The best leaders understand that a strong culture is a secret weapon. They understand good culture is designed and built; mindfully practiced and celebrated; feels organic and energizing. They know that good organizational culture leads to increased productivity, better talent recruitment and retention, improved profitability and more.
As someone who has consulted with numerous organizations on culture change initiatives, I can tell you one thing for certain: Culture happens whether leadership is paying attention or not. And when leadership is not paying attention, culture is toxic and working at odds with strategy.
Here are three pro tips for leaders to create a more innovative culture.
Pro tip 1: Culture can’t be fixed in a PowerPoint deck. You have to do things differently
The first thing many leaders do is hire an expensive consulting firm with fancy process slides to assess their organizational culture and spend thousands of dollars on research and analysis. That is one way to go, and there is some value to that approach. But the truth is, you must actually do things differently to change culture. Culture is a pattern of behaviors, repeated over and over again, that become the way the organization thinks about things, does things and treats people.
Here are some tasks Agile City recommends:
- Create a sense of psychological safety. In unhealthy cultures, voices are silenced through bias, micromanagement or fear of punishment. Offer ways to listen, coach and support. Practice radical inclusivity. Acknowledge shortcomings and share a vision that unlocks the full potential of everyone in the organization.
- Build a From-To Model. Define your culture now and design the future state with input from all organizational levels. Simplify and socialize what you hear.
- Re-examine your values. Often when defining your aspirational culture, you will recognize that your current organizational values do not reinforce the behaviors you are seeking to encourage. Change them to align with your future state and be specific about the behaviors you desire.
- You must hire and fire differently. Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, recommends building a team of high performers and paying them over market value, firing underperformers and brilliant jerks and giving them a generous severance.
Pro tip 2: Start small. Change is hard
Neuroscience research has shown the brain is hardwired to the “no” position. Change requires new neural pathways to be carved, and that takes energy. The brain prefers habit over change, so leaders need to understand how to make it easier for people to say “yes” to new behaviors. In cultures where initiative has been discouraged through micromanagement, for example, it is important to empower those who want change.
Here are a few strategies to start small and build confidence, new neural pathways and momentum.
- Start by acknowledging the hard stuff. People need to feel heard. Show genuine empathy and remove the fear of punishment for pointing out areas that need improvement.
- Run small experiments. Identify a defined project, empower the team and ensure diverse voices are heard. Keep it achievable and simple.
- Scale the “bright spots.” Find what is working and spread the lessons across the organization.
- Communicate success and failure, praise the effort and run more experiments.
- Small wins build confidence and momentum, and muscles for change when resistance is strong.
Pro tip 3: Embed innovation into everything – processes, space, information flows, evaluations, team structures
- Mindset: Encourage employees to think and act like entrepreneurs, identifying problems and offering solutions that deliver value.
- Office: Think about your physical spaces as incubators for ideas and provide a palette of place to accommodate distinct types of work.
- Processes: Start by mapping where ideas come from and how they move through the organization and through your innovation stage gates.
- Information flow: Nothing stops innovation and change faster than information hoarding and silence. Tear down communication barriers and insist on a free flow of information.
- Performance evaluation: Reward outcomes, not activity.
Agile City’s mission is to use innovation and entrepreneurship to connect communities, companies and entrepreneurs and create thriving, resilient and equitable economies.
Karen Barnes is the CEO of Agile City, a non-profit innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem consultancy based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.