Cultural Assimilation in Large Organizations: Levers of Change (part 2 of 2)

In the previous post on Cultural Assimilation, the point was to not only identify the challenge (cultural assimilation in large organizations), but raise up awareness around the multitude of change levers available to organizations (and OD practitioners).

 

Any strategy designed to integrate disparate organizational cultures that reside under one organizational entity will require numerous sub-strategies, not only put in motion in tandem, but sustained for years, if not longer. 

 

But what are these levers of change? Here are a few to consider:

 

o   Leadership vision – Let’s start with the CEO and the executive team. Whatever they are focused on, the organization will follow. The vision is not a one-time shout out in an email, but truly drinking the Kool-aid and exemplifying the new way continuously. 

o   Leadership communication – If a leader is talking about it, the employees will be talking about it. Cultural assimilation is an ongoing conversation in everything that is communicated. There is never an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ framing of groups within the organization. All leaders need to be educated to the communication themes and held responsible to exemplify the new cultural ideals. 

o   Leadership presence – leaders need to be out and about, not cloistered in the executive suite. Whether it’s leadership meetings or rounding or employee events, leaders set the tone. If they are not on point at all times, they are not helping the cause. 

o   Leadership development – the organization’s leadership culture should not be left to happenstance. Organizations that fail to tend to their leadership development opportunities will get what they deserve, -a leadership culture that is all across the board. The leadership culture will be that there is no discernible leadership culture. It is the wild west of leadership. 

o   Change management – Is there an official organization-wide change management model? Does everyone understand it and know how to put it in motion? Do leaders know what to look for? Do they know how to talk to resistors?

o   Performance management (PM) – unfortunately, PM has too often become a perfunctory HR process where no one seems to understand the strategic potential of an active PM model. PM is effective when it brings everyone together around common goals and objectives, rewarding those who support and meet those goals, -not rewarding those that are not meeting the goals.

o   Talent management/review – organizations can be all over the place on talent management, but when an organization reviews its talent, decisions are made regarding whether leaders are properly placed, if they can take on greater responsibilities, or if they should be moved out of leadership altogether. The criteria then, needs to be such that leaders who exemplify the characteristics of the unified cultural organization are rewarded, those that don’t, aren’t rewarded. 

o   Succession planning – succession planning in this context is different than talent management in that the former refers specifically to a vertical ascension to a critical role, with learning and specific experiences planned out for strengthening the bench. Within the context of cultural assimilation then, the level of change is to promote those who are ambassadors for the new culture, and consciously not placing those that aren’t ‘getting it.’

o   Talent acquisition – Another often overlooked lever of change is the ability to identify the characteristics that the new organization needs and sourcing candidates accordingly. How connected are we when it comes to sourcing key attributes among candidates? Flexibility, diversity, change/agility, collaboration, resilience, and communication to name a few. 

o   Rewards and recognition – For all employees, calling out those who are engaged in activities that promote the new cultural identity, celebrating their activities, writing about it in the company newsletter, etc. is another level of change. Acts of selflessness between departments and employees, new friendships, interdepartmental rotation assignments, quality improvement sharing ideas, are all opportunities to re-form the narrative. 

o   External branding – this is done to some degree, but probably on a shoestring budget. Examples could be signage, external communication, marketing, uniforms, community outreach and events; all represent ways to establish the new identity. 

o   Quality model – this missed opportunity gets lost in the dust, but one unified quality improvement model represents a new and common language for everyone.

o   DEIB – One common and unified strategic plan for promoting DEI&B standardizes an expectation and cultural brand to all current employees and potential candidates. 

o   Orientation – a standardized onboarding process sets the tone on day one. From the first moment an employee begins their employment, they are ready to be imprinted to the new way. The organization must seize this opportunity.

o   Onboarding – the way an employee experiences the first 1-12 months of employment should be universal across the spectrum. Is there a Mentor or ‘buddy’ connected to the new employee, helping to set a mindset oriented to the new ideal culture? 

o   Employee development – whatever the organization can afford to do with  investments in this lane, there is a huge opportunity to personalize specific messages across all entities. Within every learning module or event, there needs to be messaging that is reflective of the ideals of the new cultural way. 

o   Employee value proposition (EVP) – regardless of where an employee sits (geographically), they should know what the EVP is and that it is available to them (not just the mother ship). This is where the new cultural ideals and cultural assimilation meet. If the new organization has not identified their EVP, that’s a huge omission. If the organization has identified their EVP, but they aren’t aggressively rolling it out, they’re leaving food on the table. 

 

Cultural integration requires a conscious, deliberate, and sustained focus. In my experience, efforts to manage or guide culture is at best temporary in most organization, completely ignored in others.  

 

Two points to take away however, are that:

1)    there are many systems (strategies) within an organization to draw from and re-design, and

2)    any strategic plan to assimilate cultures needs to use most, if not all of the levels of change available. 

Cultural Assimilation in Large Organizations: Levers of Change (part 1 of 2)

Large organizations can experience incredible growth either organically or through M&As. Organic growth means that internal pressures can build until there’s an acknowledgement that new buildings and departments are needed, more FTE’s are needed, and processes need to be formalized. On the other hand, organizations that acquire this company and then that company tend to focus overwhelmingly on the mechanics of the assimilation. Looking for economies of scale by centralizing functions or eliminating duplicate departments is a tasty treat for executives in charge of the operational and financial changes. 

After a few years, people are left to wonder why the culture didn’t integrate along with the organizational changes. There’s a dangerous assumption that in time, acquired group A and acquired group B will ‘come around’ and feel like they are a part of the fold. There is a giant leap of faith that an employee of an acquired group will identity with the legacy (or acquiring) group. 

Unfortunately, all too often cultural integration gets lost in the noise of organization life. Even organizations that have the best intentions and acknowledge that their consortium of cultures need to start feeling connected as one, the ideals of organic assimilation simply don’t come to fruition. The newly formed organization is busy trying to capitalize on their new organizational capacity and power. 

Because little if any sustained attention (and resources) is devoted to cultural assimilation, acquired and merged entities feel as though they are simply separate and distinct cultures functioning under one name, but in name only.

Change theories try to address the mechanics of getting cultures to adapt to new changes. It is huge in healthcare with the frenetic pace of change that seems to hit this industry. So you have Kotter, Prosci, or McKinsey 7-S to name a few. Each requires a concerted effort to get into the minds of the employees that may be weary from so much change. How do we marshal employee excitement and energy to embrace the new thing?

The second part of change however, and this is right in the OD practitioner’s wheelhouse, is the often overlooked levers of change within the system. Think about a large organization that has grown quickly over the last 5-7 years. The mother ship has cobbled together an impressive quilt of businesses, but each merged or acquired entity hangs onto its legacy systems and processes. So you end up with these guys over here do it this way, and those guys over there have their own system…we just let them do their thing.

Cultural assimilation can pull from numerous levers of change. None of these levers alone are sufficient to move the needle very much. It is not a linear proposition, where you can implement one change for a few years, then when you feel like it is safe to poke your head up, implement the second change. You will very simply put, never get there with this strategy. 

What are the levers of change then? In the next blog article, I have identified 16 levers of change. There are probably organizational dynamics and systems that could be added to this list, but the main point is to draw out the vast arsenal of systems that the organization can draw from or coordinate in concert to affect cultural assimilation. The challenge might be more about a lack of knowledge and vision rather than tools and systems. 

Remote Workforces and Organizational Culture: 6 ways to Strengthen Your Culture (part 2 of 2)

In the previous article, we talked about the challenges of establishing and maintaining organizational culture in these post-pandemic years, specifically regarding the fast growing expansion of remote workers. Considering that a company's role with an in-person organizational culture might be tenuous at best, how do we need to think about remote workers and their connection to a culture?  

When an employee works remotely, they get a lot with this arrangement. Employees can live further away geographically and avoid a long commute. They might have more control over their day and fewer interruptions. Working from a home office means that the noise of organizational life is probably not as loud. The remote worker usually doesn't get as tangled up in the office politics and drama as their in-person counterparts. They can be much more present in their family's lives and even walk the dog when it's needed. All of these changes are good for some people and they can actually be much more productive than in the office. 

But let's consider what they lose, specifically as it relates to connecting to the organization's culture, and how organizations need to adapt to the new reality.  New employees become socialized and enculturated by frequently and regularly interacting with their team members and the leader. In Orientation, there are explicit efforts to communicate the mission and values of the organization, but it's the immersion in the physical arena that facilitates their assimilation.  

So what is different about the remote worker? How does enculturation happen without the physical environment, the co-workers, the infinite number of signals that permeate the office? What fills the void and reminds us about our identity and affiliation with the larger organization?  

When we teach leaders about 'communication', we often emphasize the overwhelming amount of communication that occurs through body language. Verbal communication is one thing, but it's often the alignment (or misalignment) of body language, the physical signals,  that either confirm or betray the communicator's message. To understand this better, try saying I love you to your significant other while looking at the televised baseball game at Applebee's at the same time. Maybe that was too specific?

Organizational culture for remote workers may struggle in the same way. Numerous social and cultural signifiers have to be reconsidered for the remote worker. While this is in no way the exclusive list of shifts to be thinking about, let's review a short list:

• Rethink Orientation and Onboarding - Consider how the virtual orientation and onboarding experience looks to the remote worker. Apart from establishing regulatory rules and talking about fire exits, in-person onboarding is more about connecting new employees to other new employees (socialization). It is also about establishing an initial framework for the organization's (ideal) culture (enculturation). 

For the remote worker then, extra care has to be given to bridge that chasm. An isolated remote worker will struggle with the basic mechanics of  technology, ordering supplies, HR policies/benefits/time cards/holidays, and other functions that would be quickly addressed by an in-person counterpart in the office. Assimilation into the group or company will take much longer if there is no thought given to this crucial bridge. Mentors or an 'onboarding buddy' can accelerate this journey, but it shouldn't be left to chance.  

• Increase Strategic Communication - consider the way daily communication typically goes with the in-person experience. Team members greet each other and reconnect (i.e., good morning, how was the softball game, how was your weekend, goodnight). Throughout the day, co-workers stop in to talk, you see familiar faces on the way to the cafeteria, and the endless opportunities for informal communication paint a colorful picture of where we stand with our teams. 

The remote worker is going miss a lot of these signifiers unless the leader/team consciously think about this. And while for the introvert, they might secretly rejoice in the thought that a lot of 'ragbag' stuff has been avoided, in reality, these social connections are not being strengthened. 

What is your communication strategy? How are you consciously organizing communication that tightens the team? What are the group norms for communicating? Are you connecting the team in a morning scrum? Does everyone understand when is a text or an email appropriate or when is a Zoom meeting warranted? How regularly does the team meet and with what frequency? 

What are the norms for personal and professional communication? How does the team get to know other employees personally, their family, their lives outside of work? How might a remote worker get to meet people from other teams? Are there opportunities to develop deeper human connections?

• Strategic Recognition - a large part of an employee's sense that they 'fit in' comes from the way they are recognized, -the activities and events that forge an identity amongst team members. This is typically driven by the leader, but with remote workers, there needs to be some structure around it (otherwise it looks ad hoc). How are birthdays and accomplishments acknowledged? How are people recognized?

For the remote worker, as one author puts it "facial expressions, body language, … high fives, handshakes, pats on the back…those indicators are not available." (Cochran, 2022)

• Leadership Signifiers - the biggest 'X' factor is going to be leadership. We've talked about the changing competency set for post-pandemic leaders, but there is another competency model to be written for the leader of remote workers. While remote teams are not necessarily new, most leaders have only experienced in-person teams.

Remote workers will not usually get the steady stream of signifiers from leaders that their in-house counterparts get. That means leadership patterns, expectations, temperament and other observable clues will not be as visible. Because the socialization of remote workers takes longer than their in-person counterparts, the leader will need to make a deliberate effort to close the gap. The leader might be the original and primary source to frame-up goals, communicate the support an employee can expect, convey/show the preferred pace of contact, and set the tone for how mistakes are viewed. The leader models attitudes about the team, team members, their value to the team, their skills and challenges. This contextualization is the remote worker's initial and primary introduction to culture. 

• Connecting through 'the work' versus the physical office - it is the work that is now our connecting point, not the physical office, the mission statement on the wall, the company colors, the uniforms or khaki pants that everyone wears. The traditional artefacts that Schein talks about are not as relevant in the remote world.  

• Emotional connection - consider that in the physical environment, the team is present for moments when good things have been done and it's a great time for recognition. The remote worker might not feel this connection except for the monthly meeting over Zoom. This means that the emotional bonds between the leader and the employee become all that much more important. A more effective leader will make this emotional connection that fills whatever void might otherwise exist. It is performance management on steroids by another name. When the remote employee understands that their leader sees them, recognizes their value, appreciates their contribution to the team, the emotional connection establishes a fundamental need; their status. 

Even if the leader cannot personally devote the time and attention to establishing this emotional connection, they can consciously put the new employee into various team assignments. 

Culture is Shifting. Remote workers and virtual teams were not invented as a post-pandemic discovery, but this group of the workforce is certainly an expanding presence in organizational life. Even though an employee is working remotely, there are a wide array of dynamics that are similar to the on-site employee. So that may be helpful to leaders. On the other hand, the lack of signifiers for the remote worker make them susceptible to becoming disconnected and disengaged. 

The backdrop of course, is that culture is now more than ever the differentiating factor (once the transactional element of compensation is taken off the table). Remote worker cultural management is within the purview of leadership strategy. With the trend to a growing remote workforce, indifference to creating, managing, and sustaining a strong culture is simply malpractice. 

Remote Workforces and Organizational Culture: a New Challenge (part 1 of 2)

Organizational culture in the post-pandemic labor market is undergoing a transformation. With so many employees shifting gears, re-evaluating their priorities, reflecting on their career aspirations and work-life balance, organizations are asking not only why is this happening but what do we need to do about it? Not only are employees shifting companies at a much higher rate, they are increasingly working from home.  

My theory is that people have a sense that there is something better out there. Whatever dissatisfiers an employee has with their current employer, whether it’s a feeling of being underpaid or undervalued, the grass always looks greener on the other side. 

Maybe we want to believe that the equation is simply about compensation. Companies that have taken their eyes off the compensation ball will surely pay the price through attrition until (maybe) they figure out that every person with skills has agency. Companies that focus primarily (and only) on compensation will feed the transactional nature of the employee’s mindset, and it’s a losing strategy. High-attrition companies will eventually adjust their compensation philosophy to get back to some sense of equilibrium.

More progressive organizations on the other hand (thinking beyond the transactional factor of pay) will examine the reason people seek employment with and remain at their company. If compensation is off the table, then what? What is the glue that holds people and teams together? In short, it’s the organization’s culture. Does the culture nurture its employees, ensure that they feel included, that they belong, recognize their achievements, and promote professional growth?

If an organization embraces the differentiating factor of culture, let’s add another dimension to this conversation. As remote work becomes more and more prominent, we now have to wonder what organizational culture even means anymore. The pandemic forced organizations to be creative and find ways to enable employees to be productive while working from their homes. The unintended consequence however, was that the organizational glue, its culture, suddenly looked different. 

How does an employee sitting in their home office, isolated from all of the trappings of organizational life feel connected to anything remotely resembling organizational culture? The socialization that we took for granted, the water cooler talk, and the lunches where gossip and grievances were aired were no longer to be found. Office humor, body language, and impromptu drop-ins all served to socialize employees and convey a sense of belonging and status. These social connectors provided a common understanding of the organization’s culture, but with remote work, their power to give meaning went away (or at least decreased substantially). 

 

When Edgar Schein wrote his (1992) seminal work on organizational culture, it became the most influential piece of research that shaped our understanding of organizational life. Schein defined culture as: 

 

A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. 

 

The underlying assumption was that the employee group was working together in a physical sense. Through their interaction and exposure over time, employees picked up on shared values, explicit versus implicit rules to live by, basic assumptions, and shared meanings. This is where we pick up on cues around dynamics such as the meaning of time, the way we learn from mistakes (or weaponize them), the way employees get noticed, the way change happens, the way resistance to change looks, and the way innovation and improvement looks, to name a few. 

 

A lot of organizations misunderstand or dismiss their role in establishing and maintaining a cultural identity. There might be a brief discussion at Orientation for new employees to hear about the explicit ideal culture, but afterwards, they are left to figure out the tacit culture that awaits them. We’ve probably all gone through this experience where, after getting the we are like one big family speech, you shortly thereafter observe the Game of Thrones cutthroat politics that pervades. 

 

In addition to a weak cultural footprint at Orientation, talent management doesn’t sustain a focus on the ideal culture, employees are not held accountable to uphold the ideal cultural footprint, nor are they selected, promoted, or fired based on the explicit cultural ideals. So is it any mystery as to why leaders see fail to see the organization’s stated values as their values? 

 

The big question then is what does organizational culture in a growing remote workforce even look like? If my main connection to an organization is through email and occasional Zoom meetings, clearly a significant amount of socialization is missing. 

 

The new challenge for organizational development is how to restructure organizational systems and processes to forge a new cultural connection with both its onsite and remote workforces.

 

Belonging: The Secret Language of Leaders

Diversity, equity, and inclusion have a new partner to the club: belonging. Leaders take note. While DEI has held center stage for a while, the addition of belonging goes to something much deeper within our psychological selves. Belonging typically refers to one’s physical, emotional and psychological safety.  It is the feeling of being welcomed by a group (or the group).

Where DEI has been helpful in bringing attention to social inequities in the workplace, it’s not sufficient by a long shot. If we only see diversity in the context of racial or gender balances that reflect the demographics of the community at large, we’ll miss the central tenet of the whole movement. I.e., If we meet our quota, then no one can ever question our DEI bona fides. 

Abraham Maslow pointed out in his 1943 article, The Theory of Human Motivation, that belonging is fundamental to every human being’s psychological needs. Simply put, we all need to feel that we belong. 

For organizations that recognize the importance of a ‘belonging’ culture, it means having a workplace where people can bring their authentic selves to work and be accepted for who they are. Differences aren’t repressed, but celebrated. This has implications for things like engagement, retention, onboarding, performance management, succession planning, and culture.

Now more than every is a good time to reflect upon the ways we, as leaders, send signals that tell our employees whether they belong or not. There is a difference between the explicit and tacit messages we emit. 

It is no stretch to say we live in a society of highly polarized social and political tension. Just using the term MAGA, or mentioning CRT (Critical Race Theory), or the topic of abortion and you’ll feel a chilly wind blow through the room as if the High Plains Drifter just rode through the middle of your brain. 

Each of these terms instantly conveys a lot about a person. Rightly or wrongly, we have learned a secret symbolic language that precludes our need to dive deeper into who anyone is beyond the subtle messages that ooze from our pores. Just give me the slightest clue, and I will be able to predict where you stand on several issues. I will probably not be one hundred percent accurate, but that one word or phrase is all I need to get your number. 

As leaders, we are trying to lead within this social environment where symbols and language represent land mines. Leaders are obviously social and political creatures. They are entitled to their social and political views as well. 

Checking our politics at the door. When it comes to the workplace however, creating an environment where everyone feels that they genuinely belong, and having credibility as a person qualified to be trusted as a fair leader, means we have to check our politics at the door. 

With one wrong step, you can telegraph how you see the world. Even if an innocent mistake or turn of a phrase is made, people will make their own sense out of those words and symbols. 

A picture of a political celebrity hanging on the wall in the leader’s office, a MAGA hat, a pro-life comment favorable to the pro-life cause can be enough to send an unhealthy message about who belongs and who doesn’t. Jokes about Hillary’s emails, Hunter Biden, lock her up, Let’s go Brandon, Covfefe, and a thousand other dog whistles not only convey how the leader feels, but who belongs and who doesn’t. The left has them as well.