Organizations very often find themselves in a situation where strategy execution starts to lag behind expectations. Invariably the discussion turns to culture, as in: “We need to change our culture”. Do you find yourself in this position?
If so, be very careful!
What does it mean to change an organization’s culture? Let’s start by understanding: What is Organizational Culture?
Management Sciences literature abounds with definitions of organizational culture. Check out this one from Wikipedia: Organizational culture is the behavior of humans within an organization and the meaning that people attach to those behaviors. Nice, but not too helpful. To me, having the right organizational culture ensures that your employees are like-minded, and aligned to achieve a common purpose. So there is a behaviour element, but there must also be an outcome element.
Now the next question for you to consider: What is strategy execution?
Isn’t the answer the same? Having like-minded employees that are aligned to achieve a common purpose? I know, we can get much more detailed, and multistep processes for successful strategy execution exist. But at the heart of it, from the perspective of the Board and the CEO, we want every person in the organization to be aligned; making decisions and taking initiatives in a way that are consistent with the execution of our organization’s strategy.
There is only one way I know to do that. The organization needs to have a fully functional managerial leadership system. Managers need to manage, from the CEO on down. Management includes planning, deciding the value-added work that only you can do, setting context for your subordinate managers, delegating work that can be delegated in clear, time-bound ways, and establishing robust feedback loops. If every manager is doing his or her job, within this same consistent framework, a multitude of issues go away:
- Every individual in the organization knows what he is accountable for achieving, the related authority, and the resources available to do the work;
- Every individual understands how their output contributes to the achievement of the strategy;
- Communication is right-sized and delivered at the right time to be helpful;
- Silos disappear because everyone understands what everyone else is accountable for achieving, and how to relate with each other;
- Each employee gets regular and consistent feedback on their output and the means they used to achieve that output.
If an organization can achieve this, they won’t need to change their culture – they will have created the appropriate culture for achieving their strategy in their environment. How? By every manager doing his or her job in the context set by his or her manager, from the CEO on down to the front line.
Is this easy to do? Of course not. But by focusing effort on the managerial leadership system, fundamental and sustainable change can be achieved. Let’s not put resources into nice sounding initiatives like culture, communications, team building, leadership training, and the like. These are all tackling the systems of an inadequate managerial leadership system. Let’s get to root cause, and ensure that our managers are managing within a framework that works for our organization. Once that is in place, then apply the training. You’ll be surprised at how little you will need.
