Why Process Improvement is Broken
Leaders often tell me, “Culture is on our list, but we need to fix our processes first. We’ll get to culture when things settle down”. But guess what, things never seem to settle down. No matter how well defined the systems become, they remain broken and ineffective because the people executing them often don’t do what they should. The business continues to operate in fire-fighting mode, lurching from one crisis to the next.
Culture is actually the engine room for implementing effective process and system improvement. Culture is so powerful it once led Peter Drucker to comment: “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Culture should never be an after-thought. In fact, it should be at the top of your list.
A culture that underpins an effective process improvement initiative has these 3 key characteristics:
Alignment
There’s an overarching purpose to the business (your “why”) that guides every decision. There’s strong agreement on the “way” you will conduct business (your values and behaviours). These values and behaviours serve the purpose. And there’s also strong alignment on what you will “do” (your strategy) in pursuit of your purpose. Alignment acts as the solid foundations that don’t change, whilst everything else is changing during a process and system redesign initiative. This stability gives your people that solid sense of security and direction they need to thrive during change.
Reinforcement
Behaviours that are consistent with your values and that further your purpose, are encouraged through recognition and positive re-enforcement. People share stories of how they and others are acting in harmony with your agreed culture. A constant theme that employees raise with us is their desire for recognition from their boss and their peers. Reinforcement builds a shared understanding of how to behave as you implement your process improvement plan.
Personal Growth
There’s a growth path for people and teams to overcome their primal emotional responses. Negative behaviours that sabotage process improvement efforts typically emanate from perceived threats (eg: to status or security). People who understand what their individual threat triggers are and why they instinctively react the way they do, are more able to reason their way through the threat and act with greater emotional intelligence, to help drive the success of the change initiative.
When alignment, reinforcement and personal growth are present in your culture, your process improvement initiatives will grow in fertile soil. There will be stability and direction in the face of rapid change as everyone understands “what matters most”.
Develop the culture you need to support your strategic goals with a co-created Culture Code.