Any second or third generation Business owners who have been able to change the business culture for Positive results?

[2rocky]

When you have found yourself needing to make a change in the way you do business, or the markets you serve, how did you get your people on board to make that change effectively?

 

[Doublecluck]

Effective change comes from buy in, if you don’t have buy in you won’t have change. Your people need to know where you are at and where you are going and believe in it. you need the right people on the bus, the right people driving the bus and throw the wrong people off the bus. Culture is driven from the top down. If you aren’t the person to drive then find someone who is.

 

[MtnElk]

The biggest thing I advise clients on in these situations is explaining the why behind the changes - without the why and buy in at the top (as @Doublecluck said) you're sunk. For the major holdouts and skeptics, follow that by asking for a trial period of 100% buy in to see the results. Think Days of Thunder where Robert Duvall asks Tom Cruise to try 100 laps his way... to show him he was right.

 

[The_Jim]

@2rocky I've worked for my dads business for 18 years - he is 64 now so in the next couple years I'm going to be asking the same question. I appreciate what he has done for me, but I also don't care for many of the ways he operates the business.

I'm watching to see what advice pops up here!

 

[Lyfter1013]

I work for a large corporation 19 sites across North America so not exactly the same but my position for the last 4 years is rolling out a new Continuous Improvement program that changes all aspects of the operation, so I feel like this would apply to your situation as well. As others have stated focus on the “why” also the “how” and what your long term vision is with your associates. When it is applicable get their input and make them feel like they are apart of the improvement process not just stuffing it down their throats. The hardest part of my job is convincing 100 associates many of them who have been doing this longer than I have that what corporate is dictating is the right long term decision. If they are not bought in it will never work, all of our 19 sites have struggled with this. At the end of the day if you have associates that are not buying in and are hurting the process you have some tough decisions to make. There have been multiple individuals throughout our organization who have been given the ultimatum to either get on board or find a new company to work for. And sometimes it’s better to lose someone then let them Drag your improvement process down.

 

[The_Jim]

@2rocky What's the size of the business?

 

[2rocky]

@2rocky What's the size of the business?

Under 100 employees, One location, Manufacturing, Sales and Transportation

 

[SAJ-99]

Always found "culture" to be a very nebulous term, meaning different things to different people. I do agree is starts from the top and changing it is hard.
@2rocky, What do you see now you would like to change?

 

[zpooch]

Whatever the situation, you need an early "win" to show the change process works and build credibility. Then you get buy in from a few and continue your culture change. Need to identify the early adopters and cultivate the why. First 90 days are key, it isn't rocket science, just needs to make sense to those being changed

 

[Cammy]

I am a bit late to this discussion however..... In order to enact true change to the culture of a company, leadership must be the example. I started at the bottom of a family owned company where the owner was presently absent (He showed up everyday but did absolutely nothing). He was ALWAYS looking for the "magic bullet" that would improve the business but never followed through with anything. I had an opportunity to move into a position where I was empowered to implement processes and systems that radically deviated from the established norms. The culture change was amazing! We attracted a better group of employees, improved retention and profits increased. Dead wood was quickly identified and pruned as necessary and new wood was replanted and given everything it needed to grow. Things would be running fine and the boss would grab the steering wheel because of a "magic bullet" idea and run the place in the ditch. It would take me months to get things back on track and he would do it again. After 14 years of fixing "F-ups" he caused I called it quits.
Through the whole process the times that I had him toeing the line and being an example, things improved. As soon as he started chasing squirrels, things went backwards.

 

[Devilscrown]

Lots of really good advice in this thread, I have not ever been a business owner but have spent 15 years in leadership and a few resources that have been influential for me are: Good to Great, The Culture Code and Trust and Inspire. I would recommend checking them out if you have time.

 

[Steiny77]

Leadership of the company also has to walk the walk 100%.
Our company was a third generation general contracting firm. Biggest culture change we made was from just kind of doing like everyone else, to being an industry leader in safety. This got us in with the best clients that had lots of work and were not nearly so price conscious.

We got super strict on safety so on things like random drug testing, everyone had to pee including us owners. If an office guy visited a site, he darned well had all the PPE on demanded of the field workforce, used fall protection if up on a roof, etc., etc. Everyone including office personnel got first aid CPR trained annually, stayed current on OSHA 10 & 30 training, etc., etc.

It really difficult to get hourly personnel to buy into something if the leadership isn't following the same rules. You also have to be willing to terminate a hard head or two regardless of how long they've been around, or how skilled they are, if they don't want to play ball.

When we started seeing successes for our efforts we made sure to make a big deal of things, give awards, special luncheons, gifts, recognition, etc.

 

[Nutrioso]

Really sound advice here. I can add the following. Leaders have three strong tools to drive cultural change: systems, symbols and behaviors. All have to align with the direction you want to take the culture.

Systems—the collection of processes the business operates under—can support or be detrimental to the culture change. The best example is pay and bonus systems. Do they drive the culture you want? Implement systems that support your direction and eliminate those that don’t.

Our organizations are filled with symbols, from where people sit to the posters in the break room. All the symbols need to drive the culture change message. Do you want a culture where labor and management enjoy some level of equal voice but have assigned parking for managers while the labor force parks in the back 40? That’s a big symbol. Learning to see the symbols and understanding how they are interpreted is critical.

Finally, as Steiny77 said so well above, the behavior of leadership is crucial. You can’t drive a safe culture if managers won’t wear PPE. You can’t drive a culture of accountability if managers won’t hold themselves accountable.

With these three tools, some vision and persistence, getting to a strong, productive culture is possible.