An overview of two very key components leaders need to focus on to change their Business Culture.

Our past three articles covered what business culture is, where it comes from and why one may want to change theirs.<

The big question that we get asked is,

“How do I go about changing our business culture?”

We believe in keeping it as simple as possible, even though this is not a simple process or issue. There are two very basic and core elements that every leader needs to concentrate on to change or build their business culture.

1. The first is their Vision and Mission, (yes you have heard this before, or have you?) What is it you want to be when you get there, but more importantly, who do you want to be on the way there?

If you review our previous articles on business culture the idea of a specific focus from leadership is the difference between a happenstance culture and a purposeful culture.

The purposeful culture needs a direction that people can buy into and work towards. It needs to be something the people can apply their will to, not just short term motivation.

Many organizations have a Mission or Vision statement as well as core values. Most are very well written and focused; others may be complex and hard to understand. Others simply end up being paper on the wall.

The questions we get are;

“What guidelines do you have to make an effective statement?”

Here are a few:
1. Vision and mission statements should fit on the back of a business card.
2. Statements start out large and broad, and then boil down to their essence.
3. Core values may start out as a list of 20, but need to boil down to 6 maximum.
4. Does the lowest one on the organizational chart understand it? (Hard to buy into something you can not understand.)
5. How does the vision and mission act on a daily basis? (Behaviors and actions bring it to life.)
6. Does it give us an understanding of what we will and will not do? (Every decision is guided by this.)

Obviously this is not a five minute process, rather something that evolves overtime.

Leadership needs to make it the priority and bring it into everything they do and continually refine it down to its essence and simplicity. Once there it needs to permeate the very core and blood of the organization.

Now that you have a very refined and understandable statement with values, what do you do with it?
1. Every meeting utilizes the statements in decision making.
2. Every directive from leadership includes how it fits the statement.
3. Every delegation and accountability encounter indicates how the statement fits.
4. Every team member makes a personal decision if the statement fits with them.
5. Every person discusses how they understand the statement and its impact on them.
6. And any other way you can keep the statement in the forefront of the organization.

Ok, nothing really new here, we have a statement, we make it our focus. Yet, we still have challenges with the organization buying in!

2. Altering and creating beliefs that support the statement. This is where leaders have a challenge. They know what they want to accomplish, what it looks like and how it should act, but getting the organization to make it their own can be challenging.

An understanding of Influence and Persuasion techniques can make a big difference.

Understanding tools and behaviors such as:
* Social permission
* Group think
* 10 Laws of Persuasion
* Outcome Based Thinking
* and many others….

An individual or group has beliefs, and thus behaves in a given way because of those beliefs. If those beliefs are contrary to your Vision/Mission statement, you have a large barrier to overcome.

As an example, assume a group or individual believes that money or profit are the only focus in their lives. What behaviors might come from this belief and how would they fit or be contrary to your statement? Might this type of belief eliminate a person from your organization if his belief is not changeable?

Do you have a method or process to help alter or change beliefs that are contrary to your Vision/Mission? If you are unable to alter this, what happens to your Vision/Mission?

One thing for sure, it has been proven that “telling” someone to change a belief, actually reinforces that belief rather than changing it!! (Ref: Dr. Kevin Hogan)

Yet many people continue to try and “tell” others how to view and think about something. Simply “telling” your team they need to think like your Vision/Mission will most likely not get the results you want.

So how do we affect change in beliefs and focus them on new beliefs that reinforce the Vision/Mission of the organization? We get them to question their current belief in some way.

Here are some steps you can take:
1. Help them clarify and define their beliefs. (most do not know their own beliefs)
2. Help them determine where the belief comes from. (Open questioning works here)
3. Help them to determine the credibility of the beliefs source. (Mom or the internet are not always credible)
4. Help them to see how a varied belief would be in their favor. (Provide stories or evidence of something better)
5. Help them create behaviors that reinforce the new belief. (This is coaching, behavior, action, help build new beliefs)
6. Reinforce the new behaviors and beliefs. (Keep them focused)

This applies to individuals as well as groups. There are multiple ways to accomplish this. Not always the easiest task to accomplish, but many great leaders have in the past and continue to do so in today’s culture.

Once more, there is far too much to cover in this topic for a few articles, rather we hope this gets you going in a direction. You might review our previous articles on Persuasion and Willpower at our web site www.BusArconline.com

As a leader, if you focus on your Vision/Mission and take into account the beliefs your team has established, you can alter your business culture!

For more on how Business Architects can assist you and your organization in sales, management and communications, check out our websites at www.BusArc.com www.BusArconline.com .www.HGoergerassoc.com

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Harlan Goerger