I wanted to share this short video, in which Simon Sinek, in his usual style, shares the way he sees cultural transformation work.
Here is the video:
Here are some of the important concepts that he shares:
What doesn’t work:
Launching a formal company-wide transformation effort, with clearly laid out plans, executive presentations explaining the rationale for the change does not work. Typically, these are met with cynical, wait and watch responses from the employees. They have seen many such announcements, leaders starting transformation efforts, come and go, with not much changing on the ground, in their work.
What does work:
A two pronged approach – a clear executive decision by the leaders on the need for the transformation, which is then complemented by a grass-roots driven, voluntary contribution of “Innovators and early adopters” within your organisation (according to the law of diffusion of innovation), who become the change agents – participating and designing the transformation with the top leaders.
The vast majority of people in your organisation will want to see someone else change first and see them do well as a reason for the change. This is only possible if you focus on the early adopters (innovators will anyway be interested). This is like creating a waves within the organisation. A small focused effort, with a carefully selected set of people, who then go within the organisation and drive the change out.
In conclusion:
Just like the idea of personalised engagement in marketing, people involve in large scale transformations also need to be engaged in a personalised way. Without the voluntary grass root level engagement throughout the change process, all cultural transformation efforts fail.
