I've been going coast to coast recently performing training for Lean Safety Gemba Walks, Coaching, and this upcoming week for some Black Belt training. I'm afforded a lot of time to think while on these trips, from 5-6 hour long plane rides, to just spending time in hotel rooms thinking. Most of these times I get to reflect on my experiences and try to figure out what is going on around me. Being able to do this and being able to talk to a myriad of people, I've come to the conclusion that organizational transformation is not the focus of an organizational transformation. It's really about people transformations. Let me explain.
If you look at models from Edgar Schein (such as his Organizational Culture Model) he describes many layers of an organizations culture. There are basic assumptions, values, and artifacts of the culture. Looking more deeply at each of these we can start to recognize why "culture will eat strategy for lunch" and why we might feel so frustrated attempting to create some sort of organizational change (seeing great resistance for example).
At the very base are the shared assumptions - these are the underlying thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of the individuals in a group. These are the things that are taken for granted because over time the group has learned has worked for them for their survival. For instance, if we hold the assumption that employees are just lazy, we will conform to that assumption and our actions will be affected by that thought. Someone standing around? They must just not want to work, they should be fired. If on the other hand we have the thought that our employees are extremely dedicated workers, we might engage with the person standing around and ask "what's up, something wrong?" These assumptions are there and hard to recognize as they are deeply held within ourselves.
These deeply held assumptions can help drive our groups' values. Each group within a larger organization could hold their own values. These are typically the things we "say" about our group. For instance, we might say that we value our Customers' experience, we may say we focus on quality, and we may say we respect one another. This does not mean that what we actually "do" follows this. As a leader, we typically espouse these values to a group, but it's not until the group actually does something and reliably succeeds together doing those things does it actually become part of the deeper shared assumptions. I like how Xylem Design's founder Greg Glebe describes it in this video.
Finally is the top of it all, the artifacts of the culture. What Greg describes in that video are the shared values that the team has espoused for themselves. There are other videos that talk directly to the people in the Xylem team where you can see how people have really started to live those values. All around the shop as he talks you see the artifacts of that culture. These are the things we actually see quite easily. If we say our value is to develop people, do we see people teaching each other, helping each other learn? IF so, then we know that those values and assumptions are actually turning into something that we all "do." It is by the constant doing and reliability of success from that doing that really combines to create what we describe as "culture."
How I see it is there are individuals collected within organizations and groups. Each individual has their own personal values, beliefs, thoughts, and actions. It is up to the organization to define the set of behaviors (or actions) that are common for the organization to run effectively. It is also important for the organization to espouse a common set of values that we all as individuals strive toward. However, as Schein describes, we must first be able to remove the old and replace with the new. So for each individual this transformation journey must take place in order for the organization as a whole to transform. What do we need to do to make this work?
This is where practices come to play. You can find examples of these practices on Youtube if you search for "2 Second Lean." You will find companies like Fastcap (whose founder, Paul Akers wrote the book to share with the world), Xylem Design, Cambridge Engineering, and many many more. One of the key pillars used is that of a "morning meeting" or daily huddle. This is the practice of bringing everyone together each day for a daily business review and develop each individual. The second major practice is to take time to think about the work and how to make it better through continuous improvement - much of it following the concepts of eliminating waste, burden, and unevenness. Third is the base principles or values that create our standard of thinking and behaving while at work (the major principle is that of respect). The practice is to recognize and correct ourselves to those values internally. We talk about them, describe how we see them working (or not) and if not work together to correct. This correction is out of respect for each other to grow each individual. These common three things combine to affect a deep personal change in the individual, while performing it together as a team to affect total organizational change.
In my role in my company (a large organization), this is where I think I have struggled. I have been thinking too big. I cannot change an organization in large swaths of people, it is done by individuals. My role then has to change a bit. I can help establish a set of common values, but the practices involved I can only try to convince others to try on their own. I am not directly apart of every group within the organization, each group has their own leader who must for themselves practice the right things (as described briefly above). This has led me to a few thoughts on how I can help others come to the right practices.
Practice this myself with my team
Help others learn the values and practices
Be involved with their new practices
As a large organization going through this transformation, it would seem rather slow to do it this way. Where to even start? The most important thing to do is to just start and work through the barriers as they arise. Bring in new people that either seem intrigued or pose a threat to the change (those who do not adopt the new thoughts and behaviors). One experience that has come up a lot is that of the cynics - "it can't be done here." My friend, Bob Hafey, described this for our organization as a "learned helplessness." We have learned to think this way, and there's only one way to change that - replace it with a new attitude. The attitude of the individual is key to the success of their own individual transformation. I cannot change the attitude of others, they must decide that for themselves. I can however support them and help them in the ways I can, but we must be constantly cognizant of the business needs to create value for our Customers. If we take too long to change ourselves, our Customers will change who they choose to do business with, so we can't wait forever. This is the pressure needed to drive the change - not one of fear, but one of needing to learn in order to prosper.
My next step for myself as a leader is to establish the right practices and make it real for us as a team. Then as I continue teaching others the values and practices, I must provide proof and real life examples of how this is done. Finally I have got to get more involved with the leaders of the organization to help them through these practices and establishing values. It is only through this way that we can affect the individual journey and each individual's deeply held assumptions of how we work together.
Books referenced:
2 Second Lean by Paul Akers
Organizational Culture and Leadership by Edgar Schein