Will Your Corporate Revolution Install A Tyrant?

Everyone knows that an organisation’s culture makes or breaks it. A poor culture stymies innovation, happiness and productivity, while a strong culture supercharges an organisation to…
Wait a moment.
How do we know that?
Sure, it seems intuitive that culture matters. We’ve all worked in places with toxic cultures that’s seemed to circle the drain. And we’ve worked in places that felt empowering. The difference feels enormous.
But why settle for feelings when you can have data?
A great study on this, even if it’s a little dated, is the SPEC study. You can look it up easily enough. The researchers wanted to know what impact, if any, culture had, so they went to a place where thousands of companies compete, die out and thrive:
Silicon Valley.
You want large numbers? It’ll give you large numbers…
Anyway, they loosely classified different cultures into types.
There’s the autocratic organisation, where the boss tells you what to do and pays you to do it.
There are bureaucracies – stable, accountable but inflexible.
Star cultures, who hire the best and get out of their way.
And so on.
They then measured these organisations by longevity, IPO and a few other easy metrics of success.
Now, the usual caveats. These categories are somewhat subjective and arbitrary – many companies fall outside these clean lines. And maybe Silicon Valley companies don’t follow the same rules as yours, making it a bad analogy.
But if we assume it’s a useful model, it tells us some stuff.
Because the study showed a few things:
Culture flows down from the top. The best way to change an organisation’s culture is to change the CEO.
Change always hurts. You can’t transition from one flavour of organisation to another without losing some people. And losing anyone robs you of experience and organisational memory. Change is often worth it, but it’s never not bad.
All great findings – with many lessons if you’re willing to pay close enough attention.
But here’s a particularly juicy nugget for you:
Making your culture more autocratic or bureaucratic is a terrible move.
Like I say, all change drives some people away.
But this sort of change?
Expect to see your best and brightest rush for the nearest exit.
People don’t like being stifled, especially your top performers. The reason why bureaucracies and autocracies are so common is they stifle the bad employees, limiting the damage they can do. But that same trap also ensnares your greatest assets.
It’s natural for an organisation to become more bureaucratic over time.
But it’s like the measles – just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s good.
Fight the slide into excessive structure and paperwork as best you can. This isn’t a case where none is best – you’re going to need some processes. The danger is when you have a thousand processes – each making sense in isolation – working together to strangle your workforce.
Cultural transformation is tough. I hope the effort you put into your revolution liberates your people, rather than installing a king. If you want to sabotage your organisation, tyranny will do it.

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But how do you measure something like that, let alone improve it?
Especially if your workforce is stretched thin, cynical and burned out on change?
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