Read Our Blog On Culture Change

Business leaders are not politicians, chasing the popularity of the soundbite. They tend to be held to account by boards of directors. Increasingly, in the modern interconnected world, their actions are the subject of a more public debate fuelled by customers and even employees. Whether you like it or not, this is drawing the worlds of politics and business closer together in terms of what is expected of leaders.

The origin of the phrase ‘Hire for attitude. Develop skills’ has been attributed to Sherry Phelps of Southwest Airlines. It’s been used repeatedly by many others since. And it certainly led to Southwest’s well-documented success story, due in large part to their employees having a ‘Warrior Spirit’. So their leaders and other employees all had to have the resilience to constantly fight the industry battles.

There are few jobs in the modern workplace that are not defined by Key Performance Indicators. Few business processes not defined by a Key Business Requirement. Or similar ways of setting performance expectations and the metrics. In the culture of modern management, these are seen as positive, and so they are. Without them, there would be no norms, no predictability in the business, and nothing for managers to manage.

Steven Covey tells a story of when he was on train and a father climbed on with three kids who were misbehaving. The other passengers were getting more and more irritated, so finally he went over to the man and said, “Your kids are irritating the other passengers. Can you do something to calm them down?” The man looked up, in a daze, and said, “Sorry, I didn't realise, we’ve just come from the hospital. Their mother has just died.”

How long does organisational culture change take? I am often asked that question, and I choose to answer empirically. After a decade of coaching this in companies, I have plenty of evidence. Jamaicans often say, ‘Dese tings take time.’ By which they mean that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And culture transformation does take time. Lasting change requires the establishment of new behaviours.

Your brain is made up of 86 billion neurons, each with the processing capacity of a laptop. Psychologists describe the mind as an iceberg with three layers. At the top is the conscious mind. What you’re aware of right now. Below lies the pre-conscious mind, accessible if you give attention - to recall your mobile number for example. Below that is the unconscious mind. Information here is deeply held and includes instinctive...