Extract taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. [1] A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs to be reached. ‘The Flipping Point‘ [1] contains 200 short vignettes exploring what ’deprogramming management’ may look like.
Behaviours create culture, not the other way around.
Behaviours create culture, not the other way around. Change behaviours get culture. Behaviours are copied (homo imitans) and scaled up peer-to-peer. Culture is not trainable in classrooms. Everybody copies everybody but some people are more copy-able than others. It turns out that 5 – 10% have very high (non-hierarchical) influence. Find them, ask for help and give them support. Tell stories of success all the time. Make sure leaders do support the peer-to-peer work, but don’t interfere. This is the ‘what’ of Viral Change™ in a box. The ‘how’ is what I do for a living.
My two books on Viral Change™ are: Viral Change™ and Homo Imitans. These days I recommend starting with the latter and going backwards, if there is any appetite left.
Culture is hard stuff.
Culture is the difference between 30 people making a decision in 30 days, or 3 people making the same decision in 3 days. Culture is the difference between hiring costly employees and retaining them, or hiring costly employees and losing them after 6 months. Culture is the difference between making a decision and implementing it, or making the same decision and waiting to see if it sticks or people take it seriously. Culture is the difference between agreeing the plan in the meeting room, or trashing it at the break in the toilets. Culture is hard stuff. Do you need me to give you an ROI on these differences?
Culture is the difference between 30 people making a decision in 30 days, or 3 people making the same decision in 3 days. I use lots of these examples to show that culture is ‘hard’, not ‘soft’. Anybody with a calculator can see it.
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This book asks you to use more rigour and critical thinking in how you use assumptions and management practices that were created many years ago. Our real and present danger is not a future of robots and AI, but of current established BS. In this book, you are invited to the Mother of All Call Outs!
Available from major online bookstores [2].
[1]
Visit The Flipping Point [1] to learn more about the book and other services:
Request [3] a keynote and Q&A on topics from the book.
[4] Request [3] one of our webinars:
- The myths of change. How traditional management and academic thinking is responsible for the colossal failure of change programmes. Debunking uncontested assumptions. Looking at the alternatives.
- The myths of company culture. Stuck in old concepts. How we have made cultural change hard and often impossible. The failure of communication programmes. The key to successful mobilizing of people for a purpose.
- The myths of management. Empowerment, ownership, accountability and other little challenged ideas. Non-management myths. What new management may look like.