As a leader you will inherit a culture you did not create at some point in your career. You need the right culture for success. How do you change culture?
1. Strong and sustained commitment by leadership
2. Ton of communication – explain why change is needed – how we will be and do better with change – make it clear why change is needed – what the problems are – why these solutions will work
3. Model the thinking and behaviors
4. Incentives and disincentives – economic and social
5. Leverage influencers/culture carriers – culture spreads horizontally and vertically
6. Never place a legacy culture person on a strong new culture team
7. Change thinking to change behavior and change behavior to change thinking
8. Be patient – give everyone time to change
9. Do not reward or encourage or protect the old culture – recognize/reward examples of culture change from old to new
10. Continually communicate/celebrate new culture success – better results
11. Make head and heart arguments
12. Identify why legacy culture members are holding on to it and work on their reasons – recognize there can be emotional/social/brain reasons why people resist changing from a culture that doesn’t work/not grounded in current reality
13. Protect the new culture
14. Pay attention if a legacy culture member is in a leadership position or has an audience
15. Let legacy culture members leave – if they have been given a lot of opportunity to change and they want no part of it, don’t keep investing time and effort – let them leave/retire – do not let them stay in key leadership roles without changing
16. Always hire and promote the new culture – at some point, it’s the law of numbers and the legacy culture dwindles due to converts and the infusion of new employees
17. Use all the tools – recruiting, hiring, evaluations, promotions, training, policy, technology, facilities, supervision, awards, etc. in the leadership toolbox – to create and sustain the right culture.
Sources: Abrashoff, 2002; Blanchard, 2011; Collins, 2001; Drucker, 2001; Grant, 2017; Kotter, 2012; Lencioni, 2012; Maxwell, 1998; Welch, 2005.
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