Systems Trump Mission Statements; Culture Trumps Systems
A few months ago I blogged on how systems trump intentions because systems create behaviors. In discussing the attempted Christmas bombing plot, Dave Logan makes the good case that the reality goes one step further: culture trumps systems. Hence, no amount of systemic change will ultimately solve the problems that led to the security breach if the culture is not changed as well.
This is a good lesson for all organizations.
Here’s one of the core excerpts from the article:
The problem is organizational culture. As Peter Drucker, the late father of modern management, said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Culture says it’s OK to not think creatively about how a lead might connect to other information. Culture says that following up on leads eventually is soon enough. Culture says that doing what’s in our job description is “good enough for government work.”
….
Until we target culture as the issue, all we’re accomplishing with systemic fixes is the illusion of action.
No amount of Obama-style fixes will make a stupid culture any smarter, and remember, culture eats strategy — and systems — for breakfast.
In his press conference, President Obama said, “Ultimately, the buck stops with me. When the system fails, it is my responsibility.” The question is: Why is no one taking responsibility for the cultures that produce these failures?
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About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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A great author on Organizational Culture is Edgar Schein. He is very insightful and was/is a pioneer in the field of Organization Development. He makes many of the same points mentioned in the post.
Very insightful as we find failures everywhere but we seldom stop to think about the causes of those failures. I think that we need to stop frequently, especially after major failures or “systemic breaches”, to learn from them what we need to change in the CULTURE, not necessarily in the “system”.
And to think CULTURE is to think about human beings and habits and customary ways of doing things and excuses for mediocrity, and, ultimately, about SIN as the cause of so much misery in our world.
Changing the culture of an organization is…slow. (or is it? correct me if you have good strategies)
For example, I’m a high school teacher recently placed in a new (to me) position. The culture of my students is to be lazy and to cheat. In order for me to establish a new culture, I’m thinking that it will take time for them to get to know me and my standards and systems. It will take time for them to see the consequences that I enforce when they do cheat (more systems). It will take time for me to figure out how to best (most wisely) respond to their laziness. It will take all of us time to build relationships and for me as a teacher in this school to gain a reputation.
I can’t reverse years of what might be poor parenting or lenient education.
Any thoughts on how else to change the culture of my classroom?
Yea,you’re right! It’ll take time. I’m not a teacher myself, but an organizational consultant working mostly with industrial work settings. Any way, organizational change principles are basically the same, and most experts agree that in order to change people’s habits of mind you need to clearly articulate what it is that you are trying to change. This implies that in the first stages of the change process you will have to invest a lot o time TALKING TO PEOPLE, explaining yourself and also listening to their ways of thinking.
Don’t try to change everything and everybody all at once. But be very bold in the beginning as to breaking with the “old ways of doing things”. It will help your group to understand what you are trying to accomplish if from the start you clearly define the new vision.
Matt,
I would nuance this a bit and observe that systems are a part of organizational culture and also continue to shape it. In the three-pronged definition of Schein, culture entails artifacts, shared values/beliefs, and assumptions. One of a culture’s artifacts is the system itself, and various expressions of it. Nonetheless, we must come to terms with all aspects of culture if we are to reshape and hold it accountable to biblical standards.
Blessings,
Matt S.
Good addition, Matt. Well said.
My understanding of “culture” includes things such as thinking and reacting patterns that become customary, and with time, accepted by everybody. As a result of that, ineffective work cultures are created and maintained that from time to time give birth to major failures or breaches that surprise everybody but that can be traced back to “cultural root causes”.
On the other hand, I understand “system” as the arrangement of elements into a manageable unit that is expected to perform correctly simply by virtue of the quality or excellence of the arrangement itself.
And I think that most organizations fail precisely because when things go wrong, it is more easy to review “systemic failures” than it is to go deeper into analyzing what might be wrong at the “cultural level”.
In any case, I think, both levels must be taken into account in order to improve the performance of an organization.
I would like to receive comments on the above, because I think it’s difficult to correctly conceptualize things such as “culture” and “system”. And I want to keep learning!
Thanks in advance for any help!
I think that’s a good way to distinguish culture and systems. Good word on most orgs looking too easily to “systemic failures” and not cultural. Cultures create the systems to a great extent, so dysfunctions in the culture can lead to greater dysfunctions in the system. And since systems influence culture, it creates a bad spiral. On the other hand, good culture can (I think…) begin to overcome bad systems by changing them.