Here is an excerpt from an article by John Kotter, Vanessa Akhta, and Gaurav Gupta for the MIT Sloan Management Review. To read the complete article, check out others, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

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New behaviors must become lasting habits to achieve positive, sustainable change.

As businesses work through the complexity of return-to-office strategies and determine how to manage a forever-hybrid workforce, the need to cultivate — and preserve — effective organizational culture is on everyone’s minds. Driving intentional culture is a critical element of an adaptable organization that can respond to emerging challenges and opportunities at today’s fast pace. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty and complexity that have accompanied it have clearly demonstrated, organizations need cultures that encourage flexibility, adaptability, and speed.

But despite shared recognition of the importance and role of culture, there is very little consensus on how to effectively change it. Typical approaches to culture change — relying on leaders to define the culture and cascade it throughout the organization, or fully outsourcing the responsibility of shaping and building culture to an HR group — rarely produce real results. These attempts often face major hurdles in the typical management-centric organization, which leans toward stability and reliability rather than change and agility, and whose leaders may view change as a threat.

Our observations of successful cultural change efforts suggest that organizations should take an approach that starts with new actions, not with leaders identifying or articulating a desired culture. Rather than merely stating a desire for a culture with greater collaboration, for example, you would encourage collaboration through actions: seeking input from others, including junior or new colleagues on the team; including end users in the solution design process from the outset rather than waiting until a new product is ready to beta test; or more actively using internal communication tools to share ideas and progress updates in real time.

These new actions, when consistent with the business strategy, start to generate tangible results, which, when celebrated early and often across an entire organization, can inspire more new actions. Over time, this cycle of new behaviors generates new, lasting habits that snowball across the organization. Once behaviors become habits, these new ways of working become “how we do it here” — rather than isolated, individual, or fleeting instances.

Our research on and observations of organizational efforts to define or evolve culture have revealed common pitfalls and some proven strategies for producing a meaningful impact on culture. Below are three of the most widespread dangers to culture change, along with strategies for addressing them.

[Here are the first two of them.]

1. Not connecting culture to business outcomes. Organizations often embark on a cultural transformation without clearly defined, measurable outcomes, which makes it nearly impossible to truly judge progress or assess which efforts are effective. The notion that culture cannot be measured leads to limited investment in it and the de-prioritization of it, especially in difficult times. While culture itself can be hard to measure, the prevalence and impact of new behaviors or actions can be measured through surveys, business metrics, and qualitative observations. Without a clear connection between culture and overall business performance, it’s easy to tag culture change as the responsibility of one individual or function rather than a companywide priority. But it is in each individual’s discrete actions and behaviors that true culture change takes hold.

Another common trap is trying to emulate the “great” culture of another organization. While an outside-in perspective can be helpful, you can’t simply copy and paste someone else’s culture into your own organization and expect it to fit or endure. Your organization’s distinctive culture must be aligned with its strategy while remaining tied to its values, purpose, and vision.

The key is to recognize that culture change is not a goal in itself, but rather a means to achieving a specific business outcome, whether that is greater customer intimacy, more innovative products, greater operational efficiencies, or something else entirely. This is also why culture change must be closely integrated with the overall business strategy rather than isolated within a single function. Starting with meaningful business objectives makes it easier to identify the specific behaviors and ways of working that will help you achieve these goals. It’s also helpful to intentionally call out, celebrate, and reinforce new behaviors that exemplify your desired culture. And when reporting on business results, explicitly and regularly highlight how these new behaviors and ways of working contributed to those outcomes.

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The Stakes

We are slowly emerging from one of the most challenging years many employees and organizations have ever faced. Although the pandemic has been exceptionally disruptive, the uncertainty, complexity, and volatility that we are experiencing are here to stay. For the sake of our employees, our communities, and our organizations, we need many more organizations that understand the science of culture change and are willing to adapt to the needs of our rapidly changing world.

Here is a direct link to the complete article.