pull to promote change; however, the people part of the transformation is the most important for sustaining change.
Article by Yemisi Adedayo
