“The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do”. — Steve Jobs 1
The 17-minute Future-Fit Culture Frequently Asked Questions video above addresses the following detailed question:
Geoff, I work in an organisation that employs about 1400 people plus quite a lot of contractors. It has grown organically over 40 years and I am part of a leadership team reporting to a Director. I like to think I have some influence.
The organisation is quite siloed and we rarely “cross the aisle” for long or with much depth of purpose. Some of the senior people love process as a perceived way to control chaos. Others like hands-on control of their own chaos and resist process and delegation. The most senior people are not very visible and don’t do much to set the tone of the culture. My role includes tackling problems of siloes and fiefdoms — which I do my best to help untangle.
I am only one year in, and would like greater clarity on what part I can play in influencing conditions to improve the culture. So my question is:
"Can you break down what it could actually look like day-to-day if senior people were trying to create conditions for emergence of a future-fit culture? I think many people can agree with the concept and even desire it, but how does one get started?"
For example would team members slowly see that some historical practices have ended and some new ones have become the norm? Would it be best to change conditions slowly without fanfare – or loudly and openly? All of it seems to hinge on the self-awareness of senior people to assess conditions to begin with and then consciously choose which to keep and nurture, which to axe and which to introduce. And what role could someone like me in a boundary-spanner role play to support things?
I tackle this question in the video above, highlighting several key takeaways :
Key Influencers are not always senior executives
We’re used to thinking that organisations and their cultures are dictated by the senior executives. It’s of course true that in most organisations some of the senior executives play a significant part in influencing the culture. But it’s also true that some other senior executives don’t influence the culture that much. Not only that, but in all organisations there are other key influencers who don’t have much formal power or position but who disproportionately impact “the way we do things round here”.
Only those who SEE it can BE it
Only those who see the need for a future-fit culture of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness can take the lead as a catalyst for influencing the conditions in which a future-fit culture can emerge. If this is you, you may not think of yourself as having that much influence. But by embodying certain character traits you can exert much more influence than you might currently recognise...
Diversity is vitally important
Diverse people with different experiences, priorities, and perspectives are essential for future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness. For example, organisations always need some people who favour “creating and following defined processes” and others who prefer to “fly by the seat of their pants”. An effective future-fit culture catalyst helps unblock, unlock, and unleash these diverse contributions in ways that help the whole to become greater than the sum of its parts. As Peter Drucker consistently reiterated throughout his long career: “To make people’s strengths productive is the unique purpose of organisation. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant”. 2
Culture catalysts must “be the change”
The foundational stance of an effective future-fit culture catalyst is to maintain the awareness that others are competent and well intentioned, often despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
We all tend to be quick to judge others as incompetent (having an aptitude problem), or unreasonable (having an an attitude problem) — or both. Allow this to creep into your perception of them even subtly and they will pick it up, it will trigger psychological defensiveness, and they’ll double down on their narrow, biased, and one-sided 2D perspective. Consequently you’ll have unnecessarily made a whole lot more difficult your challenge of helping them to look for the value in the different 2D perspectives of others.
Steer well clear of fanfare and razzmatazz
One of the major failings of the big ticket “song and dance” transformational change programs stage managed by mainstream “Big Con” management consulting firms is the defensive reactions they trigger. That suits the suits because they can blame the failure of their own fundamentally flawed methods on “employee resistance”. This opens the path to selling major follow-on consulting projects to address problems created by their own deeply defective and dysfunctional methods…
An effective future-fit culture catalyst will address the cherished and strongly held 2D perspectives of individuals skilfully, face to face, one on one, behind the scenes, below the radar, in informal low-threat ways. This is especially vital when the people holding those perspectives are senior executives or other key influencers.
Showing is better than Telling — but Discovering is best by far
Showing and/or telling can, under certain circumstances, help people escape the trap of their own 2D perspective and see the value in combining these with the different 2D perspectives of others who see aspects of situations that they don’t yet see for themselves.
However, showing and telling — even with the best of intentions — can easily trigger defensive reactions, causing people to double down on their existing 2D perspectives. It’s much more powerful to focus on creating conditions that make “aha” moments more likely, so individuals see for themselves beyond the limits of their current perspectives for and by themselves. The foundation for creating such conditions is your own embodiment of certain character traits (see the article “Traits of a future-fit culture catalyst” linked below)
Some further things to consider:
Culture is an inside job
Culture is experienced as “the way we do things round here” and as such emerges from the actions and interactions going on in the body of an organisation. The role of senior executives is not to design, or impose, or worst of all, attempt to import a culture — but to create the conditions for emergence of a future-fit culture. One of those conditions is that even if the senior executives themselves aren’t fully focused on deeply embracing and embodying the character traits of effective future-fit culture catalysts, they actively support and encourage people working within the organisation — as employees, not external contractors — who are.
Future-fit culture catalysts as “virulent facilitators”
Unlike traditional facilitators who take on the burden of resolving organisational conflicts and misalignments, allowing perpetrators to sit back and avoid personal change, future-fit culture catalysts not only help resolve conflicting 2D perspectives but seek to “infect” others with the capacity to do more of this for themselves.
In other words, they focus on cultivating the capacity for future-fitness in the fabric of the organisation. And if things do blow up and they need to step in, instead of just firefighting they focus on future fire protection and combustion risk reduction.
The above is not as new as it may appear
Leadership is, and has always been, the capacity of a human community to shape its future. In the relatively certain and predictable past, organisations could survive by unlocking embarrassingly little of that community capacity. They no longer can — but old habits die hard.
Furthermore, the main responsibility of senior executives is, and has always been, creating conditions for success. Traditionally they sought to do that by dominating sense making and decision making — delegating action taking to others. This no longer works because, by the time they’ve done that, the world has moved on and it’s back to square one. However, again, old habits die hard.
Future-fit culture catalysts help organisations leave behind the past and develop the required new habits, first and foremost by example.
The above video references this previous article:
Ready to take action?
My website provides a range of free resources to help you make the shift for yourselves, by yourselves, from “organisation as machine to be designed and operated” to “organisation as human community for shaping its future by creating continuous new value”.
Contact me to keynote at your next leadership conference or executive retreat, book one of my popular 90-minute "pick Geoff’s brains" sessions for senior executives, or tailor a custom coaching package for your development as a future-fit culture catalyst.
The full script used by Steve Jobs in Apple’s famous 1997 advert: “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” You can listen to Steve Jobs narrating it here.
Drucker is often cited as the founder of modern management. The sentiment regarding strengths and weaknesses appeared consistently throughout his work. This specific quote is from his book The Effective Executive (2007 p67).
