SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
Culture Shift: Are Hidden Cultural Roadblocks Holding You Back?
July 07, 2008
Not even the most motivated workforce in the world can get past these fatal—and hidden—cultural barriers.
By Paul Levesque
Success in business is virtually impossible unless all employees are aligned toward a common objective that feels equally meaningful to all of them. But cultural alignment does not guarantee success in itself—there are still pitfalls to avoid, obstacles to overcome. And whereas cultural alignment (and its absence) are both highly visible at a glance, many of the most treacherous cultural barriers are harder to see, if not outright invisible.
What follows is a summary of the three major types of hidden cultural roadblocks—the three with the greatest potential to bring any organization's advance to a standstill.
1. Ideological Roadblocks ("There seems to be a Sacred Cow on the track").
Woven deeply into the cultural fabric of every organization are certain taboos, certain "untouchable" ideas or ways of doing things that no one would dare challenge. These typically vary from company to company, and are unique to the organization—for example, "We will never serve frozen French fries," or "If it's not made of glass, it's not real." These are often originally instituted by the company's founders, and have become almost mythic in the minds of managers at all levels. They're what made the company's pioneers successful, perhaps even "legends."
But where in the past these sacred cows may have symbolized an exciting innovation, today they may be outdated—and far from helpful. If Kodak, for example, still clung to an image of itself as the world's premiere manufacturer of photographic film, then the advent of digital photography would have signaled the end of the road. But because the company was able to challenge that sacred cow, and see itself instead as in the "preserving memories with pictures" business, it's continued to thrive in the digital era.
Leadership test: Who will muster the courage to challenge your company's sacred cows (and even put them to the sword, if necessary) in order to clear the way for success in today's business environment?
2. Operational Roadblocks ("We value our employees above everything else. Here’s the latest list of layoffs").
Time sheets must be filled in daily. If any office supplies are required, ask Debbie to unlock the cabinet. No purchases of any kind can be made without Tom's authorization. Make sure to present your doctor's certificate to validate your sick leave.
Jan is reprimanded for not handing in her time sheets. She intended to, but needed blank forms out of the locked storage cabinet. Debbie (the cabinet custodian) was away from her desk, trying to get a purchase authorization from Tom—who at the time was at his doctor's office, securing validation for his sick-day last week.
In most organizations it's easy to find rules, procedures and systems that were created solely for the convenience of management. Many of these take employee's focus away from the larger mission—and many of them become key sources of frustration and demotivation. Their cumulative effect can be to derail the original mission completely.
Leadership test: Who will invite employees to identify the dumbest rules that make achieving the mission more difficult, and who will then set about eliminating them?
3. Behavioral Roadblocks ("Do as I say, regardless of what I neglect to do").
The phrase "leading by example" may have become something of a tired cliché, but that does nothing to diminish its fundamental truth: employees will still tend to emulate the behaviors they see in their managers.
The more appealing and meaningful an organization's mission is to the workers tasked with achieving it, the more these workers will be observing management’s behavior. They'll be looking for signs that their managers are either going to "lead the charge" and help bring success closer, or revert to a "business as usual" approach that does nothing to help—and even gets in the way. The moment it becomes clear to employees that achieving the bigger mission is not uppermost in their managers' minds, it magically ceases to be uppermost in their own minds as well.
Here's the acid test for the presence of this behavioral roadblock in your organization. Earlier, when you read the question, "Who will muster the courage to challenge the sacred cows?", did the name of someone on your senior management team immediately spring to mind? For the question, "Who will invite employees to identify dumb rules, and then set about eliminating them?", did a name instantly pop into your head? The first question has an ideological basis. The second, an operational one. But taking action to eradicate such obstacles is a behavioral response, pure and simple. It’s precisely the behavior employees are watching for, proof that management isn’t only talking about achieving the mission, but is also prepared to do its part to help make it happen.
If no one's taking the initiative to eliminate roadblocks of the first and second type, this failure constitutes the third and most impenetrable cultural roadblock of them all. It's a basic failure of leadership, and it's responsible for the demise of many once-great business institutions.
 Editor's Note: In this week's Culture Shift podcast, Paul Levesque compares hidden cultural roadblocks to dragons lurking in the shadows, ready to block all who try to advance. Listen to the audio or Watch the video to discover how easy it can be to eliminate such cultural roadblocks for good.
Be sure to check out all of the podcasts from the Culture Shift series at www.incentivemag.com/cultureshift.
INCENTIVE online "Culture Shift" columnist Paul Levesque is the author of five books, including "Customer Service Made Easy" and "Motivation," both from Entrepreneur Press. He's a seminar leader and public speaker with two decades' experience as an international business consultant specializing in the connection between employee motivation and customer satisfaction.
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Marketing Index |
|
|
