And how to empower people to initiate a cultural change...
Whether we like it or not, power is part of our nature and is now deeply embedded in our culture. Therefore, power is an important subject when it comes to cultural change.
We often encounter ambitious employees who are eager to make a difference in the culture. They recognize the driving and restraining forces behind the organizational culture and see the opportunity to do something positive with it. Yet, they often find themselves held back by something.
"I first want to have more influence before I go that far."
This is a recent example of what someone told us, and a very logical reaction. Because in organizations, we have assigned power in a peculiar way. We appoint people to positions, and we generally find it logical that:
Leaders make (all) important decisions
Leaders are rewarded for the performance of their team(s)
Leaders are chosen and evaluated by other leaders
In fact, for many organizations, this is the definition of leadership: someone placed in a position to make decisions that ensure results. However, there is much to critique, because:
Leadership is situational, and one person can never make the best decision in every context
Giving prestige (reward) for serving the group's interest is ultimately much more sustainable than just achieving results
The appreciation of team members is a much better measure of a leader's success than the appreciation of other leaders
In other words, we give people power, but power corrupts. And we do this in a context where leaders are maximally tempted to give in to this. Power then tends to shift towards blind retention of power, often hidden under multiple layers of organizational "logic."
This form of dominance was always punished throughout long human history. The way we organize now is new and already deeply embedded in our culture. But as humans, we still respond much better to strength than to pure power.
Herein lies the key to working on cultural change from a position of strength. This requires an adjusted intervention strategy aimed at smartly increasing your influence. And you can start with that today!
Would you like to explore how functional your culture truly is? Take our free Culture Scan today! https://cultuurscan.scoreapp.com (Note: the scan is in Dutch, let us know if you would like to take the scan, but don't speak Dutch!)
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