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are our most recent Joseph Grenny explaining how important and significant your organisations 'Cultural Operating System' is and how it governs your execution and innovation performance ... call us today on +61(0)418433703 to discuss your cultural change goals and human performance challenges.
are our most recent Joseph Grenny explaining how important and significant your organisations 'Cultural Operating System' is and how it governs your execution and innovation performance ... call us today on +61(0)418433703 to discuss your cultural change goals and human performance challenges.
When we talk about an "operating system" we are using an analogy from the world of IT. An "application" can run for different operating systems. For example, Microsoft Word or Excel can run on a Windows operating system and on a Mac operating system. Same application, different operating system. Some may have experienced the same application working on one operating system, and crashing on the other. In that case, the problem is not the application, but the underlying operating system. In the world of organisations, many "applications" that have worked in other places have been implemented in our own setting, but have "crashed". We have too quickly assumed it was the "application" (the change programme, the new system...) that was filled with bugs, when in reality it is the "operating system" - the underlying culture of the organisation - that is causing the problem. For example, Six Sigma has been implemented in many organisations with great success, yet in other places has at best had marginal success. Six Sigma is a brilliant "application", but will crash when it is run on an inferior cultural operating system. The problem, and the leverage for change, lies in the operating system - the organisation's culture.
What is culture?
Have you ever changed jobs, and when you start at your new workplace you go about things exactly as you used to, only to quickly find out, "that's not how we do things around here". You've just experienced culture. Culture is how people are expected to behave in order to fit in. It is "the way things are done around here". Culture is to an organisation what soil is to a seed. A healthy seed in healthy soil will generally thrive. The same healthy seed in unhealthy soil will struggle.
Even a healthy employee will struggle in an unhealthy, dysfunctional work environment.
What is culture?
Have you ever changed jobs, and when you start at your new workplace you go about things exactly as you used to, only to quickly find out, "that's not how we do things around here". You've just experienced culture. Culture is how people are expected to behave in order to fit in. It is "the way things are done around here". Culture is to an organisation what soil is to a seed. A healthy seed in healthy soil will generally thrive. The same healthy seed in unhealthy soil will struggle.
Even a healthy employee will struggle in an unhealthy, dysfunctional work environment.
Culture's impact
Culture will do what culture does to everything you put in front of it. If the culture is characterised by oppositional cynicism, every change effort - whether system change, process change, or culture change - will come up against this culture, no matter how innovative, worthwhile or brilliant the change may be. Put simply, quoting VitalSmarts co-founder Joseph Grenny, "There is no strategy so brilliant that people can't render it worthless". We spend so much time and money on strategy development and process improvement, but we forget that it is people who implement these, and we don't recognise the importance of investing in the people side of business.
Culture will do what culture does to everything you put in front of it. If the culture is characterised by oppositional cynicism, every change effort - whether system change, process change, or culture change - will come up against this culture, no matter how innovative, worthwhile or brilliant the change may be. Put simply, quoting VitalSmarts co-founder Joseph Grenny, "There is no strategy so brilliant that people can't render it worthless". We spend so much time and money on strategy development and process improvement, but we forget that it is people who implement these, and we don't recognise the importance of investing in the people side of business.
The Leadership Factor
Culture is the environment created by leadership. It can be created actively through deliberate action and intent. Culture can also be created passively by the things leaders don’t pay attention to. Either way, a healthy, high competence leadership capability is fundamental to a healthy cultural operating system.
Why not talk to us today about how we can help build your organization's leadership capability and grow a healthy cultural operating system.
Culture is the environment created by leadership. It can be created actively through deliberate action and intent. Culture can also be created passively by the things leaders don’t pay attention to. Either way, a healthy, high competence leadership capability is fundamental to a healthy cultural operating system.
Why not talk to us today about how we can help build your organization's leadership capability and grow a healthy cultural operating system.
Get your free "Cultural Operating System (COS)" resource download
Download your free copy of "The 4 Crucial Skills of a High Performance Cultural Operating System", just some of the original research from our friends at VitalSmarts. We can also send you their latest research report "Culture 2.0".
Download your free copy of "The 4 Crucial Skills of a High Performance Cultural Operating System", just some of the original research from our friends at VitalSmarts. We can also send you their latest research report "Culture 2.0".