Why didn’t someone tell you that you only need to give it 10% to be successful?
I am. Sorta.
The Company Culture
It’s not too unlikely that if you’re an HR pro you’ve been in meetings where the company culture is being discussed – or complained about more likely. The fact is, whenever someone brings up corporate culture, all heads turn slowly in your direction until you feel the the intense heat of 15 eyeballs on you.
Culture is HR’s department right?
Finance is about numbers. Sales is about, well, numbers and sales. Marketing is about, um, numbers (how many likes did we get on Facebook last week?)
HR is about, well, other than picnics, it’s about culture. While I’ve made the argument here before that culture is really a management issue across the board (assisted by HR) you know that when the CEO says fix the culture the subtext is “Why isn’t HR doing their job?”
Stop Working So Hard
Here’s the truth… you’re working too hard to change culture.
Recently, Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.
Read that again – 10% = ALWAYS adopted by the majority of the society.
There are naysayers (read some of the comments on the post from the Freakonomics blog about this.)
The Net Net
Find a smaller contingent of employees who hold the beliefs and values that best represent your company. Invest in them and their ability to have conversations about their point of view with others in the organization. Let them have blogs and other communication tools that let them reach out to the rest of the organization.
Let that 10% do your job for you.
But the bottom line for HR pros – you’re probably better off focusing your efforts on a few committed folks in your organization than trying to run a big campaign to change a “majority” of employee opinion.
Paul – I really liked the piece, I was planning to blog about this study as well – you beat me to it!
I suppose the arguments you may get is what happens when there are two or more committed 10% factions that are fighting it out for supremacy? Can it work itself out in the optimal way for the organization? Or do you end up in a political-style gridlock mess?
Anyway, thanks for posting about this, even though now I need to write a new FOT piece for next week!
I love this post, especially the part about finding a smaller contingency of employees to spread the word. From a marketing perspective, I always referred to that special pocket of people as brand ambassadors and I think the same approach applies to HR. No one is better at sharing a company’s strengths and weaknesses than the people who are happy at work and invested in the success of their peers, their clients and the company at large. When I used to recruit entry-level candidates at my old company, I’d always look to those folks to help with the second round interviews.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of companies are still timid about giving their employees, no matter how trustworthy, the green light to discuss the business publicly through social media channels. It’s going to take some time, but the ones that can conquer that fear and give up a little control will reap the benefits internally and externally.
Great advise and helpful that it back up with research that can be presented to Senior Leaders so they don’t think you have totally lost your marbles.
One thing that concerns me about the post is the “15 eyeballs” looking at you. I suppose one person only has one eye, but the odd number kind of threw me at first.
@karen – yeah – the 15 was a purposeful way to get folks to go “huh?” – neat trick eh. The point I’d bring up to MGT is – the same story we’ve heard for a long time – don’t try to eat an elephant in one bite… you really only need to start nibbling and then everyone else will come running to create a feeding frenzy.
@paige – thanks for engaging here. funny how marketing and HR overlap these days. Both disciplines could learn a lot from each other. I think once we get a few more data points that social media does work then the floodgates will open. It’s still pretty new and different.
@steve – sorry brother – but I was under the gun and this jumped out at me. There is some discussion on the “10% push” situation – but that would apply (IMHO) on those issues that there are very discernible and polarizing issues. Not often do you run into that in a culture discussion – unless of course you’re dealing with mergers and acquisitions – then a more focused effort using Social Network Analysis would make more sense as a starting point.
Paul, you know this is a topic I’m passionate about. I do believe it’s possible to change the culture with 80-90% of employees – but not in a “we’re changing the culture TODAY” type of approach.
Rather, if you can focus every employee (or at least the vast majority who’ve expressed they care about their work, the customers, their colleagues, or the company at least a tiny a bit) on specific behaviors and demonstrating those behaviors in their daily work – then you can change the entire culture.
It’s similar to how you move an aircraft carrier at sea – you don’t try to turn the entire ship in the space of few hundred feet. You change direction by a fraction and within a league, a demonstrable change of course is noticeable.
That’s why we focus on helping company’s change their culture by ingraining their company values in the daily work of all employees – and frequently, specifically recognizing employees every time they demonstrate those values.
We’re brothers from different mothers on this issue. I agree – a well-designed recognition strategy will involve 80-90% of the employees. However, whenever you launch any initiative -getting that first 10% is the key point – without a least (according to the research) that many – the effort could stall.
Designing a strategy that affects the majority is one thing – getting them to use it and leverage it is another. The point I was trying to make is that HR should spend some time focusing on that group (a much smaller group than we may realize) that will help socialize the strategy and the program to make sure it starts to become part of the “way we do things around here.”
Thanks for reading and commenting.