We don’t work in factories anymore, yet we still work together according to the same rules that were invented for them. Finally we’ve come to realize that organizational culture is the solution to our challenges. Not table-tennis tables or your organization’s values that are written somewhere on a wall – but concrete and tangible assumptions, values and beliefs of how a group should work together and be a successful business.
So here we are.
Now is the time to take matters into your own hands. That’s why after sharing some theoretical articles, this one will have a more practical approach to it. After all, you’ve got some work to do.
These five tips below are based on the best change management theories and my personal experience of making working together work, for the past years. They will help you to get started and know what to focus on. Use them wisely and have fun!
And as always, if you need help or want to learn more about kickstarting change in your organization, drop us a line.
1. Set a Goal
Before starting, it’s essential to set a clear goal of what you want to achieve.
What will help you and your colleagues to work better together? What behaviour needs to change? Or if you remember the Iceberg from my last article, Understanding Culture: what underlying basic assumption, espoused belief or value, and what artefact needs to change in order to achieve your goal?
A good example could be to make your organization work in a hybrid way, or to work in cross-functional teams to be more customer-centered, or to create more trust in the team. Before it’s important to think for yourself what you would like to achieve.
That doesn’t mean that it’s an easy task. I see it happen very often: an organization tries to change part of their culture by implementing a tool to communicate better, or starting to meet in a certain way. But after a while people stop using the tool, or meetings will change back to how they were before. The change just doesn’t happen or last long. That’s because it’s only focused on an outcome and not the underlying behaviour that’s causing the challenge to happen. It doesn’t address why people behave the way they do.
If you set a goal, focus on why people behave like they do instead of trying to implement a tool. Then you will bring real change.
When setting a goal, it’s also important to set a one that’s within your control. Maybe you’re the founder or CEO of the company, or maybe you’re leading a team, or maybe you're part of one. Based on your position, what you can do differs. To know what to focus on, Stephen R. Covey’s Circle of Control might help you.
The inner circle consists of all things you can control such as your own behaviour. The middle circle contains things that you can’t control, but only influence: how others react to you, for example. The outer circle consists only of things that you can’t control nor influence – and can only worry about: a team that you’re not part of.
What should you focus on then? In all cases, set a goal that’s within your control.
Before starting, think about what goal you want to achieve. Is it about changing underlying behaviour instead of implementing a new tool? Can you control it? Yes? Then it sounds like you’ve set yourself a good goal!
2. Create Safety
Next to setting the right goal, it’s all-important to create psychological safety.
Making people work better together is about changing behaviour, trying out new things and doing things differently. If you are too afraid to actually do it in a different way, change won’t happen. It’s that simple. Therefore, you need psychological safety, meaning you feel safe and are encouraged to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, without being punished or humiliated for doing so.
I’ve seen it happen quite often that an organization has a new strategy, a change plan, or a new initiative, where it’s completely clear what needs to happen when, to make it reality – but still things don’t work out. That’s because the organization needs to acknowledge the emotional impact that comes from the rational plan. Let me explain.
Changing people’s behaviour gives them learning anxiety. Because of the change needed they will ask themselves questions like:
- “Will I be able to learn what I have to?”
- “Will I lose my power or position?”
- “Will I still be part of the group?”
If you don’t acknowledge the learning anxiety people have, it will lead to change resistance. And to do that well, you need psychological safety. Once you have that, everyone can share what’s really on their minds withholding them from changing. And I 100% guarantee that once people start sharing these thoughts and feelings, you’ll realize that most people have the same concerns on their mind.
Recently a client of mine had just developed a new brand strategy of what the organization could become in the future, and what change was needed. To transform the learning anxiety into a constructive dialogue, we sat down with the whole company and every colleague shared their fears and concerns with the group.
With each concern that was being shared, we could do two things: Either we could change the aspect in the strategy that was causing the fear or concern, or, if we couldn’t change anything, we asked the individuals how we could support them.
Now because of what people shared about the strategy, we could improve it. Moreover, people felt relieved by having shared what’s bothering them, and more engaged to make the change necessary.
Psychological safety is essential to try out new things, and uncover the issues that are withholding people from doing the actual change. Once you have that, you’ll see that people are much more engaged, helping you realize your goal.
3. Involve Others
Now that you have a goal and a safe space, what’s next? Start involving others.
How do you do that? Just ask!
Asking others gives you very valuable input on what to work on. Ask them for example what their biggest challenges are in working together, or ask them what needs to change to make your goal happen. Since they do the work themselves, they probably have an idea of what needs to happen, right? Unfortunately I see that we think for others and make a lot of assumptions (I’m guilty too!).
Recently, I had a conversation with the Founder of a scale-up on how he could engage his employees. He and his partner had decided to give everyone a stake in the company, but unfortunately nothing changed. When I asked him if they had asked their employees what would motivate them, they replied they hadn’t.
Maybe for their employees it wasn’t the stake in the company, but it was having half a day every two weeks to fix non-priority but irritating things. Or maybe it was to work flexible hours so his employees could surf whenever the waves are good (as a surfer I’m definitely biased here). After the conversation, asking their employees was the first thing he did. Instead of assuming, he should have just asked.
It’s so obvious yet so many forget it: ask others. In addition to getting the best input, asking others engages them in the process, leading to minimal resistance. That’s because people own what they create.
Need help asking the best questions? Read this article I wrote earlier, on how to do that well.
4. Nail & Scale
“From now on, we will do everything differently”
When you have taken the three steps above, I recommend you to start small in two ways: what you do and who you focus on. Once you nail it, you scale it. Don’t implement a hundred things at once. It’s the worst thing you can do because it will only demotivate and disengage your colleagues.
Start small with what you do: Cut your goal into little pieces and try to realize just the smallest change with a small group of people. That way, if something goes wrong, there’s no risk, and if it’s not the right thing to do, you have some feedback on how to iterate what you’re doing.
If you for example need more trust in the organization, so that people work better together, start small by doing a check-in and check-out, before and after each meeting. Here you can ask each participant a question such as how they feel, what they need to be fully present, or what they thought of the meeting. Do it for the first time, share why it’s important, ask how it was, and repeat it next meeting. After some time you will see that colleagues know each other better, and you create more trust, for example by giving and receiving feedback.
Knowing who you should focus on, is just like making popcorn in the microwave. Have you done that before? If so, how does it work?
For the traditionalists under us who only prepare popcorn in a pan: You put a bag of corn in the microwave and turn it on. After three or four minutes most of the corn pops at the same time. When it takes more than three seconds between every corn to pop, you have to stop the microwave. Once you’re done doing this and you open the bag, what do you see? Yes, a lot of popcorn – but there are always those kernels that didn’t pop.
What happens if you keep the corn in the microwave for six minutes to pop those last little pieces of corn?
You will burn the rest.
What can making popcorn teach us about who you should focus on? I’d say, try to pop the majority. If you only focus on the corn that will pop no matter what, the rest won’t pop, and if you focus too much on the ones that will never pop, you’ll burn the rest.
Actually, recent research suggests that in order for a group to adopt a new behavior, only 25% of the group needs to change in order to influence and convert the rest. It’s a social tipping point.
When changing something, start small with what you do, nail that – and scale it by focusing on getting 25% of the group to adopt the change. The rest will follow later!
5. Be patient
Last but not least, you have to be patient. Working better together is not something you achieve by focusing on it once, or something you do overnight. It’s like training for a marathon. If I want to run one in a year’s time, I won’t be able to do so if I only run a lot this month and then stop. I have to continuously train myself for a longer period of time.
The word culture actually derives from the Latin word cultivare, meaning “to prepare the land for crops”. If you plant the seeds and prepare your land today, maybe you won’t see any results tomorrow, right? But you have to continuously work your land for a longer period of time, and then when the time is right, you will harvest your crops and profit off all the work you have invested in it.
Working on your culture is a continuous process and you need patience to do it.
Wrapping Up
There you go.
We’ve come to the real end of this series of articles. I hope you enjoyed reading them.
Now that you know the problems in today’s way of working, how century old principles are at the core of that problem, and how your organization's culture is the solution – you have some work to do, but you have the tools to make the people in your organization work better together. Use them well and have fun!
In the meantime, if you want to learn more about kickstarting change in your organization, get in touch.
