Situation: A newly hired CEO finds that the company is struggling. Employees are not responsive to customer queries. Calls aren’t being returned on a timely basis. Employees are reactive instead of proactive. There is a “just getting by” mentality. How do you change the culture of a company?
Advice from the CEOs:
- The CEO is the culture of the company.
- Bring the company together – show them the numbers. Let them know what’s going on. Ask for their help after sharing information.
- Bring a vision for the company – what it can be – and put it on the table.
- Daily, walk around with a cup of coffee. Talk to people. Ask questions and encourage their input.
- The CEO must set the vision / mission for the company and be the evangelist supporting this vision.
- Until this is done, employees have no reason to change.
- It is critical to build a strong culture that people want to be a part of.
- Culture change may require replacement of some of the staff – over time.
- The cultural problems that are being described are symptomatic of a deeper problem.
- The current situation grew from the values of the founder. The founder hired people who supported his vision. Fortunately, he hired people who created much of the unique value that is in the company today. Something was being done right. The challenge is to shift the culture without losing that value.
- Consider “divisionalizing” the company.
- Create an R&D division under the Founder / CTO. This will give him his own sandbox and may enable the company to save what was being done right.
- At the same time, protect the rest of the company from day-to-day interference.
- Dividing the company into divisions under strong leaders can help to shield the rest of the company from the source of the issues.
- Another CEO was in the same place that is being described. He had a vision that he thought was shared by the company. In reality there was none. Establishing a vision and enlisting the company in the vision takes work. The CEO as evangelist must continually repeat the message of the vision.
- Change in a manufacturing environment starts from the floor. Get the operators and technicians involved in the process of changing the culture. Look for “secret champions” who are responsive to these efforts. Create teams (with the secret champions as leaders or key players) and let them champion improvements.
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The five points are a great example of the old adage ” ready, fire, aim”. Number one is to get the CEO and officers to agree on an accurate description of the current culture. You cannot imagine how difficult and embarrassing this step is. They can”t do it! So, if you can’t describe the as-built how do you describe the change too? Next, whatever the team comes up with, how do you verify that the employees see it the same way? I’ve been doing that for 20 years and the employee’s description is always significantly different. The obvious next step is to see what the employees think. We script a 5-minute video for the CEO to ask a simple 9-word question and we collect the answers and drive their actions through the gauntlet that is management and leadership, AKA, the culture. Until this is done, the CEO doesn’t know what needs fixing, he/she can only guess