Watch Walking the Talk's Mairi Doyle talk about what behaviours drive inclusive cultures.
Prioritisation: We all know the benefits. We all know we should do it. We all know how hard it is. The basic principle behind the power of prioritisation is that if you put the same amount of effort on doing less things than on doing many things, the quality and impact of what you are doing will be greater.
It's the same for culture.
If you try to change too many behaviours at once, you might achieve very little or it will take you years. I often come across businesses trying to shift 8 or 10 cultural attributes at the same time. This is a mammoth task that often yields little result. The secret of culture change is to focus your effort. There are two main ways you can do this.
At company level
Can you think of how powerful it would be to identify ONE behaviour that needs to shift, and work on nothing else? Train your leaders and your people, get people to discuss the behaviour and give each other feedback; align your systems and processes so that they clearly reinforce the behaviour; manage your company symbols to avoid misaligned messages. Changes would happen fast. I suggest selecting between one to three behaviours to focus on. Make sure they are the most critical behaviours to shift to achieve your business results. If there are more, you can tackle them once the first ones are embedded. Focus, focus, focus.
At the individual level
The same applies to you as an individual leader, manager, or employee. If you embrace too much, you will feel dispersed and your actions will have less impact. Change will be short-lived and under pressure you will revert back to type. I suggest you choose one behaviour at a time, maybe two, not more. Ask for feedback, practice the behaviour, congratulate yourself when you succeed, self-reflect when you don’t, and keep practicing. If you do nothing else, you will see that you can change faster than you thought you could. Focus, focus, focus.
What is the behaviour you are currently focusing on?
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