If you’re
still not sure about the affect company culture can have on employee behavior,
take a look at Wells Fargo. The bank, known for selling customers
products they didn’t need, creating fake accounts, and inflating insurance
premiums, still hasn’t been able to correct the culture that drove all that bad
behavior.
Cultures
are driven from the top, so when a culture needs significant change, it’s best to bring in someone from the outside
because the people inside will have a far more difficult time. But even
an outsider will have difficulty changing an ingrained culture. Remember
Kodak’s attempt to change culture by bringing in an outsider? That didn’t
go so well either.
To
change a culture, two principles are imperative. First, it needs to be driven from the very top of the
company. Second, every single person on the leadership team needs to understand
what the change is, what the new values are, and which behaviors will
demonstrate commitment to the change.
If
your company’s culture doesn’t align with your business strategy, better start
working on changing the culture. If you don’t want to take on the work of changing the culture, then
change the strategy because when strategy goes up again culture, bet on the
culture.
Finally,
if you’re happy with your culture, do everything you can to protect it.