Creating the culture of your company or organization is sexy stuff. Changing it is hard.
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I have been a part of a team that built a business and culture. We did it for performance, value and growth. The company was Albridge Solutions which we started back in 2000. It’s a great story of trying and succeeding. Our reputation amongst our clients was “The Albridge guys do what they say.” I have always been proud of that.
If you are trying to be a change agent, that’s different. You are taking on the formidable task of a cultural shift. Be sure to put on your armored suit because you are about to enter the fight of your life.
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The power of a company culture is broad and runs through the DNA of your organization.
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Famed management thinker Peter Drucker is credited as saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I have seen “lunch” and dinner” as well. It appears as though he never said this at all. Perhaps it is something he might have thought. Some research shows that Mark Fields said this while working for the Ford Motor Company.
It just doesn’t make any difference.
The power of a company culture is broad and runs through the DNA of your organization. It’s why Drucker did say that attempts to change a company’s culture are a waste of time. He was a proponent of working with what you have. He often compared company culture to country culture.
Ok, that’s heavy stuff.
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The culture of the United States is decidedly Western. It was formed by a diverse group of immigrants that began 10,000 years ago. Any attempt to change it would require effort beyond the imagination. Changing your company culture needs some form of Herculean effort as well. No wonder Drucker said to take the path of least resistance. He believed you should use your effort for something you can accomplish.
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I worked the way I like to work, in jeans and tie-dyed shirts with music playing in my office all day.
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There are stories about cultural changes at Apple, GM, and McDonalds. Let’s focus on Drucker’s advice. Work with what you have and work on something that you can accomplish. May sound defeatist but I read it as realistic. I have been a change agent for many companies. I always point out I have created lasting change, but not the culture of the enterprise. We achieved this at Princeton Financial Systems (a unit of State Street). We are also working on it now with a team at Scivantage.
I have been responsible for the business side of the companies where I have worked. My units are Marketing, Sales and everything related to attracting and retaining clients. I am usually in firms of between 100 and 300 employees. They are Venture Capital backed or have already been sold and need to be cleaned up years later. Often the company who acquired the business tried to make the culture their own.
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Create marginal change in the right parts of a company. Use the people and products you have. It may just be the most feasible and practical way to help your business.
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At Princeton Financial, I was recruited by the CEO. He said he wanted cultural change. I delivered my findings to the management team after assessing the situation for six months. I announced we needed a culture change and I had found a consulting firm with expertise to help us do it. Not one person on the management team backed me. Not even the CEO, who hired me in part for just this reason. In fact, he didn’t talk to me for two weeks following the meeting.
Here is why.
I have had four years to think about it. In short, I called the CEO’s baby ugly. Then threatened to disturb a management team that was on auto-pilot.
So what did I do?
I reworked my units. Said goodbye to some of the old team and brought in some new talent. We built a marketing automation platform that changed how we attracted, sold and retained clients. We introduced a value-oriented approach to pricing and selling. We changed everything that was in my realm of responsibility.
I worked the way I like to work, in jeans and tie-dyed shirts with music playing in my office all day. Remember this was a unit of one of the country’s largest banks.
So what happened?
My group delivered a record sales year in 2013 after more than 20 years of being a stand-alone unit. I think some of it came from the work my team and I did together. We made measured change in specific areas of the company to improve the business. It was better than the wholesale change that would have taken millions of dollars and resulted in massive layoffs.
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I talk to my old colleagues as I like to check in on how they are doing and let them know what we are doing. They say I had an impact on the business.
The lesson here is as simple as Drucker described. Create marginal change in the right parts of a company. Use the people and products you have. It may just be the most feasible and practical way to help your business.
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Photo: Getty Images
