Can Culture Change be Crowdsourced?
As an increasing number of corporations try to shift the focus from governing to unlocking their talent, questions are often asked about the best methods to effect a tangible change in organizational culture.
Here are five basic principles everyone acknowledges:
1. Changing a culture takes time; maybe several years
2. The leadership has to role model desired behaviors
3. Employees should be authentic at the workplace and understand the expected behaviors
4. Everybody has to contribute, not just the top few
5. Some leaders and employees will choose to not change and need to exit
The above principles are akin to gospel truths and there isn’t anything in them that is unknown or should come as a surprise to anyone. And yet, very few corporations successfully proceed beyond mapping their existing dominant culture. The mapping exercise itself, depending on the diagnostic tool bought from market, can be so tedious and complex that an entire year is spent in surveying a few thousand employees. Ten to fifteen percent of those surveyed would have moved on to different teams or companies in a year, often changing the dynamics for good or worse, especially if they had held team lead positions.
The theory of asymmetric representation comes into play when the survey sample is too headquarter centric or level-specific. But it is also true that a geographically equitable sample distribution can distort reality because it discounts the unequal influence that power centers wield over the existing culture. Important to note here that some people in corporations (as in society) set the norms and others simply follow. Therefore, even if crowdsourcing is selected as an inclusive tool to solicit ideas and suggestions on changing the culture, an inevitable shortlisting mechanism will drown out the voices of employees who hold no social influence at the workplace. Added prioritization and feasibility filters will further manipulate the inputs.
Therefore, even if crowdsourcing is selected as an inclusive tool to solicit ideas and suggestions on changing the culture, an inevitable shortlisting mechanism will drown out the voices of employees who hold no social influence at the workplace. Added prioritization and feasibility filters will further manipulate the inputs.
What is obtained at the end may be a set of ideas so sterile that they do not address the root causes of an inappropriate culture. And that’s the danger of using crowdsourcing as a silver bullet.
Taking a step back, let’s ask if there is anything that can be upheld as the one appropriate culture? Should every company have a culture of collaborative co-creation? Imagine a bank where employees expect that their bosses will minimize supervision. How does it sound? On the other hand, imagine a PR agency where the director leads all critical projects himself. Does it inspire long-term client confidence in his agency?
Taking a step back, let’s ask if there is anything that can be upheld as the one appropriate culture? Should every company have a culture of collaborative co-creation? Imagine a bank where employees expect that their bosses will minimize supervision. How does it sound? On the other hand, imagine a PR agency where the director leads all critical projects himself. Does it inspire long-term client confidence in his agency?
Here are the five questions which are quite difficult to answer but must be solved as part of a culture program roadmap:
1. What is the kind of culture that a specific industry needs to meet multiple expectations? Should it really be the same across all operations and divisions and regions?
2. How is the “leadership” layer defined and trained? Does it include all the key influencers?
3. Beyond utopian guidelines, can a list of common workplace behaviors and practices be explained?
4. Who measures mass involvement and how? What percentages and depths of staff participation are acceptable?
5. Every culturally incompatible employee can demolish employee faith in management intent and commitment. Who will identify the black sheep and how? How long will they be allowed to be recruited and retained and at what compounding costs?
Many corporations did change their culture successfully; solving for answers as they encountered each question one by one. Some were lucky to have time on their side while the others paid a price for running late.