Does your organization have the culture for change? How do you know if your top-level managers are ready and willing to start leading to change the culture of your organization? First, you must make sure they understand the “Why, Where, How” of your change effort. And the best way to do that is to ask them.
“Why” is the reason why your people must act to change the culture. “Where” is the future state to which you are going. And “How” is the path you will take to change the culture.
Here’s a 4-question assessment that will let you know if your organization has the culture for change. These questions will hold you in good stead as you’re leading to change the culture of your organization. One note about this kind of assessment: Whether you ask it as a formal assessment (as outlined here), or as simple questions (I’ll show you how to do it both ways), the reality is that you have to continually ask these questions. Because until you can get affirmative answers from 70% of your employees to the “Why, Where, How” of change, you are not ready to start taking action to change the culture of your organization. If you do not know you have the culture for change, it’s simply a waste of time to start selling the need for change and building the buy in for it until you’ve got an overwhelming majority already bought in. Otherwise, there is going to be way too much resistance, and it will kill off your change effort.
Through these four questions, we will focus on understanding where folk’s heads are at and which part of the change they are bought into. Is it the “Why?” Is it the “Where?” Is it the “How?” Is it two of the three? What aspects are they bought into? What aspects are they not bought into? That way, we know how to go back and correct your message in order to push forward and change the culture.
We have many clients that even use these questions throughout a change effort. They give this survey every week or two, constantly taking the temperature of where folks are at because the risks are so incredibly high when you’re attempting to change the culture of an established organization.
Question 1: “I believe this organization needs to change.”
This is an assessment of the “Why” of change. High scores on this question means that people understand why it is you need to change. If you want to make it more casual or conversational, you could ask it while running around the halls talking to folks. You could stop someone and say, “Hey, do you think we need to do this? Do you think we actually need to change the culture?” The answer to that will tell you the same thing – whether or not they are they bought in. Do they believe there’s a compelling reason to change the culture? If not, they’re simply not going to change. If they don’t understand why you’re instituting change, there is no point in moving further.
Question 2: “I understand where this change effort will take us.”
This question is asking, “Where are we headed with this change?” In conversational terms, you can ask, “Do you understand where we are trying to get to by changing the culture?” Put it in your own language. The important thing is that you need to understand whether or not people know that they are headed to a better place than they currently are. Do they understand what the future looks like?
Question 3: (A corollary to question 2) “I believe this effort will make us more successful.”
It’s one thing to know what the future state looks like, but it’s another thing to believe that the future state is actually better than the present state. Question 3 is a way of asking, “Do you think this will actually make this a better place than the place we’re at right now?” It’s the same question. Questions 2 and 3 are trying to figure out if people understand where we are going and if they think it’s actually a worthwhile to be one of the employees leading to change.
Question 4: “I am confident we can accomplish this.”
In conversational terms, ask your people, “Do you think we can actually pull this off?” Essentially what you are saying is, “We’ve got this present state and this future state and we’ve got to make a heck of a jump to get across this chasm from one to the other. Do you think we can actually make that jump?” If there is a bridge, do people understand what the bridge is? Or do they think the bridge is more dangerous than making the leap – does the bridge look weak; do they trust it?
These are the four questions that will tell you if it’s time to start leading to change and – more important – if your people are really ready to change the culture of their organization.
Mark Murphy, Chairman & CEO of Leadership IQ, is one of the country’s leading leadership training & communication experts. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, and more. His clients include Microsoft, IBM, GE, MasterCard, Merck, AstraZeneca, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins, and hundreds more.