How to make culture stick

The most damning criticism that can be and often is levelled at trainers, speakers, facilitators and educators is that their stuff doesn't work. OK, so what's all the fuss? We know it doesn't work! But as my speaker colleague Justin Cohen so often says - you work! How well you work depends on what you do with what you have. And that is the key to this week's long overdue article.

Take a chimpanzee and introduce him to an environment where a bunch of other chimps exhibit fearful behaviour, and the new chimp becomes fearful. Similarly, if you recruit a promising salesperson into a sales team of under-achievers, your fresh recruit will sink to mediocrity in no time having taken on the behaviour of the others. The principle is that due to our need to belong and "fit in", the new recruit will rapidly take on the behaviour of the majority. So it follows that if you take a talented recruit and introduce her to team of people that practice successful habits and consistently achieve good results, in no time you have yourself a winner. The principle is consistent, the individual becomes influenced by the majority.

How does this apply to training being ineffective? Simple really, when seeds are sown on barren ground, they're unlikely to produce a harvest. In fact, even if thrown on fertile soil, they may still fail to produce a harvest without the right environment, conditions and nurturing. So, a message of hope soon dies when delivered in a negative environment or one where negative influences are at play.

If you wish to improve anything in a team, first get the leader's head right, then get the environment right. Wineries know this. They first get the right winemaker in, he spends quite a few years getting the soil composition right prior to planting - and then he works on maintaining the soil's PH balance and nutritional levels for optimum results. So how do you get a people environment right? You do the following (Once the leader's head is right!):

1. You prove to them what the benefits are in building the right environment. This is sometimes referred to as the WIIFM (What's in it for me?). Some call it marketing.
2. You deal with the demotivators (Why we can't or why we are not currently doing)
3. You involve them and ask for their input so that they own the process.
   You've now prepared the soil. Then, and only then do you do the following:

4. Show them how (training, coaching, development, motivation).
5. Reinforce and create new habits (follow up, repetition, support)
6. Consistently praise and recognise the results (what gets rewarded gets done).

But here's the twist. Take a pocket of perfectly good oranges or potatoes. Put in a bad one and what happens? In time the whole lot turn bad. In the same way, a negative person introduced into a positive environment can wreak havoc. The two central principles here are as follows.

If you've gone to the time, trouble and expense to build something up, it usually requires some form of maintenance or nurturing. So principle #1 is: Look after it!

The second principle is that failure to identify and deal with negative but influential people can and will gradually decay a positive culture. Dictators understand this principle very well. They simply lock up (or get rid of) people who disagree with them and challenge their status quo. Principle #2: Deal with negative influences

Let me simplify. Weed, prepare, plant, water, nurture, maintain, weed more, keep watering and then enjoy while maintaining.

So you see, any proactive intervention has a good chance of success when its implementation is planned properly. You just gotta know how!

There is one last thing, of course. Intention without action is procrastination.

Paul du Toit