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by William T. Batten
Organisational culture – it’s such a strange, wriggly creature.
You can’t control it, not fully at least.
You can influence it. It’s one of your main duties as a strategic leader, after all.
But it’s not a machine whose parameters you can finely tweak.
It’s a living, breathing organism.
You can nurture it, guide it, discipline it, but you can’t control it. It emerges naturally as people work together.
It’s challenging to influence it – but oh, so rewarding.
But if you have staff who work remotely – whether that’s in the field, at other sites or from home – then culture can be hard to monitor, let alone influence.
Being in the same room creates a certain psychological flexibility. Can you influence people who aren’t around you? Sure – that’s why books work (and why you’re reading this).
But an in-depth discussion with the author, day in and day out, will influence you more.
Seeing someone gives you a better read on their state of mind than you can get over the phone or email.
Video conferencing helps, but it’s still a barrier compared to in-person interactions.
If you’ve worked at an organisation with different sites, you’ve probably seen this.
One site is friendly and relaxed, while another is strict and professional.
One is productive while another is dysfunctional.
It could be the people, but often these differences persist even as employees move on.
Physically separating people causes the culture to evolve in different ways.
This makes your work in driving a change initiative harder. For one thing, different pockets of the organisation are beginning in different places. For another, those you talk to every day will ‘get it’ better than those you see once a fortnight.
But we have the technology, so we might as well use it.
Deliver the change digitally and it will reach every corner of the organisation.
And if you base it around microlearning – short, practical snippets of information – then people will use it.
When they need to know about something, they won’t have to rely on asking someone passionate and knowledgeable about the initiative. Not everyone is going to have someone like that close by.
If you rely on word of mouth and cultural osmosis to spread the word, it won’t jump these physical separations.
Microlearning solves that beautifully.
It brings what your people need to know to them, in a way they can easily access.
Microlearning makes its point in minutes, not hours.
It delivers information whenever someone needs it, not three weeks before it.
It covers what they need, not a bunch of extra details.
And, no matter who or where they are, what they’re getting is the same.
The best way to enhance your organisation is with the ultimate advantage: trust.
But how do you measure something like that, let alone improve it?
Especially if your workforce is stretched thin, cynical and burned out on change?
There are simple, effective and proven strategies you can begin implementing today. I know you can unlock the creativity, productivity and joy of your employees.
About the author
Learn how today with my free white paper and all the resources you need to launch your own trust-based change initiative:
