One of the most confusing things about workplace culture is that we all know that we value certain things inside our culture, yet we frequently don’t back it up with the right behaviors:
- We value innovation, but we don’t run experiments
- We value transparency, but we control information too tightly
- We value collaboration, but we’re suspicious when other departments ask us for help.
The reason is simple, and we write about it in our new book: competing commitments. While we have a strong commitment to those values of innovation, transparency, and collaboration, most cultures also have additional, competing commitments that drive those frustrating behaviors.
For example, while we are committed to creating new value through innovation, we also have a competing commitment to appearing competent. We want to be the smartest person in the room that delivers right answers and can show positive results. There’s nothing wrong with that commitment, but sometimes we push on it a bit too hard. That is why we choose NOT to run experiments (because some will fail and we will look “bad”).
In culture change, you need to redesign processes or maybe deploy new technology in ways that address the competing commitment and enable the right behaviors. In our book, we cite the example of a process that one organization introduced: idea funerals. Make it public (and a little light-hearted) when ideas don’t work. It takes the stigma off, and can increase the number of experiments moving forward.
There are other “plays” you’d want to run in a culture playbook to improve your innovation efforts, but that’s how culture change works: run lots of plays over time so you can measurably move the needle on behavior. If you are looking for some help to get started with culture change, please reach out.