eBook

Influencing
Behaviour
Insights and practical advice on how to influence
behaviours in your company culture.

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To enable culture change, first I must change
By Carolyn Taylor, Walking the Talk

You know it. We know it.

The behaviour of people
matters in organisations.

It impacts everything: performance, safety,

innovation, speed and customer satisfaction.
This increased awareness has given rise to a
recent and encouraging surge of interest in
actively managing culture and performing a
culture change.

It’s like a whole new leadership discipline

opened up. To build the right culture, leaders
will be expected to manage the behaviour of
their people, just as they are expected to
manage the organisation's performance.

Not yet so prevalent, however, is the awareness

that effective leaders will also have to learn to
manage their own behaviour. Personal
behaviour management is a skill. And, like any
skill, it can be learned and it can be improved.
But what are the building blocks?

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1. Self as cause
Behaviour matters most when it is viewed in
terms of the consequences it has. “When I do
THIS… THAT happens." And, to develop it
further, “If I do something different, a different
outcome will occur.” This is a fundamental
thinking pattern for anyone who wants to start
managing their own behaviour. Why? Because it
creates a motivation to change. Making this link
requires observation and inquiry. Seek to notice
cause and effect, ask others for their opinion on
it. “What could I have done differently?” “Let me
try doing this and see if it makes any difference.”
2. Key moments
Most behaviours are longstanding, unconscious,
habitual responses to what is happening.
Imagine a leader who is under pressure to
deliver to a deadline. She stops collaborating or
reaching out to others, telling herself she does
not have time. But how could she manage her
behaviour differently? Our manager needs a
trigger, something that reminds her to choose a
different behaviour in those circumstances. If
she can recognise the ‘moments that matter’
and link a new behaviour to those moments, she
can break this pattern. Don't be overly ambitious
with these. Picking half a dozen moments when
a different response would be valuable is a good
place to start.
3. Creating a pause.
There’s a great book on mindfulness called One
Second Ahead. In it, we’re shown how it only
takes one second’s pause to choose a different
response. To live unconsciously, on automatic
pilot, means there is no pause.
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Those who practice mindfulness report that it
provides the very same opportunity. Find your
own technique to create this pause. Even a walk
around the block can do it.
4. Practice key moves
For all of us, behaviour change that’s observable
by others is often achieved by moves that are
remarkably simple. Asking a question where
previously you would have jumped in and told
people how things should be. Showing interest in
someone’s personal life, where previously you
would not have bothered. Finding a phrase which
helps to resolve a conflict. Developing a new
routine. A decision made where previously you
would prefer to delay. Pick your key moves and
practice them. One at a time.
5. Feedback and reward
Allow yourself to notice the changes in your
behaviour. Managing your own behaviour is not
about having a personality transplant. It’s about
choosing to make key moves in key moments
that you previously would not have made. Each
one creates a new consequence, for which a
personal pat on the back is always warranted.
You can also ask those you trust to give
you feedback when they see you making an
effort to change behaviour.
Behaviour change is do-able, especially when
approached with strong intent and realistic goals.
It all starts with the man, or woman, in the
mirror.
Influencing behaviours: How to change the
behaviour of your staff
By Jerome Parisse-Brassens, Walking the Talk

Do you actively manage the behaviour

of your employees? Can you say, hand
on heart, that you have put things in
place in the business to ensure
behaviours are under control? Is your
Board asking you to? Are you clear on
how you can influence the behaviour of
others above or below you? If not, this
article may provide you with some
answers.

Why manage behaviour?
Think Wells Fargo. The organisation was recently
in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. The
Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the
Controller of the Currency (OCC) fined the bank
$185 million because more than 2 million bank
accounts or credit cards were opened or applied
for without customers' knowledge between May
2011 and July 2015. Some 5,300 employees
were dismissed because “they had done the
wrong thing.” The CEO lost his job. Had
behaviour been managed, this could have been
avoided.
Think Volkswagen. The company has been fined
millions of dollars and is paying compensations
to thousands of customers for having used a
software to cheat on emissions testing for more
than 30 million diesel vehicles around the world.
The CEO and a number of senior staff lost their
jobs. Had behaviour been managed, this could
have been avoided.
The list goes on. The consequences of not
managing behaviour of employees can be
terrible, as in loss of life when safety is at risk.
Sometimes it is reputation that is impacted, and
sometimes the business disappears entirely. One
thing is sure, everyone suffers.
Leaders and managers are very comfortable
managing the tasks carried out by employees (I
call this the WHAT). They are however often not
so comfortable managing the way these tasks are
carried out (I call this the HOW). Managing HOW
tasks get done is about managing the behaviour
of your people, which is often not addressed at
an organisational level. This is a mistake, as not
doing it can lead to:
• Low staff engagement.
• Low morale.
• Loss of reputation.
• Increased risk.
• Impact on financial results.
• Increased recruiting and compensation costs.
• Waste of time and resources.

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What is managing behaviour?
You may have heard of managing behaviours or
behaviour management in a health or education
context. Behaviour management is a process
that guides people to change their actions within
a specific context. It is usually used to change
negative behaviours and habits. The process
involves identifying the negative behaviour,
raising awareness about alternative behaviours,
changing the environment to reduce negative
behaviour and offering positive reinforcement to
encourage alternative behaviours.
Parents frequently use those techniques to
change children's behaviour at home. They
identify the trigger for the behaviour, which
behaviours they want to encourage and which
ones they want to discourage. Identifying the
consequences of negative behaviours is the final
step.
It is not that different in a professional
environment. Staff need to be aware of the
behaviours that are okay and those that aren’t,
and why. Leaders and managers need to support
them in the process. They need to make sure
they have put everything in place to facilitate
the development of the appropriate behaviours
and the elimination of others.
What makes it tricky in a professional
environment is that there are more than two
parents and a child to take into account. There is
often a complex level of hierarchy and divisions,
groups and teams that interact in a variety of
forms. There are also a number of quirks, as
described by my colleague Amanda Fajak, which
make things even more complicated. For
example, the fact that we are naturally obedient
and will not confront hierarchy, or the fact that
we won’t speak up if we think someone else will.
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“Managing behaviour” is not about controlling
and knowing how every single employee in the
business is behaving at any point in time. It is
about putting things in place to ensure that staff
are encouraged to adopt the appropriate
behaviours and drop the bad ones.
So how can you manage behaviour in the office?
Managing behaviour is not as difficult as it
sounds. There are a number of steps that leaders
and managers can take to ensure staff “do the
right thing”.
1. Be clear on the behaviours you want to see in
the organisation and those you do not want to
see.
This may sound obvious, but if you are not clear
on the behaviours you need for success, those
you want to see adopted by employees, you
won’t be able to manage them. Beyond the
obvious behaviours that I call “permission to
play”, such as respect, no bullying, or integrity,
the are other behaviours that may make the
whole difference between great and average
results. Examples include sharing information,
speaking up, challenging each other, actively
listening, keeping your promises, or bringing the
voice of the customer into the conversation.
You need to think about what you are trying to
achieve and define the behaviours that will
enable you to get there. The next step is to
clearly communicate what you expect people to
do and not to do. Best is to focus on a few
behaviours at a time (say 3 or 4) to avoid
confusion. Remember, we cannot change more
than 2 or 3 behaviours at a time.
2. Encourage and discourage behaviour
Now that you have clarified and communicated
what you expect from everyone, you can start
encouraging and discouraging it to reinforce the
message.
Encouraging behaviour is about letting people
know when they are doing the right thing and
recognising them for it. A number of tools and
techniques are at your disposal, from thanking
someone for displaying the right behaviour
(When was the last time you did that?) to
publicly praising them, or using the
organisational performance management and
reward systems in place. Do you promote
people based on outcomes or on behaviour, or
on both?
Similarly, you can discourage behaviour by
calling on someone the moment you see them
doing something that is not okay, or by
developing processes that prevent people from
taking the wrong path.
The worst thing you could do? Tolerate the
wrong behaviours. As David Morrison, ex-Chief
of the Australian Army once famously said, “the
standard you walk past is the standard you
accept.” What you tolerate becomes your lowest
common denominator, in other words, it
becomes the norm.
3. Be a role model
Being a role model is about influencing others in
a positive way. Leaders who are aware of the
shadow they cast will know that it is not what
they say that matters, but what they do. The
first thing a leader should do if they want to
ensure staff behave appropriately is to do
exactly that. There is no point asking employees
to adopt a set of behaviours if you, as a leader,
are not ready to adopt them first.
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By role modelling the behaviours they want to
see in others, leaders are able to positively
influence everyone. For smaller organisations
who do not have the means to invest in specific
programs, this is the most effective thing they
can do.
4. Think twice about how you make decisions
Leaders and managers should be aware of the
impact their decisions have on employees. It is
not so much the decision that is made than the
way it is made that can influence others. Staff will
interpret decisions made in the way that makes
sense to them, and this may differ from what
leaders intended.
Be aware that decisions, or the way we make
them, often reflect what we value. Your people
will conform to what they see valued in the
workplace. If you have unintentionally sent a
certain message when making a decision, people
will start behaving in accordance with the
message received. So, before you make your next
decision, take a second or two to put yourself in
the shoes of the people around you, and see the
world as they see it. Was this decision the right
one? Does it make sense to them? Does it
reinforce the behaviours you want to see in
everyone?
Culture is created from the messages people
receive about what is valued, and symbols play a
crucial role. If you truly want people to
collaborate and share information, do not close
the door, this can symbolise lack of collaboration.
If you want employees to bring the voice of the
customer into the conversation, place pictures of
customers in your office or start every meeting
with a customer story. If you don’t want people
to behave in a hierarchical way, get rid of
titles. Symbols are precious in changing people’s
perceptions.
5. Create great habits

Research shows that up to 70% of what we do in

organisations is just habits. This means that it is
critical to identify them, to assess whether they
are aligned or not with your target behaviours,
and to create new powerful habits.

Habits follow a loop pattern with a trigger,

followed by the behaviour (also called routine),
and a reward. You need to identify all three
elements to build a powerful habit. Without
reward, the habit will not stick. Without trigger,
it will not start.

A government organisation I am working for

wanted people to show more care for each
other, and wanted people to listen more. They
created a habit called a check-in whereby every
person was invited to briefly share how they felt
at the start of each important meeting. Others
could only listen and not make comments. The
reward was identified as the feeling of having
been heard, something that until then had been
hard to achieve. The check-in process became a
habit; listening skills and care improved;
engagement scores shot up.

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Is tolerance killing your culture?
By Amanda Fajak, Walking the Talk

Culture is the patterns of

behaviour that are
encouraged, discouraged
or tolerated by people and
systems over time.

During this four-part whistle-stop tour of The tolerance threshold will be different for
organisational culture, we’ve looked to find a different people and is made up of a number of
workable definition of what culture really is, factors:
sought to distinguish it from engagement and
learned how we can effectively use • The sort of environment that you grew up in/
encouragement and discouragement to lever began your career in.
culture change. Our last exploration is an • What has happened to you in the past.
important one. • How others around you behave.
• What others accept you doing.
What are you prepared to tolerate? • How you think others will react if you speak
up.
The concept of tolerance is an interesting one. It
implies a degree of ambivalence and by its very If we are actively managing our organisation’s
blandness can seem harmless enough. In reality, culture, then we’ll be encouraging and
tolerating behaviours is far more dangerous and discouraging behaviours more and tolerating
insidious than it sounds. It is also one of the them less, but this can only be effective when
most powerful culture shaping tools an there are clear standards in your organisation
organisation has at its disposal. about what is acceptable.

At what point does our tolerance threshold
click in?
• Am I prepared to tolerate someone ignoring
me when I say hello?
• Am I prepared to tolerate someone swearing
in a meeting?
• Am I prepared to tolerate someone speaking
abusively to another person in a corridor?
• Am I prepared to tolerate someone bullying
another person?
Imagine playing a game of tennis without any
lines drawn on the court. The players could
neither keep score, nor experience any
satisfaction of achievement. Instead, there would
likely to be a great deal of debate, discussion and
discord between the two players, who will of
course have their own rules in their heads. The
issue you have is that until those lines are drawn
on the court, neither player can be wrong or
right.

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Tolerance has an escalating factor. As human
beings, we like to push the boundaries of
possibility, it’s one of the things that makes us
great. Having said that, when we test the
boundaries around what is acceptable and no-
one pushes back, poor behaviour can become
endemic.

This thesis is most easily seen when looking at

children. I’ll take one sweet (no reaction), two
sweets (no reaction), three sweets (“Jimmy stop
eating those sweets!”).

"Ok, so dad has a three sweet threshold.“

When do people say 'no more sweets' in your

organisation? Is it when someone is rude? Is it
when someone is abusive? Or is it when
someone is a bully? Are we adequately and
proactively setting our tolerance thresholds at a
level where major escalations don’t occur?

How much of the poor behaviour in

organisations is because the little things have
been tolerated so people think that the bigger
things are okay too?

Counteracting tolerance is vigilance and pro-

activity in the day to day. In some cases it takes
downright courage. It can be hard for us to give
people feedback. Speaking up and speaking out
are never easy, but they become easier when
companies are clear on the culture they want to
create and the standards and values that prevail
within that culture. As I say to my son in equal
measure "that’s not how we roll around here" or
"that’s exactly how this family works“, tolerating
less can make a powerful difference.

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When it comes to culture, tolerance is no virtue
By Carolyn Taylor, Walking the Talk

Leaders will often ask me what they

can do to accelerate a change in
their culture. As someone who likes
to find ways to provide simplicity on
seemingly complex and theoretical
topics, I’ve long been searching for
that mythical ‘one thing’ that will
make the most difference. I think
I’ve found it. I’ll be interested to hear
if you agree with me.

At Walking the Talk, we’ve always found this
definition from the book ‘Switch Points’ to be a
powerful one to work with. Over the years,
however, we’ve found it necessary to add
another key element:
“Culture is the patterns of behaviour that are
encouraged, discouraged, or tolerated by
people and systems over time.”
Tolerating behaviours is the enemy of good
culture
In many circumstances, to be tolerant is seen as
a virtue. And certainly, when aspiring to greater
open-mindedness and diversity, it is. But when it
comes to culture management, the act of
tolerating becomes far more insidious. What you
tolerate will always become the lowest common
denominator in your organization. It will
determine the culture you create around you.
Tolerate mediocrity, or worse, and that is what
you will end up with. Walk past point-scoring,
blame, or arrogance, and they will become
prevalent in your culture. Master the art of not
tolerating such things, and you will witness rapid
culture change.
Simply choosing the behaviours you want to
eliminate from your culture and focusing
relentlessly on not tolerating them should be
fairly straightforward, right? But this process hits
at the heart of something most of us would
prefer to avoid, the difficult conversation. It’s so
much easier to say nothing, especially when
performance numbers are good. It takes courage
to speak up, but it becomes easier when those at
the top are clear on the standards and values
they expect within their culture.
When former Toshiba Corp chief executive and
president Hisao Tanaka was forced to resign last
year due to an accounting scandal, it emerged
that Tanaka himself was aware of the financial
malpractice that had been going on for years. He
also knew that the culture was such that
employees were too afraid to question it. By
ignoring this from the first moment he had an
inkling of bad practice, Tanaka tolerated the
issue, allowing it to snowball.

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What does this mean for leaders?
We all enjoy focusing on strengths encouraging
good behaviours. And although beneficial, I’ve
found that encouraging and discouraging is not
enough. Calling out behaviour that doesn’t meet
the standard is a fundamental part of leading
culture. Each time a leader sees an unsafe
practice, for example, and does not point it out,
they are sending the message that the behaviour
is tolerated. In this instance, the impact of
neither encouraging or discouraging a behaviour
can have disastrous, even life-threatening
consequences.
Tolerating becomes even more tempting when
pressure gets applied. Let’s say collaboration is a
cornerstone of the culture you need to create
success. Someone delivers a difficult project on
time, but has skipped key collaborative
components in order to achieve this. What do
you do? When do you tolerate low collaboration
in the name of short-term deliverables? And
when do you not?
There are many things a leader has to focus on if
they want to change culture. Walking their own
talk and modelling the behaviour they want;
selecting good culture metrics and holding
others to them; painting a picture of the desired
future culture and communicating it whenever
possible; assigning resources to building the
skills and infrastructure that will support the
desired behaviours. But if you asked me to pick
one thing, it would be this, learn to be intolerant
in all the right places.
Above board behaviour
Boards have long tolerated a whole range of
behaviours, simply by not paying attention to
behaviour at all. Up until very recently, boards of
directors considered behaviour as a topic for
management, rather than directors.
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Even now, many boards are motivated by
pressure from regulators, rather than by a deep-
seated belief that behaviour is as much a part of
performance as financial measures. But boards
today can actively show their lack of tolerance
for certain behaviours. They can request data on
key behavioural metrics, or on factors such as
how strongly behaviour is considered in
performance review, or how often behaviour is a
cause for promotion, reward or dismissal.
Take it personally
And what if you’re an employee whose span of
influence is seemingly quite small? What
behaviours do you tolerate in yourself? In your
colleagues? Do you care enough about certain
behavioural standards to find a way to point out
behaviours that do not meet them? Do you take
time to review your own behaviour? Everyone
can make a difference here.
These days, so much energy and investment goes
into all of the trappings of building the best
culture, the values statements, roadshows, lists
of behaviours and metrics. But then every day,
certain behaviours get quietly tolerated, and
much hoped for traction isn’t achieved.
In the end, it comes down to what happens in the
day to day. What choices do people make at any
given moment? What behaviours do they think
they can get away with? And does the culture
support those who choose not to tolerate those
behaviours?
As the saying goes: What you put up with, you
end up with. Or, in culture management terms,
what you tolerate becomes the cultural norm.
So what are you willing to put up with?
5 tips for habit formation
By Jerome Parisse-Brassens, Walking the Talk

As a sports fan and an avid business

news reader, it’s seems that every
success story is about habits these
days. We hear interviews with and read
about the top athletes or performers,
each of whom appears to have a
particular routine, daily habit or
dedicated behaviour pattern that
enables them to achieve extraordinary
results.

In the culture space too, one of the top areas of
research and focus at this time is habit
formation. At Walking the Talk, we define
culture as the “patterns of behaviour that are
encouraged, discouraged or tolerated by people
and systems, over time.” What we are trying to
do when shaping the culture of an organisation
is to get people to behave in a certain way,
because if they do, this will lead to the results
and the outcomes you want.
The most effective way to change behaviours is
to target the belief and value system that
underpins why and how we behave. Because
when we are able to change a belief or a value, a
different set of actions and behaviours follows,
and in turn, a different outcome.
But another way to change behaviours is to
focus on forming different habits. Because it is
hard to change one’s behaviour, focusing on
something of smaller proportions such as a habit
can be a very effective way of moving towards
the goalpost. Habits can be defined as “a usual
way of behaving, something that a person does
often in a regular and repeated way”, or “an
acquired behaviour pattern regularly followed
until it has become almost involuntary.”
This means that habits are small and need to be
easily practiced, repetitive, and visible. By
choosing to work on habits, we are able to shape
our behaviours and move towards the desired
culture of the organisation. Successful
organisations are shaped by the habits and
behaviours of their people. The little changes
have a big impact, and you can then shape your
culture, habit by habit.
Here are some things to consider when choosing
the most effective habit to work on:
1. Make sure the habit has a clear link to your
goal
This is essential. If the habit is disconnected from
what you are trying to achieve, the exercise will
feel pointless. The first step is to establish what
you are trying to achieve. Has the desired culture
elements of collaboration or customer centricity,
or is it more about innovation? Once your target
culture is clear, identify the behaviours you want
to see shifting in the business. For example, for
collaboration, it may be “listen actively”, or
“share information”, or “integrate information
from the whole business into the decision
making”.

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Only then and based on the behaviour, can you
identify the habit. For example, for the
behaviour of “listen actively”, the habit could be
“let people explain their position first before
speaking”, or “always ask two questions before
stating your position.”
2. Start small
Select small habits that can trigger a chain
reaction in other areas of our lives when they
are changed. Think of the habit that will give you
the biggest shift with the less effort to shift.
Small habits will give you small, quick wins and
provide a platform for other, different, bigger
habits to form. And they are contagious. It
doesn’t matter how small the habit is, if you can
do it everyday, you can build a platform for
change.
3. Choose one or two habits only
Time to refrain your ambition or your drive.
Research shows that you cannot effectively
focus on more than one or two things at the
same time. This is particularly true with habits.
Many of my clients typically choose four or five
habits they want to shift and they don’t,
understand why the change is happening at
snails pace. The trick is not to try to change too
many things, but to change a few things really
well. So only pick a habit or two at a time. If you
pick two habits, make sure they are not
triggered by the same thing or that they could
not be performed at the same time. For
example, choose a habit that you do first thing in
the morning and another one at the start of
each meeting, or one at the start of meetings
and one at the end of meetings.
4. Don’t move on until the new habit is
embedded
Most of us are impatient. This is not helping with
habits.
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If you start moving to the next habit before the
first one is properly embedded, you will quickly
realise that you have wasted your time. The first
habit will be quickly forgotten. Introduce a new
habit, but keep working on the first one until it
becomes second nature.
5. Make it fun
Finally, but most importantly, be gentle on
yourself and make sure that there is appropriate
reward for the behaviour. The reward is an
integral part of what is called the habit loop.
The loop starts with a trigger, or cue, which tells
us how we should conduct ourselves, what our
behaviour should be. The cue tells the brain to
move into automatic processing. Cues can be a
location, a time, other people, an emotional
state, or even another behaviour! The behaviour
(also called routine) is the response to the cue,
and the reward reinforces the link between the
trigger and the behaviour in our brain. It does
that by creating a positive outcome for the
behaviour, or removing a negative consequence.
An example of habit loop in a culture-shaping
context can be described as follows: At the start
or every team meeting (the trigger or cue), I
listen to participants as they check-in (the routine
or behaviour), and then I check-in myself (the
reward: people are listening to me). A good way
to keep practicing habits is to make sure that the
reward has a fun element to it, so that you want
to keep practicing it.
Habits are central to culture shaping and make
the whole thing do-able. They offer a practical
approach that is rewarding, and they should be
part of any strategy to shift employees’ mindsets.
What habit are you trying to embed at the
moment? Do you have any tips for habit
formation that you can share?
Culture as a Management Practice
By Carolyn Taylor, Walking the Talk

Culture needs to evolve

throughout time,
demanding new
behaviours.

1. Culture is management practice, not a 4. To manage culture, keep focused. Changing

project. The topic may emerge in the
company as a project, however, achieving
the culture strongly wished for is an endless
undertaking, since cultural needs evolve
throughout time, demanding new
behaviours. The HR team may be
responsible for some processes, nonetheless
everyone must be held accountable for this
mission, which must be embraced by the
business’s management and the leadership’s
attitude.
2. We understand culture as behaviours
patterns that are encouraged, discouraged
and tolerated throughout time. The
questions we must ask are: which are the
key standards for the future of our
business? Will we achieve the results if we
fail to behave accordingly or, from a
different perspective, if we keep on doing
things as usual?
3. Culture, behaviour and results are all
connected. A leader’s attitude has an effect.
If a leader can not handle bad news well, for
instance, problems are not reported to
him/her and, therefore, are not solved.
Indexes showing the effect on results will
convince the most sceptical leaders of the
impact of this topic on the company’s future.
just one behaviour demands a great deal of
effort. Focus on up to two values that, if
implemented, will leverage others. Impart to
all employees what is expected from them,
and be aware of how the messages are being
perceived.
5. Praise good examples: those who behave as
expected. Employees aligned with the
culture must serve as role models. Praising
those doing things properly is more effective
then criticising those not acting accordingly.
At the same time, establish a level of
tolerance, and do not ignore inappropriate
behaviours. Have the courage of going
through difficult talks whenever someone
pushes the limit. Culture is also shaped by
tough decisions and silent “NO”s.
6. Early adopters become ambassadors of
culture change. Others will follow gradually,
until the company reaches its tipping point,
the moment when most employees embrace
the new culture. Some will fight against it for
longer, up to the moment they start feeling
uncomfortable. It requires patience, the
tipping point does not happen in a month.
Those who cannot or are not willing to
change will inevitably leave the company.
When a cultural change undertaking is well
done, 25% of the original team might leave
the company, including the leadership.

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7. Choose and use symbols that clearly convey
where you are heading to. Striking attitudes
are the metaphor for this change. Some
symbols might be changing how leaders use
their time, and how the money is invested;
promoting high-potential people and firing
those unwilling to change even after
feedback. Indeed, leaders are the greatest
symbols the company can have.

8. Indexes of changes might serve as an

example of new behaviours being adopted
in the company. If the company wants to be
more innovative, making a record of how
many ideas teams are presenting and their
outcomes for the company could be the first
step. Establish business indexes: the impact
of the new culture on the company’s
performance must be rated to serve as
relevant evidence for the organisation as a
whole.

7. If the company’s top management is not

engaged at first, it is possible to begin the
change from middle-level managers. This
requires identifying high-potential leaders
who know they can make a difference. They
must be given proper encouragement to
support their development and simple ideas
to carry out on their daily routine towards
the desired company. However, engaging
the top management is still a target that
must be met if we want to have significant
cultural changes.

7. If a cultural change is on the right track,

one of the best moves is to entice new
talents. News spreads fast, and work well
done will appeal to other professionals.
More than maximising the effects of a good
story, make the effort to boost a new
experience with your stakeholders.

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Consistency is the key to Culture Change
By Amanda Fajak, Walking the Talk

This heading seems to be

a contradiction in terms.
Isn’t change all about
doing things differently,
being adaptable? Where
does consistency come in?

I was facilitating a group recently and we were
talking about the importance of trust, both in
building them as a team and in creating the
culture they wanted in the workforce. Through
extensive discussion they agreed that being
consistent and ‘making the time’ were, for them,
key pillars of trust.
In that session it struck me yet again how much
of a foundation to cultural change consistency
was. In fact, how much of a foundation
consistency was for any sort of change.
What is consistency? Consistency is a certain
repeatability of behaviour so that people can
predict how you will respond in any given
situation and also know with clarity how they
are expected to operate. If culture is largely
shaped by people’s expectations around how to
behave, then consistent leadership behaviour is
vital.
So how does it work?
I remember walking through a workshop with a
leader who was lamenting the fact that, despite
holding regular safety meetings, doing safety
audits and the like, they weren’t getting the
changes that they needed.
As we were talking I noticed that we had walked
past someone not wearing their safety gloves,
but the leader said nothing. At that point I was
confused and asked him why he had kept quiet.
His response was very telling; “Why worry about
the little things when we can’t even get the big
things right!” What this leader had missed was a
significant moment of truth. In that moment in
time his actions (speaking up when someone was
doing something unsafe) were disconnected
from his words and from his target culture.
The reality is that our culture is merely an
amalgamation of a whole lot of little moments.
Occasionally a big event comes along that
dramatically shifts how people operate for a
short period of time, but this doesn’t sustain. It is
focussing on the little things every day that
matters.
Was this leader wrong? In my experience
most leaders under appreciate the importance of
the little things and the importance of being
consistent every time.

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Consistency is key to cultural change.

The complexity for leaders is this, every decision,

every interaction with someone, is a moment of
truth. When I coach leaders and work with
leadership teams about how to shift their
culture, what often overwhelms them is that
culture is not just a HR project; it is everything
that they do every day. Every budget decision.
Every performance discussion that they choose
to have or not have. Every behaviour they
choose to ignore. Every time they do or don’t
walk their own talk.

In summary, one of the key phrases I use again

and again with the leaders I work with is this –as
a leader, you get what you do and you get what
you tolerate.

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Walking the Talk is a world leader in helping clients align their culture
with their strategy to deliver business results.

Our proven methodology creates powerful culture

transformations that leave organisations with lasting culture
leadership and culture management capability.

Simply put, we make culture do-able.

Contact us to find out more about how culture

transformation and management can help you achieve
your business goals.

hello@walkingthetalk.com

Head Office: +31 (0) 20 520 6872

Europe: +44 (0) 207 100 6999
Asia Pacific: +61 2 8310 5285 More insights can be found in
Latin America: +55 19 3329 1038 the book ‘Walking the Talk,
Building a Culture for Success’,
by Carolyn Taylor
walkingthetalk.com Random House Business books
ISBN 9781847941572.

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2018 All rights reserved | Aug17