Culture and Change

Every week my group presents its weekly intraday reports to the leadership team. This includes supervisors, managers, and directors, so there is quite a variety of people that can establish culture and change it when necessary. The reason I present that combination is because leaders can fall into a culture rut. Each week the leaders get critical about the work presented to them, take an hour to decide a plan of action, and decide on putting several confusing action items together to solve departmental issues. This of course should be completed usually within a half hour. Usually what comes out of this is a rushed group trying to complete multiple items, with the problems not completely solved and the fingers of blame pointing in several directions.

This scenario, to me, is an example of culture and one that is in need of change. Culture can be defined as processes taken to complete daily tasks, how they are communicated, how consensus is reached, conflict management, and items learned to be able to complete tasks more efficiently. Instead the department has many opinionated, agenda driven speakers vying for their agenda to be heard. I think as a group we all need to decide that its time for a culture change.

Some ways to do this is limit the number of participants perhaps on a rotational basis so different leaders can be heard and can communicate with their respective teams. Another thought in changing the culture is to present a solution to any problem presented as a team. This removes blame and inserts constructive steps. Another thing is to have weekly forums involving the entire group. This can be a great place to communicate expectations and goals. Finally I think it is imperative to communicate lessons learned and talk about better ways to organize tasks, run meetings, and communicate with one another. It will be beneficial for production, group confidence, and cohesiveness.