Company Culture and Lean
A lot of my own work is around helping companies change their cultures in ways that enable lean and agile methods but, I confess, I don't write much about it here. And that's not a good thing, especially given how critical I am of the manner in which most lean literature addresses the issue of culture...or doesn't.
The problem for me and all those other writers is that culture is difficult to define. Heck, it's even difficult to describe because it's so all-encompassing, so comprehensive.
I've come up with a way of looking at culture that makes it all more accessible, I think. We'll start with the model first, then work our way to specific examples.
The model tells us that there are eight elements that make up culture. These elements refer to things that all organizations do. Culture is simply...how they do them.
The eight elements are:
You might look at some of the elements and say, "Wait...I know of organizations that don't plan or don't innovate." Again, doing something very poorly is different from not doing it at all. Take innovation: Can you point to an organization more than about 18 months old that is doing everything the same way it did it the day it started? My guess is, no. "But," you might reply, "I know of companies where such changes have been badly conceived, badly planned (when they were planned at all), and badly implemented. You can't really say that those organizations are innovative."
Again, to say that organizations, one way or another, attempt to change processes, products, services, etc. badly is not to say that they don't do so at all.
OK, you get my drift.
In the next posts on this topic, I'll provide a bit more description of each cultural element.
The problem for me and all those other writers is that culture is difficult to define. Heck, it's even difficult to describe because it's so all-encompassing, so comprehensive.
I've come up with a way of looking at culture that makes it all more accessible, I think. We'll start with the model first, then work our way to specific examples.
The model tells us that there are eight elements that make up culture. These elements refer to things that all organizations do. Culture is simply...how they do them.
The eight elements are:
- Communications
- Decision Making
- Planning
- Collaboration/Teamwork
- Motivating Performance
- Managing Agreement
- Teaching and Learning
- Innovation
You might look at some of the elements and say, "Wait...I know of organizations that don't plan or don't innovate." Again, doing something very poorly is different from not doing it at all. Take innovation: Can you point to an organization more than about 18 months old that is doing everything the same way it did it the day it started? My guess is, no. "But," you might reply, "I know of companies where such changes have been badly conceived, badly planned (when they were planned at all), and badly implemented. You can't really say that those organizations are innovative."
Again, to say that organizations, one way or another, attempt to change processes, products, services, etc. badly is not to say that they don't do so at all.
OK, you get my drift.
In the next posts on this topic, I'll provide a bit more description of each cultural element.
Comments