This is the seventh in a series on Association culture, its role, how it is shaped, and how it can be changed.

What Accelerates Association Cultural Change?

No single leadership factor is a more essential prerequisite to successful change than trust. Every new change raises the underlying question that Association leaders must answer which is “Why?” People who will be impacted by a given change, need and deserve to understand the answer to that question. If trust is not present, much time and energy will be lost trying to figure out the real reason for the cultural shift.

If a change at an Association is well reasoned, it shouldn’t be that hard to explain the why behind it. But the test that determines how quickly the change gets underway is whether or not people believe the answer is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Association Staff Trust Challenge

Employees may have good reasons not to trust their leaders. The trust challenge you face may have little or nothing to do with you. It may be based upon past experiences either inside or outside your organization.

We humans are often skeptical, and life sometimes has a way of giving us good reason to be so. So, as a leader you have to talk straight. Then, we have to demonstrate the truth through our actions.

The Why Opportunity

Even if the reason for change is delicate, leaders who want their culture to change cannot ignore the reason for change. People will trust leaders who explain why the organization needs to get its costs down in order to stay competitive, or the fact that the budget is not growing as fast as the demand for services requiring cost control.

What Accelerates Association Cultural Change?

Our people need and deserve the truth, and in my experience they’ll support the change if they understand it is the right and/or necessary thing to do.

With the truth on the table, people will likely find the change is for the better. And if it’s better, acceptance will help it move faster.

Next week I’ll explore the question, “What does it take to create a culture that actively supports Association change?”

This is the fourth in a series on Association culture, its role, how it is shaped, and how it can be changed.

Can Association cultures change quickly?

Association Culture is changed when expectations and roles are changed. This is especially applicable to the role decision-making plays in a culture.

For example, if a team is having problems meeting expected work output, and an employee has an idea for how to solve that problem, in a hierarchical culture the team would not be able to make any changes without discussing it with their manager first. And their manager may need to discuss it with her manager. This cultural norm significantly slows down decisions and hampers (if not prevents) solving the problem even when viable solutions exist.

When you slow down decision making an unintended consequence is that you reduce the number of decisions that are made.

If we want to better meet members’ unique needs, we need to alter processes, roles and routines and move decision-making down. In fact, to do this we must alter aspects of our Association’s management system. A management system is an Association’s underlying approach to setting priorities, communicating expectations, monitoring performance, and making adjustments to resources to achieve outcomes. The Association’s management system communicates beliefs and defines expected behaviors — and when we alter those two things we redefine important cultural dimensions.

Association Management System

Every Association has a management system, even if it does not call it that. So whether the system is loosely structured or completely unconscious, a management system communicates culture through the expectations it sets (or does not set) and the behaviors it expects (or does not expect).

Most experts agree that you cannot change culture by simply declaring a new set of behaviors or values as the new norm. Instead, my experience has been that the most effective way to change culture is to change the management system. When you do that you change the routines and the roles. That shift then creates a shift in what’s normal, and that begins shaping new cultural norms. All this, of course, takes time.

Now Management System

One of the best methods for changing expectations through the Now Management System® is created by effectively designed and well-run quarterly business reviews. For example, when measures are in place for a team, and those measures are in “red” or “yellow” at the time of the business review, the team is then expected to report on their progress in using our 7-Step Problem Solving process (or whatever process improvement methodology the Association has selected) to turn that measure to “green.” This quarterly business review routine communicates clear ownership of the problem, the expectation of transparent and focused action, and use of the organization’s methodology for improvement.

Bottom line is that these business reviews create a new pattern of behavior, and that behavior will alter cultural norms as it redefines processes, routines, and roles.

Can resetting expectations and changing culture be done quickly?  Of course it takes time and focus to build the system, create sustainable new routines, and teach people their new roles and behaviors, especially regarding problem solving and decision-making. However, in our experience there are certain techniques and best practices that speed the process of cultural change and move decision-making down to the front line.

Can Association cultures change quickly?

“You can see the culture shifting from one quarterly review to the next,” is a sentiment we often hear from leaders. “Our people are learning it’s safe to show that there are problems.”

Coming Up Next: What creates a willingness for culture change at Associations? Next week I’ll share some thinking I have been doing on that topic.

This is the third in a series on organizational culture, its role, how it is shaped, and how it can be changed.

Why should Association CEO’s worry about their culture?

CEO’s are the primary individuals who can effectively alter culture, and that responsibility can loom large.

In the work we do with our customers, the most common driver of change is the reality that keeping up with today’s fast-paced world isn’t easy. Associations feel the enormous pressure of a now-oriented world. The members of our Associations that want good service and they want it now.

So, the reality of our fast-paced world demands that Associations continually adapt and improve everything they do every day. The key point is that in order to meet the unique needs of today’s members and to ensure a great member experience, Associations need to be much more responsive.

Association CEO’s Support Culture Change

In order to be more responsive to member needs, significantly more decisions need to be quickly made every day. CEO’s can see where this is going: to succeed we need a culture that supports more effective decision makers. This ambitious, yet worthy goal can only occur if CEO’s shape their culture to support the goal.

In practical reality this requires we move real decision-making authority into the hands of those who are doing the work – employees. Of course this does not mean all decisions.  However, the decisions that directly impact the member experience need to be made by the people who are directly accountable for a great member experience.

Huge Association Culture Shift Required

Yet, many Associations, maybe even most, operate from a hierarchical management foundation.  This requires that decisions travel up and then down the chain of command. That takes time, and in this day and age, it takes too much time to enable a great member experience. Therefore, for most Associations, the opportunity to adopt a responsive culture demands a huge shift.

Why should Association CEO’s worry about their culture?

Members’ demand for speed and great service is driving many CEO’s to realize that they must change their culture to prosper. For most Associations the change demanded by our now-oriented world challenges the rock upon which they were built – the shared assumptions about “who decides?”

What makes an Association’s culture shift quickly? Some thoughts on that next week.