Culture, culture, culture - Do we need to change and improve it or help it evolve?

With 53.1% of respondents citing changing and improving company culture as their top critical challenge, I want to open a up a bit of a semantics debate.  Should we be looking to change and improve the company culture, or should we be working to help it evolve? Is changing and improving it the same as helping it evolve?  If so, then the debate ends. However, if not, then we need to decide what we are trying to do. Click here to read the full Survey Report 2018/19.    

“Change and Improve” or Evolve

Let’s start with the question, “Are they the same?”  Without Googling what other people think, pause and clarify what you think we are trying to do when we say “change and improve” culture.  When we talk about cultural transformation are we talking about change or evolution? I would like to say that we are talking about evolution, not change.  Change can lead to improvement, or not. Evolution infers improvement.

So, if we think of facilitating and guiding the evolution of a company culture, does this give us a better perspective on what we should be doing?  Think about it, when Darwin describes evolution, he talks about survival of the fittest. Is the concept of “survival of the fittest” not the same for a business?  The difference is that in the business world we have some control over the evolution.

Now that your paradigm is contemplating shifting from culture change to evolution, let me add the concept of mutation to the thought process.  Mutation is part of evolution, but it is in fact change. It is a permanent change (at least until the next mutation). So, for the 35.6% of respondents that cite their critical challenge being executing sustainable Operational Excellence projects, may I suggest that you use your hindsight to determine if you were trying to “change and improve” or were you trying to facilitate and guide evolution by predisposing the organization to a desired mutation (sustainable).

This is not just a play on words, it is a critical thought process when it comes to guiding the culture where it needs to go.  You need to accept that the culture is real and that based on the facilitation and guidance of Operational Excellence professionals, it will mutate and evolve.  During this evolution, the culture will always bring with it part of what it was before and go forward with something new and relevant to the vision and strategy of leadership.

Again, for those 35.6% that have a sustainability challenge, challenge your project’s intent.  Is it “change and improve” or “mutate and evolve”? For the 23.2% that cite their critical challenge as lack of leadership understanding and buy-in, you may want to challenge your message to leadership.  Is it “change and improve” or “mutate and evolve”?

Alignment is Key to Leading Cultural Evolution

Facilitation and guidance of the cultural evolution is guided by the vision and strategy of leadership.  I see a strong correlation between the 53.1% of respondents citing changing and improving company culture as their top critical challenge and the 23.2% of respondents noting that their top critical challenge is a lack of leadership understanding and buy-in.  I cannot help but wonder if the lack of understanding and buy-in goes both ways, making positive culture evolution difficult, if not impossible.

When sensing a lack of understanding or buy-in from leadership, it is helpful to pause and challenge your alignment to leadership’s direction.  And, when efforts to evolve the culture to improve competitive advantage are stalling, it is helpful to pause to challenge the organization’s alignment to leadership’s direction.

Alignment is critical when cultural evolution is needed to sustain or gain competitive advantage.  Organizational culture has deep roots and any mutations will have long term effects. How aligned you are at the start determines how aligned you will be down the road.  If alignment is off just a little, all may look good at the beginning, but the future state can wind up way off course as the two paths diverge. Continuously challenge your alignment when guiding a cultural evolution.

May your company culture mutate, evolve and repeat.