N is for Creating A New Culture By Building A New House That Shows A New Way

Imagine you have been given the brief and mandate to rebuild a struggling organisation.

There are many ways to make this happen. Sometimes the different approaches can be likened to building a house.

Some people renovate an old house. Some build a new house that is connected to an old house. Some build a new house in a new place.

It is vital to choose the route that matches your strengths. So let’s explore these three ways of building a superb organisation.

Renovating The Old House

There are many ways to renovate a house or revitalise an existing organisation. Imagine that you have been invited to tackle such a turnaround.

Start by making sure you have the authority to do whatever is necessary. Meet the key bosses – the owners, bank or board – and agree on three things.

Clarify the picture of success.

Make sure that you and the backers are agreed on the real results to achieve. Play black your understanding to make sure everybody has the same picture.

Clarify the overall strategies for achieving success.

Make sure that, within this framework, you have the mandate to do the job.

Clarify that the key backers are really serious.

Making changes will bring both pluses and minuses, so you will need their support when things get tough.

You can then move on to revitalising the organisation. There are several approaches to making this happen. You may choose to pursue or combine some of the following options.

To close the organisation and start again.

To build on the good parts of the organisation and close the rest.

To put everybody through a change programme and hope they develop the urgency required to achieve success.

To clarify the organisation’s strengths and successful patterns – by using methods such as Appreciative Inquiry – and develop these to build a successful future.

To maintain the present organisation but simultaneously develop prototypes that show how the organisation can be successful in the future.

Revitalising an existing house – or an organisation – can be challenging. Sometimes changing a system meets resistance. Too much time can be spent trying to persuade people, rather than delivering the required results.

It is possible to rebuild an organisation. But you will need to implement the right strategy with the right people in the right way. This may call for many tough decisions along the way.

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. Imagine that you have been invited to renovate an organisation from the inside.

Describe what you see as the pluses of this approach.

Describe what you see as the potential minuses.

Describe, on a scale 0 – 10, the attractiveness of this approach to you.

Building a new house that
is connected to the old house

Kate is somebody who has frequently followed this route. She has built many new houses – new ways of doing things – that have been connected to existing organisations. These have included teams that have developed new approaches to customer service for companies in the travel, insurance and digital sectors.

Kate often did this by taking the following steps. She aimed:

To get a clear picture of success and mandate from the Board.

To clarify what had worked best in the organisation and show respect for its heritage.

To connect the new approach to the existing organisation by having a long connecting corridor to the existing organisation but developing the new approach separately.

To build the new department, deliver great customer service and show the bottom line results.

To hand over the department to people whom she coached to run it successfully.

Kate has a track record of making this happen. Sometimes the existing house – the old way of doing things – was then demolished. Many elements of the cultures she built remain. They continue to serve both their organisations and their customers.

One key point is worth underlining. It is important to have a long corridor – some distance – between the old house and the new house.

The new house may well develop a different culture and a new way of doing things. There is no point in rushing back every half hour to ask if it is okay to do things in the new way. If you do that, the old system will take over.

You are aiming to build a new system that shows another way. Bearing this in mind, it is important to ring fence the fresh approach. At the same time, however, it is vital to deliver success.

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. Imagine that you have been invited to build something that has some connection with an existing organisation.

Describe what you see as the pluses of this approach.

Describe what you see as the potential minuses.

Describe, on a scale 0 – 10, the attractiveness of this approach to you.

Building a new house in a new place

Pioneers often take this route. They go out and build a house – a new business, new idea or new project – on the prairie. Sometimes they find gold; sometimes they go bankrupt.

Such people go beyond having a Big Idea. They move forward through the stages of imagination and implementation to achieve the desired impact.

Can you think of people who have built ‘a new house in a new place’? Certainly it is not always possible to create something completely new, but here are some people who have taken this path.

Anita Roddick created The Body Shop; Dame Cicely Saunders started the modern hospice movement in the UK; Peter Benenson founded Amnesty International; Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and others created Humanistic Psychology.

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. Imagine that you want to build a new house in a new place.

Describe what you see as the pluses of this approach.

Describe what you see as the potential minuses.

Describe, on a scale 0 – 10, the attractiveness of this approach to you.

There are many ways to shift a team or organisation.

Some people revitalise an existing house. Some build a new house that is connected to an existing house. Some build a new house in a new place. Some combine elements of all three approaches.

Bearing in mind your strengths, which is your preferred way of building? What are your reasons for preferring this approach? How can you continue to build in this way?

Imagine that you want to build a new house that is connected to an existing house. It may be, however, that you are accountable for ensuring the old house – the existing way of doing things – keeps going until the new house is ready.

How to make this happen? One approach that works is to get somebody in your team to keep the old house running. You are still accountable for its performance, of course, but it means that you can direct your energies towards building the new house.

The key will be to deliver some quick successes that reassure your backers. This will buy you time to build the new house and produce even more success stories. Then, at a certain point, the new house will become the new way of doing things.

If you wish, try tackling the final exercise on this theme. This invites you to describe the following things.

Describe a specific situation where you would like to build a new house that is connected to an old house.

Describe the specific things you can do to build the new house successfully.

Describe the specific benefits of building the new house successfully.