Why to Change Small Things, Not the Entire Culture

HBR Tip

Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

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When people don’t achieve company goals, senior managers often declare that it’s time to change the culture. But sweeping, large-scale culture change efforts rarely cure what ails a company.

Managers get better results when they start with a few smaller successes.

o Start with one problem, for example a performance challenge.

o Get some people to run a couple of modest experiments that might solve the issue.

o Pay careful attention to what works and how.

o Incorporate the successful ideas into subsequent steps. Keep advancing an increasing number of performance improvements based on those early wins — and continue to learn from each subsequent experiment.

Eventually you’ll have changed the culture by solving one problem at a time.

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Today’s Management Tip was adapted from Adapted from “To Change the Culture, Stop Trying to “Change the Culture”” by Robert H. Schaffer.

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Also, you may wish to check out an anthology, Management Tips from Harvard Business Review, by clicking here.

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