15 October 2024
“What are the most important factors that need attention to create and successfully implement a strategy in my organisation?”
This question was recently posed to Dr Tom Kennie, Founding Director of Ranmore, who will be co-hosting our upcoming webinar “Building a change ready culture” with Claire Carter, Partner at AQ, and Siobhan O’Reilly, Director at People Solutions Ltd.
Many different issues need to be considered, and no single blueprint exists. History, current circumstances, the external environment, and many other factors will all play a role in deciding what factors to prioritise.
As a basis for further exploration, Tom mapped out some of the factors which were likely contributors to success.
You would need much more than one blog to cover all of the above, so in this blog we are going to focus on the theme of ‘readiness for change’, linking through to culture and its relationship to change and innovation.
The field of management and leadership is full of ideas about the concept of ‘culture’.
Culture as ‘the way we do things around here’ highlights its wide-ranging influence on organisations; the often mis-quoted statement ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner’ (no longer ascribed to Peter Drucker) also emphasises its importance as an underpinning contributor to success.
Some suggest ‘change readiness is more than the absence of resistance’ to emphasise to some extent its links to the underlying values and behaviours which shape the cultural landscape.
Others propose certain prerequisites which lead to a successful ‘readiness for change culture’ including “change clarity, change commitment, change capacity, change capability and change effectiveness” [i]
6 potential issues which could influence the level of cultural readiness for change and innovation:
1. Acknowledge the Cultural Shadow of the Past.
Culture evolves over time and as a new or existing leader, recognising the influence of the past on the organisational readiness for change is an important first step. This is easier if you are new to an organisation – your antennae are attuned to picking up differences from what you have experienced and what you might have expected to be the culture.
As an insider you need to work harder – you are in a sense an architect of the current cultural readiness. You may also need some external assistance to independently assess or ‘sense check’ your perceptions.
Whichever is the case, an honest appraisal of the influence of the past is helpful. Ty Wiggins in his reflections on the challenges facing new CEOs refers to this as the influence of ‘your ghost’[ii] and the different issues and pitfalls to avoid when following a ‘hero’ or a ‘villain’. In either case you can start to characterise the level of readiness for change.
Low level of cultural readiness for change is often associated with circumstances such as:
The first leadership action, therefore, is to start at the top and work to shift the culture and diminish the shadow of the ghost through proactive approaches to new ways of working, more of a learning organisation style[iii] than that which currently exists.
2. Increase Levels of Psychological Safety in the Culture of the Senior Team
This is essential, if you, as the team leader, are going to be able to have a truly open conversation about culture and the ways in which to enhance the readiness of the culture for change and innovation.
Psychological safely is a well- known (and used) term in well- run organisations with a strong positive culture. At the very extreme level, when it is absent (think Harrods), it will lead to a toxic, exploitative and dangerous environment. Defining it is relatively straightforward, Adam Grant[iv] does so eloquently as follows.
| When You Have It | When You Don’t |
| See mistakes as opportunities to learn | See mistakes as threats to your career |
| Willing to take risks and fail | Unwilling to rock the boat |
| Speaking your mind in meetings | Keeping your ideas to yourself |
| Openly sharing your struggles | Only touting your strengths |
| Trust in your teammates and supervisors | Fear of your teammates and supervisors |
| Sticking your neck out | Having it chopped off |
If your organisational diagnosis suggests the senior team is not demonstrating enough of the left -hand column, then start working on building a higher performing team. Point 3 may offer a start point.
3. Focus on Cultural Readiness through the Lens of Values and Lived Behaviours
Culture manifests itself largely through the ways in which we experience our many and varied interactions with others. The level of readiness for change is sometimes expressed as a core part of the values which many organisations express as part of their strategic plans. Examples might include values such as:
Sometimes these values are translated into a behavioural charter to articulate expectations and ways of working. Over the years, I’ve seen some exceptionally detailed work on this involving engagement across the organisation, with one case involving thousands of contributions. A great start!
However, after this, 5 values emerged. How? by the senior leader making the final call and announcing them. Did they get translated into behaviours. No. Why not? “Well you can’t tell academics how to behave,” was one explanation I was offered when I asked the question.
The reality of embedding some form of cultural readiness through values and behaviours requires serious commitment and a willingness to demonstrate the behaviours in action. As one of my colleagues commented astutely, ‘Values need to be lived not laminated’. Another commentator, Patrick Lencioni, also rightly emphasised, “If you’re not willing to accept the pain real values incur, don’t bother going to the trouble of formulating a values statement[i].
As a leader seeking to enhance change readiness, a serious examination of the culture through the lens of values and behaviours is an important way to have an impact. If through point 2 the senior team has extended its level of psychological safety and maturity it is now ready to address this matter. Without point 2, however, it simply won’t get off the ground
4. Consider whether You’re Looking in the Right Place
Increasing levels of change readiness does require commitment and collective action by senior leaders. However, the incentive systems in many organisations do not give adequate recognition or rewards to those in senior roles to innovate. Given this, it is no surprise that I am often told that the senior leaders operate too much in silos, don’t collaborate across boundaries, and on occasions, block the sharing of resources linked to a cross-unit innovative idea. This is even more evident when resources are tight and workloads are growing. Changing the performance incentive system to encourage more cross-pollination of ideas and experiments might be worth considering.
The related challenge is to energise and encourage the voices of your mid-career leaders. The community which will be leading (whether in your organisation or elsewhere) in 2035 and beyond; they are often very likely to be both more attuned to the realities of the culture across the organisation and more radical in their proposals for change. Creating a forum for one or more such groups to come together to share insights and create some short-term innovation groups to address questions such as: ‘What sort of organisation do you want to be part of in 2035?’ and ‘What needs to change to enable this to be created?’ and ‘What would reduce the cultural barriers and encourage others across the university to engage’? These questions and the answers to them can often signal the levels of change readiness within the organisation.
5. Have You Got the Right Folks Visibly Leading Your Change?
Too often the work to create the right conditions for change-readiness is delegated to those who are highly effective project managers and organisational development specialists. These are important individuals and the best can be highly effective architects and facilitators of engaging teams in discussing the cultural dimensions of change readiness. By themselves they can, however, only go so far.
The missing part is often the leadership of the areas of change through highly credible senior leaders, both those in current roles but also those who have significant credibility within and across the organisational community. These voices are critical if the wider organisation is going to understand the rationale for change, the need for a different level of readiness and preparedness for change, and the vital role which a wider community of leaders can play in the delivery process.
Where this wider community of leaders gets involved, they can be powerful advocates to create more of a ‘social movement’ approach to leading change. I’m a big fan of Marshall Ganz[ii] and using the power of storytelling to build the capacity and readiness for change. The process of telling the story of self, the story of us and the story of now can have a substantive impact. It does, however, demand thoughtful engagement by those who are willing to share their stories as part of the process of shifting the culture. The work by the Rippel Foundation is a useful source.[iii]
6. Is your Decision-making Culture limiting your Change- Readiness and Outcomes?
The final factor for consideration is the extent to which culture impacts on decision making. If the prevailing cultural context demands consensus for any contentious change, this is likely to impact on the level of change readiness in a number of ways.
First, it is likely to reduce the willingness of some key stakeholders to step forward and engage in the delivery process. Consensual decision-making will be considered as being too politically motivated and likely to lead to compromised outcomes rather than optimal solutions. To enhance your level of change-readiness, you may need to challenge your prevailing culture to be more open to taking decisions which are not acceptable to some constituents (particularly some with ‘loud’ voices).
Decision by committee, or committees does of course have its place. However not all change decisions should be taken through this approach. Striving for the best outcome rather than that which offends the least number of people will send a positive signal to your community about how serious you are to deliver real change and encourage innovation.
Interested to discuss this further and be part of the conversation?
These are merely a start point, and we are interested to know which resonate with you and what else would you add. Join our upcoming webinar to be part of the developing conversation, and learn more about our new leadership programme, which will bring like-minded peers together to further conversations about strategy development and implementation, sharing insights, learning from peers, and developing innovative plans for their own organisations.
[i] Lencioni P. 2022. Make Your Values Matter. Harvard Business Review. July.
[ii] Ganz M. 2010. Leading Change: Leadership Organisation and Social Movements. Chapter 19. Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: A Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium Edited by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana
[iii] Rippel Foundation. Rethink Health. 2017. Toolkit for Developing a Public Narrative.
[i] Brighton J. 2015. Are Your Ready for Culture Change or Culture Change Readiness?.
[ii] Wiggins T. 2023. The New CEO. Wiley, 257pp.
[iii] Garvin D, Edmonston A. and Gino F. 2008. Is Yours a Learning Organisation. Harward Business Review, March. 2-9pp
[iv] Grant A. 2023. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t. Penguin Books.
