Change the Culture, Change the Game
The Breakthrough Strategy For Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability For Results
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Summary
In the high-stakes arena of business leadership, where accountability reigns supreme, Roger Connors and Tom Smith's "Change the Culture, Change the Game" emerges as a beacon for those ready to transform their organizations from the inside out. Imagine reshaping your corporate world by harnessing the true potential of its most valuable asset: its people. This transformative guide, a masterstroke from the authors of "The Oz Principle" and "How Did That Happen?", dives into the dynamic interplay of culture and success. By embedding a culture of accountability, leaders can ignite unprecedented results and foster an environment where strategic advantage is born from shared vision and collective responsibility. Connors and Smith distill decades of experience into actionable insights, offering a revolutionary blueprint for those who dare to think differently and lead with purpose.
Introduction
Every organization faces moments when the old ways of working simply aren't enough anymore. Perhaps your team feels stuck despite having talented people and solid strategies. Maybe you're hitting walls that seem impossible to break through, watching competitors pull ahead while your results plateau. The frustration is real when you know your organization has untapped potential, yet something invisible seems to be holding everyone back. What if that invisible force isn't actually invisible at all? What if it's your organizational culture, and what if you could transform it into your greatest competitive advantage? The truth is, culture isn't just something that happens to you—it's something you can actively shape and direct. When you learn to manage your culture intentionally, you don't just improve performance; you change the entire game. You create an environment where people naturally take ownership, collaborate effectively, and drive results that seemed impossible before. The journey begins with a simple but powerful realization that either you will manage your culture, or it will manage you.
Build the Results Pyramid Foundation
At the heart of every successful cultural transformation lies a deceptively simple model called the Results Pyramid. This framework reveals how experiences create beliefs, beliefs drive actions, and actions produce results. Most leaders make the critical mistake of focusing only on the top levels—trying to change actions and demanding better results—while ignoring the foundation that actually drives behavior. Consider the remarkable story of Dave Schlotterbeck at Alaris Medical Systems. When Dave took over this heavily leveraged medical device company, it was hemorrhaging cash and heading toward bankruptcy despite his decades of manufacturing turnaround experience. Every strategy that had worked before was failing spectacularly. While walking back from lunch one day, Dave had a pivotal conversation with a marketing manager about the company's few "go-to people." That's when it hit him: imagine if everyone in the organization were a go-to person. Dave realized he needed to work at the foundation level of the pyramid. Instead of just demanding better performance, he began creating experiences that fostered new beliefs about accountability and ownership. The transformation wasn't immediate, but when it came, it was dramatic. Within months, Alaris went from thirty consecutive months of losses to consistent profitability, eventually selling to Cardinal Health for $2 billion—a staggering 7,000 percent return on investment. To build your own Results Pyramid foundation, start by clearly defining your desired results, then work backward to identify what beliefs people need to hold to achieve those results. Next, design specific experiences that will create those beliefs naturally. Remember, you can't skip levels or work only at the top—sustainable change requires building from the bottom up. The pyramid teaches us that lasting transformation happens when you change how people think, not just what they do. Focus on creating powerful experiences that shift beliefs, and the actions and results will follow naturally.
Master the Culture Management Tools
Once you understand the Results Pyramid, you need practical tools to accelerate cultural change. The three Culture Management Tools—Focused Feedback, Focused Storytelling, and Focused Recognition—provide the daily mechanisms that move your cultural boulder from where it is to where you want it to be. Opthometrics, a respected optical retailer, discovered the power of these tools during a challenging economic downturn. Bill Jones, a division director who was struggling with performance, learned firsthand how Focused Feedback could transform both individual and organizational results. When Bill's boss observed that he was "using pillows" when delivering constructive feedback—softening it so much that it lost all impact—this direct feedback changed everything. Rather than becoming defensive, Bill embraced the feedback and began delivering clearer, more direct guidance to his team. Within ten weeks, his stores went from missing targets to hitting plan eight out of ten weeks. The transformation happened because Bill learned to focus his feedback around specific cultural beliefs, using language like "Here's where you demonstrate our belief" and "Here's where you could demonstrate it even more." To implement these tools effectively, start with Focused Feedback by asking "What feedback do you have for me?" rather than "Do you have any feedback?" Train yourself to simply say "Thanks for the feedback" without evaluating its validity in the moment. For Focused Storytelling, structure every story with a beginning that references a cultural belief, a middle that shows the belief in action, and an end that connects to key results. Make these tools part of your daily routine rather than special events. The magic happens when they become natural parts of how people communicate and recognize each other throughout the organization.
Align and Accelerate Organizational Change
Successful culture change requires everyone to get on the same side of the cultural boulder and push in the same direction. This alignment doesn't happen automatically—it must be carefully orchestrated through a systematic approach that engages every level of your organization while maintaining clear process controls. The story of Kimberly-Clark Health Care illustrates the power of alignment around clear results. When President Joanne Bauer narrowed the organization's focus from seventeen different objectives to just three key results—"the Big Three"—something remarkable happened. The simplicity and clarity created immediate alignment. People throughout the organization could see these results printed on binders, posted on walls, and even labeled on intercompany mail packages. This laser focus triggered a chain reaction of accountability. Employees at every level began asking themselves "What else can I do?" to achieve these results. The impact was extraordinary: net sales exceeded the previous year by 12 percent and budget by 10 percent, while operating profit surpassed the prior year by 65 percent and budget by 19 percent. The alignment created momentum that seemed to accelerate on its own. To create this level of alignment in your organization, begin with the Leadership Alignment Process. Ensure you have the right people participating in key decisions, clearly identify who will make each decision, and create forums for open discussion before decisions are made. Most importantly, once decisions are made, everyone must promote them as their own, regardless of their initial position. Remember that alignment is a process, not an event. You must constantly monitor for forces that push people out of alignment and take quick action to correct course. When everyone is truly aligned around cultural beliefs and key results, change accelerates naturally because all energy flows in the same direction.
Summary
The journey of cultural transformation reveals a fundamental truth: you either manage your culture, or it will manage you. When you choose to take control, you unlock the extraordinary potential that exists within every organization. As the experiences of companies like Alaris Medical Systems, Opthometrics, and Kimberly-Clark Health Care demonstrate, changing culture isn't just about improving performance—it's about changing the entire game and creating sustainable competitive advantage. Start today by honestly assessing your current culture and identifying the specific results you need to achieve. Build your foundation with the Results Pyramid, focusing on creating experiences that foster the beliefs you need people to hold. Then implement the Culture Management Tools consistently, making them part of your daily leadership practice rather than special events. Your culture is waiting to be transformed, and the impact of that transformation will extend far beyond what you can currently imagine.
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By Roger Connors
