Seeing Culture
You can't create what you can't see, and that depends on which theory you use
“Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.” — Albert Einstein 1
Einstein recognised that a new theory provides a new way of seeing, one that can cut through clutter and create clarity.
That was how he saw beyond the conventional Newtonian physics orthodoxy, revealed previously hidden mysteries of spacetime, and discovered one of the simplest, most profound, and famous equations in the history of science: e=mc2
What if a similar approach could unlock the mysteries of organisational culture?
Fortunately, a new theory of organisational culture faces far weaker opposition from established orthodoxy than Einstein did, for two main reasons:
Firstly, Einstein had to overcome a single, unified, widely accepted, dominant, foundational theory that was right at the heart of physics for more than 200 years. 2
By contrast, organisational culture is a messy, incoherent ragbag full of different theories and approaches, the first of which emerged only 40 years ago. 3
Secondly, whereas Newtonian theory had proven its power and prowess for more than two centuries, powered the Industrial Revolution and completely transformed the lives of millions of people, organisational culture theories have proved woefully weak, inept and ineffective – witness McKinsey’s self-confessed 70% failure rate. 4
So let’s take a look at one of the most prominent examples of culture theory, developed by former McKinsey consultant and The Katzenbach Center founder, Jon Katzenbach.
Styling itself “The experts on organisational culture, teaming and informal organisation” The Katzenbach Center is now owned by McKinsey competitor PWC. 5
Their website’s promotional video titled "What is Corporate Culture?" claims that "Instead of trying to change culture significantly, it's much better to concentrate on changing the behaviours because they're more tangible and measurable." 6
The video advocates a six step approach and asserts that: "Companies can gain a competitive advantage when they focus on changing a few important behaviours, tap into the powerful force of employees' emotions and enlist informal leaders".
So, let's try applying this six step approach to the challenge faced today by many organisations: how to create a culture of innovation and agility that’s fit for an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable future.
Step 1: “Focus on 'the critical few', a select group of important behaviours that would have great impact if put into practice by a significant number of people”.
The essential behaviour that would have maximum impact if put into practice by a significant number of people is to genuinely respect, authentically value, and actively seek out the different perspectives of others, thereby massively improving collective sense making, decision making and action taking.
Step 2: “Find a few things that people do that positively affect business performance, such as ways of talking with customers or starting meetings”.
The main thing that people do that positively affects business performance is to genuinely respect, authentically value, actively seek out, and co-create consistent new value by combining their different insights, knowledge and perspectives.
Step 3: “Make sure those things are aligned with the company's overall strategy”.
If the company recognises the need to create a future-fit culture, then people genuinely respecting, authentically valuing, and actively seeking out the different perspectives of others to consistently co-create new value is 100% aligned with the overall strategy.
Step 4: “Check that people feel good about doing these things so that you tap into emotional commitment.”
People naturally and automatically feel good when others genuinely respect, authentically value, and actively seek out their perspectives to co-create new value together.
So far, so good.
Step 5: “Next, translate those critical behaviours into simple, practical steps that people can take every day.”
Ah. Now we run into problems.
What “simple, practical steps that people can take every day” will cause people to respect, value and seek out perspectives that differ from their own?
Encouraging respectful, proactive attitudes and behaviours requires a deeper cultural shift than “a few practical steps that people can take every day”.
Step 6: “Finally, select a few employees who will respond strongly to the new behaviours who are likely to implement and spread them.”
If all you want is people to be a bit more polite to customers, start meetings on time or tidy away their trays after lunch in the cafeteria (a la Step 2 above), then identifying a few “employees who will respond strongly to the new behaviours and are likely to spread and implement them” is pretty straightforward.
These surface behaviour changes are examples of what Professor Damon Centola’s seminal research into transformational culture change refers to as simple contagions. 7
Simple contagions can be propagated easily by enrolling a few individuals to spread them.
But systemic culture change is an example of what Centola calls a complex contagion.
Complex contagions only spread through human communities, in organisations and elsewhere, when people encounter repeated reinforcements of new attitudes and behaviours from many people around them.
So whilst simple contagions may be spread by a few sympathetic employees, if influential people continue behaving as before, there won’t be the widespread reinforcement required to create a future-fit culture.
We can better understand the Katzenbach focus on simple contagions from their answer to the question in the promo video’s title - 'What is Corporate Culture?':
"Corporate culture can be compared to natural forces such as winds and tides which are there in the background - sometimes unnoticed, sometimes obvious.
Made of instinctive repetitive habits and emotional responses, a company's culture is a collection of self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing that determines the way we do things round here".
Such a wishy-washy view of culture offers zero possibility of seeing, finding and focusing on systemic leverage.
How might you influence “forces that are unnoticed in the background”?
How could you change “instinctive repetitive habits and emotional responses”?
How would you shift “self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking and believing”?
Fluffy flimflam theories like this are typical of the woolly waffle that emanates from traditional finders, minders, grinders consulting firms like McKinsey, PWC, etc. when they start pontificating on things they don’t understand - like culture change.
So, what to do instead?
The answer is in Donella Meadows’ seminal insights on finding maximum leverage for systemic change. 8
Meadows points out how systems thinkers “have a great belief in leverage points – the places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything” and then lists twelve levels of leverage in increasing order of effectiveness.
In seeking to achieve culture change by enrolling a few people to spread new behaviours, the Katzenback approach is an example of driving positive feedback loops which comes seventh in Meadows’ league table of leverage.
The two highest levels of leverage both focus instead on changing the mindsets out of which the system emerges.
So, how do you target those?
Here’s where Einstein’s insight comes in – the theory which you use must enable you to see clearly at the mindset level.
This becomes surprisingly easy once you recognise that a culture is simply the system of mindsets that forms and informs people’s awareness of ‘the way we do things round here’.
What does that mean?
Every organisational culture is unique. It is also systemically dependent on the mindsets of a small number of key influencers, not necessarily in the most senior positions, whose attitudes and behaviours, actions and interactions give rise to the clues and cues that everyone else picks up to make sense of ‘the way we do things round here’.
When key influencer mindsets change, they have a systemic knock-on effect on the whole system.
For example, when an influential individual renowned for ‘calling the shots’ starts being curious about other perspectives, this change of attitude and behaviour sends powerful signals into the organisation that new ideas and different opinions are valued. This curiosity about other perspectives is both the result of, and systemically propagates, a mindset shift.
Or when an influential individual known to hold negative opinions of certain colleagues seeks instead to understand them and their behaviours from their perspectives, new possibilities emerge across their sphere of influence. This seeking greater understanding is again both the result of, and systemically propagates, a mindset shift.
Focus your efforts on shifting the right key influencer mindsets in the right direction and the systemic effect ripples through the whole culture, changing:
the fuzzy “forces like winds and waves in the background”
the intangible “instinctive repetitive habits”
the evanescent “emotional responses”
the systemic “self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing”.
By contrast, simply tinkering with a few surface behaviours whilst failing to address the underlying key influencer mindsets is like getting Mark Zuckerberg to appear in front of the US Congress in a suit & tie, instead of his usual jeans & T-shirt, and thinking that’s changed Facebook’s culture.
Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947), the founding father of social psychology, famously said “There’s nothing as practical as a good theory”.
Conventional efforts at creating future-fit cultures of innovation and agility fail because they’re based on wholly inadequate and impractical theories.
So, experiment with seeing culture as the prevailing system of mindsets that forms and informs people’s awareness of ‘the way we do things round here’ and you’ll be able to see how you can create a future-fit culture with far greater leverage and at far lower risk. 9
Einstein’s challenge to Werner Heisenberg at the latter’s 1926 Berlin lecture.
Newton published his Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) in 1687. Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and General Theory of Relativity in 1916.
The term ‘culture’ only began to be used in the organisational context in the 1980’s following Japan’s resurgence from World War 2 devastation to become the world’s second largest economy and displacing or destroying multiple US incumbent organisations whose positions had been considered indomitable.
Big consulting brand leader McKinsey made this admission here. Note they say: “We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support”. In fact the truth is more that “We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to them being led by firms like McKinsey”.
The video is on the Katzenbach Center homepage and also on YouTube here
Damon Centola’s website is here.
Donella Meadows wrote her famous paper on Leverage Points - Places to Intervene in Systems in 1999.
For more detail, check out this 7 minute video and its companions.