The Journey at a Glance

The Journey at a Glance

In broad terms, your culture journey will look like this.

§ Assess
§ Define > Implementation - Behaviours, Symbols, Systems
§ Commit
§ Plan = Communication + Process Of Management



You first understand the culture you have, and its impact on your performance. Then you describe the culture you need, and the values which underpin it, and set goals for its achievement. You then build and implement a plan, based on behaviours, symbols and systems. Throughout, you must have a communication strategy, and ensure the process is managed with discipline and rigour.

Plan for three years to make a serious, measurable, palpable shift in your culture. Your will get movement in less time than this, but to start this process with less than a three year time frame is to risk your investment. A cultural transformation in a large organization will take longer than that.

This means three years from the time you make the decision to tackle culture in a conscious, funded and focused fashion. You have already been on this path for some considerable time
Most organisations that make the conscious choice to invest in the culture option have made a series of decision over previous years, which in themselves have moved the culture. In fact to be in a position to make a conscious decision about culture you have to have moved some way down the path of self-awareness.

A client came into his organisation as a CEO and immediately saw that there were a number of changes he wanted to make. His first three years as CEO was about making tough decision. He cleared out a lot of dead wood, he sold off several businesses, re-structured the company to give a greater line of sight with regard to accountability, at least in the senior levels.

But he still wanted to achieve more. He wanted to create a customer focus; he wanted to take his instinctive approach to accountability right through the organisation , he wanted to leave a cultural legacy that would live beyond him. We planned his three year journey with him from the time he made that decision.

A Typical Journey

There isn’t a cookie cutter formula for changing a culture. However, there are some elements which are essential for everyone. Think of these as phases, each will take a year or two; some organizations get through the first phase quickly and then take much longer on the rest. Or vise versa. It depends on the size of the company, the level of commitment, and the strength of your case for change. I’ll tell you a story of a company which transformed their culture in a period of around six years.

Lion is a drinks company with brewing, wine and spirits divisions across Australia, New Zealand and China. At the time of going to press (2004) they had a market capitalisation of around A$3.4billion, revenue of A1.8billion, profits of A$180m and 5000 employees. In the seven years since they started their work on culture, their TDR has increased by 180 per cent (15.8 per cent annualized) compared to a TSR of 99.8 per cent (10.1 per cent annualised) for the ASX200 Index, which contains the top companies on the Australian stock exchange.

TSR (Total Shareholders Return) is sum of the share price appreciation plus dividends, and generally considered a good measure of performance over a sustained period of time.

In this period they added A$42.2billion to their market capitalization. The growth in their performance closely parallels their improvement in culture.

Working with Lion Nathan since 1996 when the company started on this path, and our organisation introduced their staff to the mind-sets, methodologies and tools which started
them on their way. As they built on those foundations, we have been brought back in to play
other roles, or top up their learning. When speaking with different people we saw for the first time the whole picture of what they have done, and what have been the critical elements of their success. It was also apparent that this journey never ends they have plans for the next stage which are as ambitious as those they developed in 1996.

Talking from many people from Lion, I have walked alongside the cultural journeys of many organizations. There are few who have moved so far, so fast. I looked for the factors that made the difference. What was it about this approach that gave it the edge on so many of the others? Four factors made the difference in Lions journey.

§ Consistency
§ Focus on leadership
§ Link with the strategy and product
§ A mind-set of perpetual learning

The Journey Itself.
Looking back, you may have the impression the journey is a straight line. It doesn’t feel that way when you’re at the beginning. I want to describe the Lion experience because I think it will encourage you. From where you sit right now it may feel that you are not making much progress. As you will see, just taking one step is not making much progress. As you will see, just taking one step and then another.

My organization was brought in to help this process, and it was at this point that we first met the Lion Nathan team. Our first step was a workshop with the top team at which they defined values for the company, as well as holding the mirror up to their own behaviour.

The three values:

§ Act with integrity
§ Face reality
§ Passion for the business

Still stand today. Helping Lion Nathan design and run a series of Change Workshops, part of the Lion Nathan way for change this leadership programme introduced the company to the mind-sets and behaviours leaders would need to take this change forward.

The Programme included:

§ Personal responsibility (above and below the line)
§ For things to change first I must change
§ A 360-degree leadership feedback tool which distinguishes between constructive and defensive styles of behaviour

How Do Values Drive Culture?

Your culture work will give you new insight, into how organisations tick. Above all, it will teach you to see your world in terms of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. As a leader of a cultural journey, you will learn to operate on the balcony and the dance floor simultaneously to observe what is happening and see both the underlying value-set that is driving what is occurring and how others are interpreting this action.

To lead culture change, you will need to know how values actually work and how they play out through the behaviours, symbols and systems of your organisation.


What are Values?
When you work with culture, you need to be very clear on what is meant by the word ‘value’ because you will be using it a lot. Logically the word ‘value’ describes exactly what a value is. It is ‘what we value’. What is important to us? As a society, we value ‘integrity’ we are likely to take actions which benefit the larger whole. On a closer examination, these values contain an ingredient which puts the whole ahead of, or at least alongside, the good of the individual.

But here’s the tricky bit. Through our behaviour we show that we actually place value on a different set of attributes. We say we value honesty, but we also value being liked, and through our behaviour we hold back from telling the truth if we feel it will make us unpopular – thus the verb ‘value’, which ultimately guides our actions, and has come to mean ‘that which is important to us’.

It encompasses a much wider set of attributes than those normally described as ‘values’. This is not an argument in semantics. It lies at the heart of the challenge leader’s face in influencing culture. Culture is the manifestation of what is rarely valued. If an organisation values being nice to each other more than they value honesty, their culture will reflect this and it will play out, for example, in the way performance reviews are conducted, We can sit here and argue that honesty is a higher order value than being nice, but this is just talk. The walk shows that being nice is more important.

It is more useful to use the word ‘value’ to embrace a broader set of attributes than would normally be the case. This line of thinking results in two types of values, the first set will be familiar to you, they are more characteristics that enrich and benefit the whole and which most organisations would like to value.

Enriching Values include: Performance, Customer focus, Teamwork ,Integrity ,Honesty, Safety,
Innovation, Doing what we say we will, Environmental awareness, Developing our people,
Risk management, Pursuit of excellence, Service, Relationships, Growth, Balance

This list is inspiring in terms of its ambition. It describes our desire to set standards around what is and is not acceptable. It develops a framework for how we should behave. These values usually benefit others as well as us, and are thus enriching values.

To understand the whole picture however we have to create another list. Another set of things that we value, that are important to us. These are not talked about as values, and yet we do value them.

We call them Selfish Values, which include: Money, Status, Independence, Staying out of trouble, Avoiding conflict, Power, Winning over others, Looking good, Keeping everyone on side,
Popularity, Control, Being right.

The first list benefits me, but also others. The second benefits me but potentially at the expense of others. Your organisations desired values will undoubtedly be drawn from the first list. But to understand how your organisation ticks, you have to understand how both sets play out to create the culture that correctly drives behaviour in your organisation.

Many cultures demonstrate that the second list is more important than the first. Others struggle to decide on which list to place profit, and believe it can belong on either. Contributing to the good of the organisation as a whole, rather than simply one's own personal gain, is a values-based approach. However, for some organisations profit has become the only real value, and can therefore be self-serving espcially for those who gain personally from its achievement.


A question to consider is: What would your organisation not be prepared to do in the name of profit?

What is Culture?

Culture is what is created from the messages that are received about how people are expected to behave. Cultures develop in any community of people who spend time together and who are bound together through shared goals, beliefs, routines, needs or values. Culture exists in nations, corporations, sporting clubs, schools, families, religious communities and
social groups.

Humans are tribal animals; we are hard-wired to fit in with our tribe. We read the signals about what it takes to fit in, and we adapt our behaviour accordingly. This is a survival strategy. If we cannot do this, we either leave the tribe, or the tribe rejects us. As we adapt to fit in with our new tribe, we in turn reinforce these tribal norms, or accepted behaviours, and thus reinforce the culture.

The process is supported by peer pressure. Existing tribe member’s work together to ensure that the new member does not rock the boat, and thus expose weaknesses in individual members. Behavioural norms evolve over long periods of time, and are influenced by many factors including the values or beliefs which brought the community together in the first place, the nature of the activity carried out by the group, past and present leaders and heroes, historical events, successes and traumas, physical and geographical conditions, the demands and behaviour of external parties customers, owners, enemies and many others.

We have observed cultures which lift people to operate at the highest level of their intellectual and emotional potential, where the group really does exceed the sum of its parts and individuals seem to become ‘better people’, contributing more, whilst simultaneously supporting the success of their colleagues. Such groups deliver extraordinary results from ordinary people. We have seen others which turn fairly normal and well-meaning individuals into selfish, political, backstabbing monsters.

Behavioural norms become subconscious, they remain long after their original purpose disappears, and eventually may not be particularly useful in relation to the goals the community is seeking to achieve. This is often the case in organisations, because established behaviour influences the behaviour of new members, therefore cultures perpetuate themselves. They require extraordinarily strong and focused leadership and/or a co-ordinated effort from a group of influential members to change quickly.

While behavioural norms may be subconscious, amongst existing members, new members notice them most acutely, but if they are to survive, they quickly adapt to the prevailing culture. Where members may be aware of the cultural tendencies, they rarely understand enough about their source, nor have sufficient confidence, power and determination to cause change. Holding ones own behaviour on a course which is at odds with that of one’s community requires great resilience, self-belief and mettle.

In the scheme of things in a work setting, and assuming the required behaviour does not go beyond a certain personal point of integrity, most people adapt to the norm. If you are used to a culture where everyone speaks their mind in meetings, and you arrive in a new organisation where the norm is not to do so, over time you are likely to speak up less frequently, you get tired of being the only one to object. You find colleagues use you and your outspokenness to further their own ends. Your voice becomes less credible, and you build a reputation for negativity. At this point, most people adapt, or leave.

Cultures are maintained through the messages that are sent and received about what behaviour is expected. These come from many sources, and most of these are non-verbal. An early myth to dispel is that an organisation’s culture has very much at all to do with the values statement, which appears in the Annual Report. Unless the organisation has worked very actively on living its values over a period of time, the statement will be one of intent. A very fine intent, and a good thing to have, but it almost certainly dose not describe the culture as it is.

So culture is about messages sent. These messages demonstrate what is valued, what is important, what people do around here to fit in, to be accepted and to be rewarded.

They come from three broad areas:

a. Behaviours – The behaviours of others, especially those who appear to be important
b. Symbols – observable events, artifacts and decisions to which people attribute meaning
c. Systems – mechanisms for managing people and tasks.

Two things to remember from this:

Culture is about messages – culture management is about message management. If you can find, and change, enough of the sources of these messages, you will change the culture.

Culture is about what is really valued – demonstrated through what people do, rather than what they say. When the walk and the talk do not line up, it is the walk that shapes the culture.

Read more on culture and how to approach integrated culture change.