Changing the Unchangeable

A fundamental resistance to change in an organization isn’t that unusual, in fact, every company of size has a number of employees who reject change as if it were central to their own job description. It’s in their DNA. In many ways, it is in the DNA in all of us.

Recently, Julie Roehm of Chrysler was hired – and more recently – fired from Wal-mart due in part – saucy allegations aside – of forcing change on an unwilling organization. Quoted in BusinessWeek, Roehm stated, “Wal-Mart, she says "would rather have had a painkiller [than] taken the vitamin of change." What has she learned? "The importance of culture. It can't be underestimated."

It seems odd to me that Ms. Roehm’s meteoric rise could have occurred without her critical understanding of this, but it happens to even the most successful executives in marketing or otherwise. Culture is not a ‘soft skill’ to be derided as a tree-hugger’s prerequisite in graduate management coursework. As Lou Gerstner Jr., the former head of IBM once stated, “Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.”

Here are a few rules for executives that find themselves in the same type of role that Roehm, and Gerstner before her, found themselves in: Changing an entrenched culture, particularly one set on self-destruction:

1. Get started
   Anyone who has worked with or for me for more than a few days knows my mantra – Progress over Perfection. While a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, from Collins’ Built To Last) is a critical element of a successful change effort, any early success can do wonders for morale and the effort’s credibility. Importantly, it also limits the exposure of a certain mis-step.
   
2. Speed Trap
   At the outset, you need to gauge how quickly – or slowly, you’ll need to move. Often times this is influenced by certain outside objectives such as a turnaround effort, but it will also be determined by the ability of management to effect change on the departmental – and individual level. This doesn’t mean that change needs to be slowed – sometimes the need for change is understood by the rank and ile and if you move too slowly you could lose credibility.
   
3. Walk Softly.
   Announcing the change is coming is like using a drumline to announce the arrival of marines on the shore. Change is best accomplished not as a widely visible project but quietly integrated as a practice. Effective change is supported at the top but driven from the bottom, up. Change is difficult not only because it disrupts long-held patterns and ways of thought, but because it intimates that those patterns were, essentially, wrong. Otherwise change would not be necessary. While some would suggest that some people and companies just need a swift kick in the a*s, it isn’t as easy as all that. Telling employees that change is a’coming and they need to board the train or be run over is an unnecessary shot across the bow that will only serve to alienate the influential mid-managers a change agent needs to see the program successfully carried forward.
   
4. A Tip from Tip
   "All politics is local." That quote, from former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, can be effectively paraphrased by stating, “All Corporate Politics Are Departmental”. The relationships that matter in a change effort are the small, informal ones. As stated above, leadership support is critical but the mid-level management and other influencers are equally critical.