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Building a New Culture
Here’s how to stem the tide when the staff keeps drifting back to the old ways |
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| Question: We’re trying to create a sales culture, one where everyone in our organization is focused on sales. People keep drifting back to the old ways. What can I do? Answer: Creating a culture is easy. Changing a culture is the challenge, and it is not an overnight process. It takes constant reinforcement and focus of the entire organization. Recently, I was reminded of how powerful cultures can be. My daughter transferred to a school that is extremely sports oriented. She is the only one in her class of thirty whom does not actively participate in a sport. It's expected that you will. On the other hand, my son came home from school and informed me that he needed an instrument. Playing a musical instrument and participating in band is expected at that school and about 90% of the children do so. When I probed a bit further and asked why he wanted to play an instrument he cheerfully responded, "I'm in fourth grade and that's when we start to play instruments." He made it sound like it wasn't a choice. I was impressed by the "culture" that both schools were able to achieve. You may be thinking, "That's more of an expectation than culture." However, changing a culture starts, begins and ends with expectations. It's easy to expect people to adapt to certain expectations in the short term. After all, anyone can take directions. However, when you talk about culture, it's something that is so engrained that responses to the culture are natural. You respond out of instinct because you have been conditioned to do so. Think of changing a culture as similar to changing a habit, only if you're talking about a personal habit, multiply the time that it takes by the number of people in your organization. As with any habit, you will succeed if you are committed to the end result. Here are examples of what some of the most successful organizations have done to truly create change. Don't Confuse Sales Cultures With Direct Sales Roles — Not everyone has to be a salesperson, just sales focused. — I have seen totally competent people become paralyzed by overly zealous expectations. Every organization needs competent people whom are experts in their field. For instance, if you have a technical person who's main role is engineering, but has some customer interface, don't force this person to be a salesperson with individual account responsibility. Instead, by training this person to know how and when to communicate with internal and external customers, and by tying a portion of their compensation package to this, you have now created a desire for customer-focused technology. |
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| Set Organizational Goals — Mission statements are fine, but are usually too vague for any actionable consequence. Most employees just look at them as vague advertising slogans. Goals should be specific. Don't say, "We want to be a customer-focused and sales driven organization. What does that look like? Instead, state what you will do as an organization, how you will measure it, what resources you will give to it, and how others will tell when you've been successful. Communicate Regularly — If you have children, you know that the first time you ask them to clean their room it's ignored. The second or third time it's done. The same is true with culture. You need to communicate the message regularly so the audience knows that it's not going away. One of the best ways to communicate is to publicize successes. Share specific examples of successful actions in company newsletters and intranet. Hold Individuals Accountable to the Whole — Make sure you define the role that each person contributes to the ultimate goal. • Define the competencies required to fill each role in the new culture. • Assess the current skill levels required to be successful - Via simple paper based skills and knowledge assessments. • Ask individuals to develop individual performance improvement plans — with the resources needed, the actions they will take and the measurable outcomes (when they will know they have reached their goals). Managers and employees should then meet to compare results. A Single Training Event Won't Fix Things — Make sure that you don't invest in training when it won't solve your problem. On the other hand, do invest in training when it will. Sometimes we are asked to fix things in a single session and my response is, “What will happen afterward?” If training is the answer, a comprehensive approach is best. Introduce one or two skills at a time, giving the participant an opportunity to practice on the job before additional skills are introduced. Reward Contributions to the Culture. Certainly, the contribution that each department contributes to the ultimate goal should be defined, recognized and rewarded. Whenever possible, tie compensation and incentives directly to actions that support the new culture. |
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