Professional Documents
Culture Documents
“We were surprised to find," the GE innovation champion said, "that it's a cultural
thing. You can't have a process for everything. Some of this has to be felt,
experienced, and embraced. Culturally and individually we have to find ways of
making those changes seem necessary. So that people do things differently rather
than simply making no mistakes"
Anthropologists and artists have been brought into the company to try and help
it's hard working, pedal-to-the-metal management "feel the difference" between
innovation and production, to help them find the courage to look stupid and the
discipline to find new answers when none have previously existed.
Culture is the sum total of the values, beliefs, assumptions, and traditions of the
organization. Culture is established at the time that the company is founded and
it develops based on the experiences of the people in the organization. It is not
the same as a neatly typed mission statement and cannot be transformed with
half-hearted attempts or superficial declarations.
We used to get away with treating the world as complicated or “folded together”.
Parts to be separated from the whole and reduced into simple things we could
understand, list, and control. Relationships reduced to hierarchical organisational
charts, roles to bullet pointed job descriptions, understanding the past to tidy
graphs un the company report, preparing for the future replaced by project plans.
Curiously Connecting with the world helps your organization understand how the
world works. You build human relationships of interest and respect with
customers, partners, suppliers, departments, universities, anyone and everyone
that can help. Managers encourage instant messaging, parties, social networking,
and anything else that keeps people exchanging ideas and solving problems
together.
Ditching Dogma frees companies from the iron grip of the one best way. There is
no perfect off-the-shelf solution for all circumstances. There are principles, there
are theories, but everything should be open to question.
Patagonia, the outdoor equipment company, began when its founder forged high
quality pitons to climb higher, more difficult cliffs. He kept improving the design
not because he was forced to by competition, there was very little, but because
he wanted the best possible solution. When he realised the damage caused by his
flagship product, he replaced it with specially designed chocks, metal nuts on
steel wire, to allow climbers safe support without damaging the rock face.
Of course, it’s easier to build these values and behaviours in at the start. It’s much
more difficult to break with the past and transform culture. Many of those
managers who are asked to make innovation happen are part of a tradition that
discourages innovation. They resort to dispassionate, controlling, negative, highly
financially focused methods to try and encourage everyone else to be creative
and collaborative!
Change Experiences and people will change their behaviour. Over time this
behaviour will become sustainable. An orthodoxy of unorthodox, If your culture
doesn’t have these characteristics you will have depend on companies that do for
the innovation you need. So, start from wherever you are and work outwards.
References
Kanter, RM, 2006, “Innovation: The Classic Traps”, Harvard Business Review,
November 2006