Over the past eighteen months there have been several shifts at my place of employment. Realigning the staff, solidifying budgets, and focusing our efforts has been very helpful. Through all the mess, the organization has adopted the single word to label this activity. They call it change.
No one likes change. I say this confidently knowing people that admit to liking change. Even those of us who thrive on change have our breaking points. The same people that admit a fondness of change quickly change their tune with the situation. There comes a point when the change is too much or too fast or too noisy. Whatever the tipping point, I am convinced that change lovers are infatuated with a degree of change rather than change itself. That said, it is incredibly easy to be critical about changes around us. Again, change is relative, but we do not have to look far for it. Cultural shifts are less obvious.
Cultural shifts occur when people, processes, projects, systems, technology and the like are not just remixed, but augmented. Seth Godin wrote a very short blog entitled The pleasant reassurance of new words. In one of three sentences, Seth concludes:
It's a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change anything.
Seth marks real change as “uncomfortable,” an experience much different than merely changing vocabularies. Similarly, it is much easier for organizations to remix teams, staff, and broken systems than to truely shift the culture. To attain a shift of cultural, you must add something to the mix, not just remix. Cultural shifts occur when something new is injected into the group, team, or organization.
Cultural shifts can be observed by using the following distinctives as filters on the situations around us:
- Cultivation. Shifts in cultural improve and build up the team. Shifts are marked by both tangible and intangible cultivation. Look for additional capacity, a new angle on using resources, additional momentum, new moral, and more shipping.
- Soundness. Culture shifts build wellness and leave the team more healthy than it was found. Indicators include team members staying away from their email on days off, delegating and partnering with coworkers, and regularly asking for help to remove roadblocks to completing work.
- Chemistry. Shifts that breed culture also breed chemistry. Look for diverse team members agreeing on a out-of-the-box solution, experts from distinct disciplines collaborating on a new product, or formerly opposed departments finding common ground on a company-wide initiative.
- Common Language. Teams that experience a shift in cultural are not unlike neighborhoods, cities, and nations that need a common language for education, commerce, and society’s overall benefit. Look for team members that use words and concepts that others understand, leaders that work hard simplifying new concepts and strategies, and followers than ask lots of constructive questions.
These are not the only indicators of shifting cultural so feel free to love for and develop your own and then... wait for it... post them here on the blog.
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