From Norms to Culture - The Key to Real Organizational Change

Organizational culture can be transformed by focusing on norms, which are behavior patterns embodying daily expressions of culture. Norms often reflect underlying beliefs, even if they contradict formal statements. By changing norms and examining their foundational beliefs, organizations can foster cultural shifts. This approach emphasizes relationships and values over mere adherence to procedures, addressing gaps and encouraging meaningful change. #organizationalchange, #culture, #norms, #values, #relationships, #transformation, #meaningfulchange

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the colleague experience where we delve into bold insights, experimentation,

(00:09):
and groundbreaking leadership strategies.
In today's episode, we're exploring how to influence organizational culture through
everyday norms, rather than relying on dramatic events.
Discover how subtle shifts in behaviour can lead to significant cultural transformations,
with real-life examples from various industries.

(00:30):
Let's dive in.
Welcome to today's episode.
In our previous episode, we discussed the spontaneous nature of organizational culture
and the potential of dramatic events to influence how organizational culture is shaped.
But we don't always have a dramatic event on the horizon, and that's not necessarily
a bad thing.

(00:52):
But we often want to change aspects of our organizational culture.
The strategy we propose for doing this is through distinguishing between organizational
culture and its expression in reality, or in one word, norms.
Organizational norms are the everyday, concrete expression of organizational culture.

(01:15):
Norms are behavioural patterns, behaviours that repeat themselves again and again by
a significant portion of people in the organization, and are considered de facto as an accepted
standard.
We emphasize de facto because in many cases, the formal statements of the organization oppose
this standard.
But whether through action or inaction, the organization accepts this standard.

(01:40):
These norms are based on fundamental perceptions and basic beliefs through which the organization
sees reality.
Like an iceberg that exists mostly below the water's surface, hidden from view, but
strongly connected to what's above.
When we study organizational culture, it's worthwhile to identify the accepted norms

(02:01):
and try to understand what they're based on.
The issue is that organizational norms aren't distributed evenly throughout the organization,
and the same goes for beliefs and basic perceptions.
That's why it's difficult for us to think of and reduce the organization to a single
entity.
Our tendency will be to place responsibility for certain norms on specific people or groups

(02:27):
within the organization.
To escape this loop, we recommend thinking about the organization as a person during
this process and asking what perceptions and beliefs might lead a person to behave in one
way or another.
Let's look at a real-life example.
We were working with a pharmaceutical company that struggled with meeting deadlines for

(02:48):
regulatory submissions.
Despite having relatively organized work plans, no one ever met these deadlines.
In casual conversations, employees clearly understood there was no expectation to meet
these plans, despite management being formally very concerned about delays.

(03:09):
When we investigated this phenomenon, we discovered the norm in the organization was to set
goals that were impossible to achieve from the start.
The management perception behind this norm was that people exert effort in direct proportion
to the goal set before them.
If you set an aggressive goal, they'll push themselves harder.

(03:29):
This method is well-known through the algorithm.
If we demand 100% from employees, we'll get 70%, but if we demand 150%, they'll give
90%.
So let's ask for 200%.
Now let's ask what lies beneath this management perception.
If the organization were a person, we might guess they believe in this perception because

(03:53):
they don't believe it's possible to make employees, or people in general, try harder
without manipulating them.
And if we ask again, why would that person adopt such a belief about the world?
One possible answer is that the person doesn't believe in their ability to influence, lead,
and guide through trust and authenticity.

(04:14):
Going back to the organization, the hypothesis is that the leadership doesn't believe in
its own attractiveness or pulling power.
We've said that the connection between norms and the fundamental beliefs that lead to them
is the key to influencing organizational culture.
If we map the organizational norms that express the culture and work to change those that

(04:35):
need changing, something interesting can happen.
First, norms are easier to change because they're more tangible than airy concepts
like culture or values.
Second, if there's a dialogue connecting norms to the fundamental beliefs that lead
to them, then when a norm changes, it allows us to question a fundamental belief.

(04:56):
This can lead to a crack in that belief that will widen as more norms change, making it
increasingly easier to change additional norms, and so on.
We once consulted for an infrastructure company experiencing serious safety incidents.
The norm was to report incidents but not address their root causes.

(05:17):
When discussing this with leadership, we discovered a fundamental belief that accidents
were inevitable in their industry.
By focusing on changing the norm, implementing a thorough root cause analysis process for
every incident, we began challenging this belief.
As more incidents were prevented through this process, the belief that accidents were inevitable

(05:40):
started cracking.
This made it easier to introduce additional safety norms, like peer observations and pre-task
reviews, further strengthening a new belief that most accidents are preventable.
The idea we're proposing here is to create an organizational dialogue about norms and

(06:00):
their connection to underlying beliefs while simultaneously working in baby steps to change
some of those norms.
But it's important to be aware of the laundry trick.
Work procedures, besides being mechanisms designed to regulate organizational activities,
are also a laundry.
A laundry designed to whitewash how we operate and make it easier for us to behave according

(06:24):
to codes we're not comfortable thinking we operate by.
Let's look at another real-life example.
A manager gives an employee a high priority task.
After a few hours, the employee returns to the manager and says that a parallel team
asked him to deal with an urgent field problem.

(06:45):
The manager checks and sees that not all the data about the problem has been filled in
the system, as defined by the procedure.
Now, if you were the manager, which statement would you feel more comfortable saying to
your employee?
Be narrow-minded, currently the problem is someone else's responsibility.

(07:05):
Try to avoid it as much as possible and focus on the task I gave you.
Or, there's a clear procedure for how to transfer handling of a field problem between
groups.
Continue working on what I asked you until all the data is filled according to procedure.
You'd likely feel more comfortable with the second statement even though, in subtext,

(07:28):
you said the first.
Since we're unable to look our employees and ourselves in the eye and demand they
be narrow-minded, we use the laundry, stick to the procedure.
A norm-focused dialogue exposes the laundry trick.
It forces us to examine what we say and do through the norms they represent.

(07:50):
It makes us aware of the normative meaning of our actions.
It confronts us with a value gap that makes us uncomfortable.
When we shift to norm-focused dialogue, we don't feel comfortable adhering to procedures
that are products of broken norms.
Change in organizational culture begins when instead of focusing on procedures, we talk

(08:11):
about norms.
When we talk about procedures, we ask how we'll perform the work.
When we talk about norms, we ask what kind of people we want to be when we're working.
When we talk about procedures, the language is results-oriented.
When we talk about norms, the language is value-oriented.
When we talk about procedures, what's at the center is goals.

(08:35):
When we talk about norms, what's at the center is relationships.
That wraps up today's podcast, where we delved into how altering everyday norms can transform
organizational culture by shifting fundamental beliefs, using examples from a pharmaceutical

(08:55):
and an infrastructure company.
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