LPS Quarterly, 3rd Edition, May 2016

culture change

Culture Change through Genuine ListeningPaul Ballman, Head of Leadership Development, Vodafone

Gianpaolo Barozzi, Sr. Director HR at Cisco

Culture joins Strategy for Breakfast

Andi Albanese, Global Business Manager

Building a Sustainable Culture at Azim Premji FoundationSudheesh Venkatesh, Chief People Officer, APF

On the Couch with Saurabh

Govil President & CHRO, Wipro

The Power of Culture in Partnerships and

Strategic Alliances

Leading Culture Change at SAP LabsV. R. Ferose, Senior Vice President and

Head of Globalization Services at SAP

Editorial - Welcome to LPSQ

Many believe that a strong culture – a set of specific values, beliefs and shared behaviors – is critical for organizational success. This has led many organizations in the search of ‘success culture’ as well as spend millions of dollars in consulting fees for competitive advantage. However, the process is hard work, resource intensive and takes a long time. Despite the perils of attempting culture change and rigidness of having a strong culture, most agree it is necessary to achieve a new strategic vision and help organizations respond adequately to the changes in the external environment. Kodak is a great example of who recognized the need for culture change too late. Their dominant culture of delivering perfect products combined with complacent monopolist attitude made it impossible for them to adopt a required hi-tech mindset and respond with required speed and agility.

In this edition, we hope to dig deep into organization culture, demystify what is seen as an intangible and unconscious force which drives behavior and sum up the way things are done in an organization. Our objective is to provide fresh insights, practical tips as well as share real life examples of successful organization change to help you do the same in your organization.

This edition is packed with thought-provoking articles from Wipro’s LPS Team and the broader HR team on Culture Due Diligence from an M&A perspective – Using Psychology to Overcome Culture Differences; Harnessing the Power of Culture in Partnerships and Strategic Alliances; and the Role of Divergent Characteristics in the Change Process. In addition, we have Ferose V.R., SVP and Head of Globalization Services at SAP narrate how he successfully orchestrated a culture change at SAP Labs, India at only 33. Paul Ballman, Head of Leadership Development at Vodafone and author of Red Pill: The Truth About Leadership also has shared his insights about organization culture and the power of listening to mobilize real change.

We have also put Saurabh Govil, our Chief Human Resources Officer on the couch to learn what role culture is playing at Wipro to remain successful and competitive in an increasing digital and fluid external business environment. We have also sought insights from Gianpaolo Barozzi, Senior Director of HR at Cisco about how his organization created a new People Deal and renewed focus on team leadership to make the culture shift happen.

The Leadership and People Sciences Team hopes this issue will unlock your understanding of organization culture as well as provide useful tools to help you lead culture change initiatives successfully now and in the future.

Enjoy Reading!

Mellissa FerrierSenior Manager, LPS@mellolissa

Leading Organization Change

Culture Change through Genuine Listening

Culture Due Diligence - Looking Beyond Compatibility

Paul Ballman, Head of Leadership Development, Vodafone

Sachi Krishana, Head - Global Workforce Transitions and M&A Practice, Wipro

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Culture joins Strategy for Breakfast Gianpaolo Barozzi, Sr. Director HR at Cisco

10

Culture Change in the Digital World: Leveraging Divergent Individual Characteristics

15Pradeep Singh, Consulting Partner, LPS, Wipro

Building a Sustainable Culture at Azim Premji Foundation17Sudheesh Venkatesh, Chief People Officer, APF

Utkal Mohanty, Communication Consultant, APF

Overcoming Culture DifferencesLakshmi Acharya, Consulting Partner, LPS, Wipro

13Contents

On the Couch with Saurabh Govil

How people learn new norms of behavior as a part of culture

Saurabh Govil, President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Wipro

Bijal Chhaya, Principle Consultant, LPS, Wipro

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The Power of Culture in Partnerships and Strategic AlliancesAndi Albanese, Global Business Manager, Global 100, Wipro

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Leading Culture Change at SAP Labs27V. R. Ferose, Senior Vice President and Head of Globalization Services at SAP

How should leaders drive change in the organization’s culture?31Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief Learning Officer, Wipro

Should culture change be attempted?25Smithal Shah, Senior Manager, LPS, Wipro

Contents

If the CEO and HRD had invited me in to help them change the culture, I am sure they would have said that they needed a culture which empowered people to be customer-centric, yet cost efficient. Not exactly an unusual desire, but one that was particularly salient for this business. I say “If” because that wasn’t the task that they gave me, instead I was brought in to help them build “Britain’s Best Workplace”. My new boss thought that I would bring my experience of other amazing workplaces, set a vision for the business, and

then develop a programme to get us there. Instead of doing that, I decided that my first task was to understand how people saw the workplace as it was now, so I set upon a path of listening; a lot of listening. Over a three month period we listened to a thousand people; a few individually, twice with over 100 people and the rest of the time in groups of ten. We asked them what would help make their company Britain’s Best Workplace and what the roadblocks were.

Paul BallmanHead of Leadership Development, Vodafone

Culture Change through Genuine Listening

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To begin with, there was a high degree of caution. People needed reassurance that what they said was confidential, but at the same time they really wanted to know that some action would be taken as a result of what they said. I answered them honestly; yes, the feedback was confidential, but no I couldn’t guarantee that any action would be taken. However, I did believe that if they spoke from the heart, people would listen. And speak from the heart they did. I found that I was fortunate enough to connect with a thousand people who cared passionately about their business; they wanted it to succeed, to be proud of it and go home every day knowing that they helped to contribute to that success. And guess what, they knew what was needed was a culture change. They knew that they needed to be empowered to be more customer-centric, but unlike those at the head office, they actually knew some of the practical changes that could make that culture change happen. Their analysis was far superior to any culture briefing that I have ever been given in the C-Suite. It became clear to me that:

1. Culture change was needed

2. Culture change was wanted

3. It didn’t need to be “done to” people

4. It still wasn’t happening, so something was blocking it

The next task was to help other people hear what I had heard, so I prepared a “wall walk” for the CEO and laid out the unfiltered truth. The impact was immediate and large. Even though an ExCo meeting was due a week later and I had intended to present my findings there, I was told that this wasn’t quick enough and so diaries were crashed and every single ExCo member was taken through the same wall walk over the next couple days. The top 50, and then top 100 leaders soon followed. Important decisions were made, investments were approved, task forces were initiated, but interestingly, none of them was given the task of changing the culture. Instead they were all set up to address the practical barriers to culture progression.

I am sure that you are wondering whether this approach has worked, and in truth it is much too soon to say. Progress is definitely being made, but only time will tell by how much and for how long. In Red Pill: The Truth about Leadership, I explore some of the false beliefs that we may have about leadership. All too often we think that great leaders use their intellects to figure out what the business needs and then lead the way towards it. We hero worship those at the top and attribute organizational success or failure to those few, while ignoring the many. As an alternative, I would heartily advocate giving listening a go. Listen with genuine openness and humility, listen to more people than you ever have before, listen for longer than you ever have before and like me you may find that it becomes the biggest cultural intervention that you will ever make.

I found that I was fortunate enough to connect with a thousand people who cared passionately about their business; they wanted it to succeed, to be proud of it and go home every day knowing that they helped to contribute to that success.

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2015 has been the strongest year for deal making with worldwide M&A market totaling almost $5trillion on record according to the latest industry research. The deal environment has changed significantly. Growth acceleration is the primary driver of M&As makingleaders look for companies in different technologies, markets and products. In such acquisitions where leaders are buying the companies for their distinct culturea more nuanced approach towards due diligence and integration is required. What this means for due diligence phaseandthe outlookbuyers need to have towards cultural differences is the focus of this article.There are two challenges facing buyer community today

1. Culture - Performance Equation has become complex: Integration strategies hinged on the assumption of culture fit leadingto congruence and value creationare becoming irrelevant. Time is ripe to move past the debate of compatibility and start focusing on complementarity.

2. Truncated Due Diligence (DD) Timelines require clarity and focus: Organizations are leaning towards methods which are simple and do not require a huge arsenal of tools or culture experts as part of the DD team. DD teams require new lens to identify cultural risks.

Some of the changes which can be done in the DD approach to maintain this balance of relevance and speed are:

Tip 1: Dysfunctional Context is the top most culture risk. DD teams need to focus on organization practicesand leadership quality to understand the context of performance and relationship.

CCulture is a complex, multi-dimensional concept. Some constituent elements of organization culture are more easier to observe than others. Also not all of them impact organization’s performance equally. Market is flooded with tools which help in assessing value orientation and culture types of organizations however given the aggressive time lines of DD such an assessment is first unpractical and second it makes the teams get lost in labyrinth of data.

Culture Due Diligence - Looking Beyond Compatibility

There is a growing realization that, dysfunctional environment is far greater risk than the differences on values and beliefs. Employee satisfaction and performance is impacted by the environment of performance and support within an organization. These variables are good indicator of strength of culture. Without such an assessment during the DD stage, integration team run the risk of making culture the scapegoat - having many such issues being labeled as cross-cultural issues when these gaps can exist in homogenous teams as well.

Understanding of context can be achieved by

1. Organizations are unique in the way they prioritize twin forces of performance (Stretch, Discipline) and social support (support and trust). Sumantra Ghoshal and Chris Bartlett call these attributes collectively as performance context and social context. Table 1 illustrates key organization practices and processes one can use to understand the two primary contexts of an organization.

Sachi KrishanaHead - Global Workforce Transitions and M&A Practice, Wipro

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2. Leaders are movers and shakers of culture. When understanding the leadership capabilities of the target firm, it is helpful to go past record of success of the leaders and understand the contextual environment behind the record. Higher the varieties of environments the leaders have managed, higher their ability to navigate the cultural environment of differences. The qualities of leaders are good indicator of emergent leadership competencies within the organization. The extent to which these competencies will be effective post acquisition is also one aspect which DD team must analyze and study.

Tip 2: When shopping for uniqueness, culture differences are given. DD team needs to have clear thinking and an ability to make distinction between the differences which can lead to clash and the differences which are cultural assets and need to be preserved.

1. Early understanding and management of differences which can lead to clash

Integration phase is primarily a series of management choices in which contradictory and conflicting decisions on positioning the new firm, its strategic goals and integration strategy are discussed and reconciled. Differences in decision making styles lead to maximum conflict and derail integration process. Research indicates that differences in national cultures impact decision making process in situations where perceived risk is high. Literature on which dimension has most impact on decision making is limited. Few national culture dimensions which lead to maximum debate and conflict are:

» Individual Vs Universal Cultures: For instance, leaders in collective cultures are likely to play more emphasis on organization goals and overlook impact of acquisition on individual leaders and players.

» Masculine and Feminine Cultures: Masculine and Feminine cultures:For instance, a more aggressive, action oriented parent company can interpret heightened focus on relationship and harmony of the Target Company as cultural issue of lack of drive and ambition.

Difference on these dimensions when combined with uncertainty avoidance or risk appetite and high vs low context orientation during communication can lead to significant differences in the information used, cognitive thinking and speed of making decisions.

2. Knowing which cultural differences are assets

Cultural aspects which fit well into the deal rationale are assets and need to be maintained. The DD team can focus on collecting data on the how the management practices supporting the required cultural strength are implemented and institutionalized. For instance, if the parent company is looking for acquiring a firm for its innovation capability then the DD team can focus on reviewing the presence and strength of management practices which support innovation.For instance, the learning processes and practices, attitude towards failure, measurement of productivity. How creativity as an attribute is assessed during the hiring? How much standardization is being driven in goals? What defines a high performer and extent to which creativity is part of that yardstick?

Such focused assessment gives lot of confidence on the strengths for which the buyer is actually buying the firm and how these strengths support the future context the buyer is trying to build or create. Developing a customized DD questionnaire to understand specific cultural practices can go a long way in improving the value from due diligence phase

In summary, despite short timelines principles of reducing risk and maximizing deal value are not going to disappear. Culture DD should have right balance of zooming into the context and espoused strengths of the partner and zooming out on details of ‘types’ and comparisons. At deeper level it requires an approach of abundance, recognizing the power of ‘and’ , while in parallel developing capabilities which are interdependent and opposing (For instance combining ‘stability and efficiency’ of a parent organization with the ‘agility’ of a newly acquired start up.)

Higher the varieties of environments the leaders have managed, higher their ability to navigate the cultural environment of differences.

Cultural aspects which fit well into the deal rationale are assets and need to be maintained.

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Table 1: Illustrative aspects to look for when analyzing performance and relationship context during due diligence phase

Context Understanding the practices at a deeper level

Performance

Strategic Planning Process » How the strategy is developed, communicated and cascaded? How is the balance between short term andlong term focus managed? What is the level of risk appetite?

» What is the level of participation and information flow across different levels of the organization during strategic planning process.

Assessment Management » Looking beyond appraisal process, timelines and scale. Focus more on the value orientation behind performance,is the focus more on development or assessment.

» How is the poor performance defined? What is given more emphasis, effort or outcome? How is failure treated?

» What criteria are used to define top talent?

Rewards and Incentives » Variability in the rewards. How is risk taking rewarded?

» Level and extent of differentiation

Support

Communication » Review few samples of past communication on major organization changes and key milestones

» Level of Transparency. What is considered confidential? How is access to information controlled?

Employee Care and Support » How do leaders manage the balance between business focus and human values?

» Attitude towards compliance to policies. How is non-compliance managed.

» Focus on celebration and wins.

» How people grow to the role of managers. What qualities are looked for in the managers?

Team Management Process » How are teams formed? What processes are used for enhancing team effectiveness?

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Culture joins Strategy for Breakfast

Gianpaolo Barozzi Sr. Director HR at Cisco

@Gianpaolo Barozzi

The growth of e-commerce and the accelerating need for personalization of products and services has created a disruption in the Talent Marketplace and greater power shifting from employer to employee. To respond to this transition, organizations need to redefine their culture and how they engage with their employees. Otherwise, they are at risk of losing both talent and their business.

A New People Deal

Employee Value Propositions won’t do anymore. Lifetime employment is over. On the other hand, it will be impossible to build a sustainable and innovative business without engaged employees. Hoffman, Casnocha and Yeh analyzed this dilemma in their book The Alliance and started to think of employees as ‘allies’ on a ‘tour of duty’; Cisco launched Our People Deal as the foundation for a future-ready employee experience and the enabler of a truly transparent and honest employee-employer relationship.

At Cisco, we introduced this new perspective – an intense focus on engaging our people by creating the very best employee experience – through an extensive listening campaign: reviewing and integrating all the employee feedback data we had, directly asking our employees through multiple focus groups. We looked at what people said about Cisco in Glassdoor and other social media, reviewing and integrating all the employee feedback data we had and by directly asking our employees through multiple focus groups. What we learned is that our employees’ experiences were not what we wanted our people to have. We translated the experience into ‘Alex’s journey’ (Refer Figure 1): An employee’s journey at Cisco where there were both many highs and lows.

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Figure 1: Alex’s Journey

Figure 2: Cisco’s Our People Deal Framework

Stimulated by this openness to listening, two Cisco employees (from the European HR and Marketing teams) wanted to do something about improving the employee experience. They wanted to answer the question, targeting the reply to the key question ‘what does a great day at Cisco look like?’ They had an initial proposal and – supported by their local leaders – created what is now Our People Deal at Cisco (Refer Figure 2).

What you can expect from us What we ask of you

Our People Deal Framework

You align your work to our business goals and our customers’ needs. You connect with your peers to deliver the best outcomes and results and you take no excuses. You understand that by connecting the unconnected, you can make amazing things happen.

We’ll help you connect with people, information and opportunities that you need to succeed. And we’ll set the direction to meet our customer’s needs, with the speed required in today’s market and change the world for the better.

We’ll provide an open and agile environment to explore your best ideas, challenge the norms, and develop your skills to help us disrupt the market and lead the way for a better tomorrow.

You relentlessly pursue a better, smarter, and faster tomorrow. You take bold risks and innovate to help our customers reach their full potential.

You commit to living our values and believe in winning together. You share knowledge, offer support, respect and care for each other and everyday you contribute to our shared success.

We’ll welcome you to a team of the best and brightest; where your development is supported and we recognize the value of your contribution. Our satisfaction comes from our collective ability to make a meaningful difference in the world.

Connect everything.Shape our business for the future

Innovate everywhere.Set the pace for tomorrow

Benefit everyone.Bring our best and win together

An Employee’s Perspective: Alex’s Journey

Recruitment /Onboarding

Manager #2Leadership Support

Project Win &Recognition Team support

during personal crisis CareerDevelopmentTrip to India

Manager (1st 120 Days)Not enough manager

interaction / involvementNegative

Positive

Reorganization

Rated Strong butthought DoingExtremely Well

Breakingdown Silos

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.

Engagement is now a two-way-road at Cisco – between the employee and the organization and vice-versa. Our People Deal represents both the heart and the backbone of the relationship between Cisco and our talent. It is rather simple. Cisco shares what employees can expect – in an inclusive and inspiring way and what it expects of employees. Having a mutual foundation where loyalty, trust and goals are identified creating commitment for shared success.

Our People Deal is the foundation for everything we do and is at the core of a new culture of work at Cisco, as the new outspoken bond between the organization and its employees.

The Power of Teams

Bringing Our People Deal to life led Cisco’s HR to rethink our traditional bipolar focus on the individual (performance reviews, development plans, etc.) and the workforce as a whole (processes, guidelines, policies) and move to an approach centered on teams and team excellence. Why? Because,

» The ups and downs of Alex’s journey are dependent on the teams he belong to and the leaders he has

» Teams are the ‘molecules’ all companies are composed of

» Company goals are much more often achieved by teams

» People ‘belong’ to teams – before they belong to companies

» Great Leaders achieve outstanding outcomes ‘through’ their teams

By placing the focus on team and team leader excellence, we will be able to make the cultural mind shift plus the transformation happen and ultimately achieve outstanding business outcomes.

Cisco HR has already started this transition:

» Following the digital “breadcrumbs” left by teams and leaders with their communications, decisions and activities over time – start implementing a new approach to employee listening and HR analytics

» Moving out from a world of few limited, time-bound data, with extremely high interpretation power (For instance, yearly performance reviews)

» Entering into a world of data series, measured frequently, with great interpretation power only when aggregated (For instance, weekly check-ins and monthly performance snapshots) enabling agile interventions and predictive modeling

Thus, transitioning HR’s credo from assumptions and beliefs to analytics and behaviors, from “we think” to “we know”, and finally from legislation to excellence. Once again, a revolution for the traditional HR mindset (which is making few of our HR professionals uncomfortable) needs deep leadership change from the top.

The first duty of HR is to our teams, and to the people who lead them

At Cisco, we’re focusing squarely on our little platoons, on how to support them in their moments of formation, success, change or crisis. If we get this right, we know we can serve our customers and employees better. And we can create an experience of work that is rich, challenging, authentic, individualized – leaving the soulless world of competency, bureaucracy and one-size-fits-all-hegemony behind, to make the world of work feel like a place where each of us can be better together - a place where we belong.

Through Our People Deal and the power of teams, culture finally joins strategy for breakfast to succeed in this exponentially changing business and talent marketplace.

Let the journey begin!

what does a great day at Cisco look like? Connect everything. Innovate everywhere. Benefit everyone.

By placing the focus on team and team leader excellence, the cultural mind shift can happen

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Overcoming Culture Differences

Organizations, much like societies, function effectively only if the people within them share a collective set of principles, values, beliefs, and ideologies, all of which together form that organization’s own distinct ‘culture’.

Culture decides the way employees interact at their workplace. The behavior amongst the employees and interactions with people outside the organization are greatly influenced by the culture of the organization.

The culture of an organization is a formational part of the organization’s overall identity. A set of values are imparted from the top of the organizational hierarchy in such a way that they percolate down to every level and become embedded in the collective unconscious of the whole organization. Think of this transmission of culture as the head architect of a building giving the same set of blueprints to everyone involved in the construction of the project. Construction will move along smoothly as long as everyone on the project has the same set of instructions, with the same end goal. But what would happen if someone new entered the project and brought with them a whole new set of blueprints? How can an organization function when the collective unconscious of its people is filled with different sets of values? This is an intra-organizational culture clash.

Often, new employees bring in a different set of values which may or may not be in line with the pre-existing value system of the organization. This can be incredibly beneficial because it brings in a fresh perspective which will help in modernizing the cultural norms of the organization. However, it may create unrest and breed insecurity in the minds of the pre-existing employees who have

grown comfortable in the organization’s method of functioning. In a way, this presents like a generation gap within some families, where there is a great divide in thinking and perspective. There is frustration, weariness and suspicion. It is as though children and parents come from two different worlds. The children’s independence and assertion of their ideas can be a threat to the family’s existing value system. Unless the children and the parents find a way to understand each other’s perspectives, the family unit is at unrest.

Lakshmi Acharya Consulting Partner, LPS, Wipro

@LakshmiAcharya3

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However, without change there is very little or no growth. Just like the issue of ‘generation gap’, organizations and the new comers have to find a way to understand each other’s perspectives and mindsets.

Creating an environment of low-context communicating culture would allow for clearer communication, where neither the sender nor the receiver will misinterpret the message. This can be done by making sure messages are understood at face value and the communication is clear, simple and precise. Repetition and putting messages in writing would further enable clear communication.

Here are some ways to bridge the gap

Listen. Don’t assume. Assumptions are the worst enemies of any relationship. We can never assume that we know someone so well that we can pass judgements on them or box them into a “type.”

Empathize and understand the world they come from, and their values, and make them understand

your world and your values.

View newcomers as a strategic business investment and train, develop and engage them.

At the same time, it is important for current employees to also understand the newcomers’ method of working and frame of mind. Since

cultural norms are ever evolving, it is important for the organization to be able to appreciate and

adapt to the new generation’s way of thinking.

It is important to explain to the newcomers why we do what we do. Clear communication and

authentic experiences help people imbibe the new culture.

Usually the main challenge is, understanding the context of communication in a high-context culture. The beliefs of every culture are so very well embedded in their collective unconscious that they need not be explicitly communicated amongst the members. But when people who are not familiar with these cultural nuances join the organization, these very nuances, however simple and uncomplicated, become “high-context” to them and the communication style seems layered and sophisticated.

In this scenario, most communication is left to our own interpretation. Very little is put in writing, and we have to literally read between the lines. Messages are implied and not explicitly stated. This can lead to confusion between the sender and receiver of the message.

People may adapt their behavior but may experience value conflict and unease at a subconscious level. Over a period of time, this conflict combined with a constant feeling of insecurity will lead to demotivation and indifference. The sense of belongingness and ownership starts to wear out.

People can adapt their behavior but as a result experience value conflict and unease at a subconscious level. Over a period of time, this conflict will lead to demotivation and indifference.

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Culture Change in the Digital World: Leveraging Divergent Individual Characteristics

Pradeep Singh Consulting Partner, LPS, Wipro

@SelByNeg

In the book The Second Machine Age the authors, Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, define three key developments that are driving the increasingly digital world that we are living in today:

» Sustained exponential improvements computing

» Extraordinarily large amounts of digitized information

» Recombinant innovation

Out of these three developments, the ‘recombinant innovation’ is clearly most critical from a culture change perspective. Recombinant innovation in simple terms means the recombining of different aspects of the digital world – omnipresent digital information, astounding power of computing and fast evolving new technologies – into creating innovative new products and services. The focus is not on big bang inventions, but on recombining existing general purpose technologies that are emerging at a fast rate. For instance, the app Waze recombines a set of existing technologies – GPS system, location sensor, mobile data sharing and power of social networks – to create a valuable service of providing driving directions with an awareness of real-time traffic conditions.

Organizations looking to thrive in the digital world need to take into account the importance of evolving a culture that enables recombinant innovation. This is especially critical for organizations in the dynamic industry of technology services which can impact, and are getting impacted, by the discontinuous waves of recombinant innovation in the digital world. This picture gets further complicated when we include the pace at which the organizational culture needs to evolve to keep up with the speed of technology change. But is it possible for an organization’s culture to evolve at the same pace as the current waves of technology change?

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Martec’s law argues that ‘technology changes exponentially, while organizations change logarithmically’ (Refer Figure 1).

Figure 1: Illustration of Martec’s law by Neil Perkin.

Source: http://www.onlydeadfish.co.uk

tension and conflict are created when this simplistic way of dividing society produces “Divergents” who don’t conform clearly to one of the five factions.

Drawing an analogy to the context of a large scale matrix organization, such organizations were able to create a culture of efficiency in the post-war 20th century by sharply defining roles and responsibilities which allowed them to manage scale and scope in a world that, in hindsight, appears largely deterministic compared to the high pace of technological change we are experiencing today.

However, this organizational design also hampered the exercise of independent will and creativity by individual employees who increasingly became conditioned to bringing only the ‘desired’ characteristics to their workplace aligned to the role they were assigned to. Essentially, this meant organizations actively or passively discouraged role divergence and individuals in turn complied by suppressing characteristics and behaviors perceived to be divergent. For instance, someone performing a delivery or an operation also having an aptitude for sales or marketing.

In today’s digital world, however, matrix-based organizational structures are giving way to an evolving organizational model that is based on boundary-less and networked teams that invite people from within, and even outside the organization to come together based on their ability to contribute to a project rather than their role definition (e.g., platforms like GitHub, Kaggle, Innocentive).

In conclusion, there may be merit in looking at culture change from the lens of an individual as a unit of analysis. The divergent personality characteristics and behaviors are not just tolerated but encouraged provided they imbibe the organizational values and complement the team in achieving shared objectives and goals.

While some of us may disagree about the feasibility and accuracy of representing organizational change through a precise mathematical function, it is not hard to agree with the basic argument here that organizational change lags behind technological change. In fact, this seems truer now than ever, given the fast evolving digital world that organizations have to deal with today.

The question then is how organizations can reinvent the process of affecting cultural change in the light of the new challenges they face in the digital world. While conventional approaches to organizational development provide intervention frameworks and tools for undertaking culture change initiatives at the overall organizational level, one wonders if approaching culture change with the unit of analysis being organization-as-a-whole is something that is already factored in the presumed rate of culture change in Martec’s law.

With the world moving towards mass customization and personalization, there may be some merit in considering individuals as the unit of analysis for culture change in organizations. One can find instances of this idea being explored in popular fictions such as The Divergent Series books trilogy (also adapted to movie series by the same name) authored by Veronica Roth.

The backdrop for this trilogy is a post-apocalyptic dystopian society that divides its individual citizens into five different factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave) and Erudite (the intelligent), based on their personality characteristics. Needless to say, that the plot

Cha

nge

Time

Technology changes exponentially...

...but Organizations change logarithmically

Management must choose carefully which changes are adopted

This challenge grows harder

with time

Matrix-based organizational structures are giving way to an evolving organizational model that is based on boundary-less and networked teams that invite people from within, and even outside the organization to come together based on their ability to contribute to a project’

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Building a Sustainable Culture at Azim Premji Foundation

Sudheesh Venkatesh Chief People Officer, APF

Utkal Mohanty Communication Consultant, APF

The Azim Premji Foundation was set up in 2001 as a not-for-profit organization with a mission to ensure that quality education is available to all, recognizing that this is crucial to the overall progress of the country. The Foundation started with the realization that for good education to be available to all, it is fundamental to have a robust Public Education System and the only way sustainable progress in education can be ensured is through systemic change. It also meant that working on ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ in education had to be done in an integrated manner with an institutionalized framework. It was going to be a long haul as no short-term solution was likely to have a sustainable impact.

Since the Foundation was a philanthropic initiative of Mr. Azim Premji and was well-endowed from the start, the principal challenge in building the organization was people. The organization needed people whose heart was in social change and had the appropriate competence to deliver on various fronts. There had to be an organizational structure in place but it could not be as rigid as in commercial corporate organizations. The organization also had to grow rapidly in order to make an impact at the scale it intended to. Though there was a central division for planning and enabling functions, the heart of the Foundation was in the State and District Institutes, some of them in the remotest and most backward regions of the country. This is where the Foundation members interacted with teachers of government schools and government education functionaries. People joining the Foundation came from diverse social and professional backgrounds. It was imperative therefore to have shared values that made them all move in unison with a single-minded purpose.

Azim Premji foundation defined its culture as this set of shared beliefs, values and practices. While trying to convey the underlying aspects of the Foundation’s culture it was felt that while there were certain aspects of it that are non-negotiable, there were others

that would evolve over time. In a sense, the organization’s culture would be the fabric that holds its people together and would be something each one at the Foundation would live every day.

The culture of any organization is a framework that is meant to help the organization realize its vision, which in the case of Azim Premji Foundation is to contribute towards building a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. So, what were the definite tenets of the culture that would enable this?

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The Foundation came up with five key tenets:

Act with integrity and courage

At its most basic, integrity is honesty. It is being truthful, honoring commitments, and doing what is right. It is about being ethical beyond doubt.

Intense commitment to quality

As a work ethic, quality is an expression of the desire to do exemplary work. It is the desire to learn, grow and reach a higher level of understanding and ability. Further, it is also about helping others excel, by sharing of experience and learning.

Catalyze social change with passion

This is the foundation’s driving force; it is why they exist. They exist to make a real difference; to make society more just, equitable, humane and sustainable.

Be open and caring

Being open means being genuinely receptive to feedback, a willingness to change one’s views, and not being dogmatic. Empathy and respect are at the heart of caring. Caring happens when you understand the other, when you value and trust the other.

Deeply reflective and rational

Reflection is the act of looking at oneself, one’s work and one’s actions critically with the particular aim of learning. Rationality means that one will be driven by reason, research and evidence under all circumstances without being prisoners to any particular ideology or preconception.

The next task was to come out with more detailed practices that could be observed in one’s everyday work life: Sharing is caring, Complex out - simple in, Freedom with Responsibility, No Compartments in Life, Believing in Teamwork rather than superheroes, etc.

It was clear that culture had to be internalized and could not be enforced through rules and regulations. Also, it would be an uphill task to ensure buy-in to the culture for people whose value systems were fundamentally not in tune with that of the organization. So, the Foundation lays utmost importance on the kind of people it recruits. The recruitment process is a long-drawn one, often involving five to six rounds of personal interviews. Further, everyone joining the Foundation goes through a formal and interactive process of induction. This ensures that everyone is on the same page when it comes to a clear understanding and a passionate buy-in of the vision and values of the Foundation. Ultimately, the Azim Premji Foundation has succeeded in sustaining its culture while also giving its employees a latitude to evolve by treating them as the repositiory as well as the transmitters of its culture.

Ultimately, the Azim Premji Foundation has succeeded in sustaining its culture while also giving its employees a latitude to evolve by treating them as the repositiory as well as the transmitters of its culture.

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How important is culture today for Wipro?

I see culture as the way we behave as a collective within the organization. The culture must enable the firm to succeed in the marketplace. So, if the firm is not winning, maybe it is time for everyone to do some soul searching. There are two approaches towards changing culture.

1. Slower approach: Culture takes a long time to change because people get used to one way of working

2. Sense of urgency approach: Culture change will happen by the leaders acting as role models

I believe change that is driven by leaders is more effective. The leaders have to live these behaviors every day. We have called out the new behaviors and articulated where we want to be. For example, it is critical for Wipro to win, even if it is not my BU, my Function, or my account. That is the need today. Everyone needs to demonstrate that philosophy in every day behaviors. A lot of people need to come together. It’s been called out how that leaders drive that agenda is what we need to see.

The way leaders at every level role model and take ownership of changing the culture is the most critical part. I remember working for a manager who was very particular about following time. After he took over the business, he scheduled 8am review calls every week with his team. On the first day of the call, at 30 seconds past 8am he made it a rule that latecomers would not be allowed to join the cal. That day there were only 3 people on the call. He maintained this rigor and by the 4th week, everyone made it a point to be punctual. Being on time became a part of our culture. They say that if you repeat a behavior on six occasions it becomes culture.

On the Couch with Saurabh Govil

Saurabh Govil President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Wipro

@saurabh_govil

What role do external factors play in helping organizations change their culture?

The macro environment shapes the firm’s culture. The macro environment and our entire industry is going through a sea change. Technology trends are changing, so are customer needs and their business challenges. As the saying goes, ‘what got us here won’t get us there’. While we should keep questioning and reinventing ourselves to keep pace with external changes. We need to build speed and agility in everything that we do.

Other than Leadership playing a vital role in driving change from the top-down and the influence of Macro factors, what are the other levers you see to make culture change happen?

Stories of success sustain cultural shifts. If you look at one of our signature values – “Unyielding Integrity”, there are enough stories, artifacts and folklores within the system that will make people believe that everyone here lives by that value of ‘Unyielding Integrity’. There is no grey area when it comes to integrity issues. We all know that. That is the way of life in Wipro. That’s what we need to do to drive the new culture forward.

Stories of success sustain cultural shifts.

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So you talk of three elements to drive culture – the external shift in the market, the internal play and that of the role of the leader and the third is disseminated through the process of storytelling, today when you look at the organization attempting culture change, what can individuals do who are not necessarily in a leadership role or have a team or set of people they can directly influence, what can that individual contributor do to change culture?

It is important even at an individual level for those people within their sphere of influence to attempt behavioral change because when those individual efforts get aggregated, the change happens in the organization.

Can culture change happen even in large organizations like Wipro, with over 170,000 people?

It does. Especially, if it driven from the top. You must get the top leadership group of an organization, the top 500 leaders to believe that culture change is the right thing to do, and act as role models and display the new behaviours. That is how culture change happens in large organizations.

Any other lessons you have picked up from leading other change initiatives over your career?

The need for change must be felt from within. External pushes do not sustain change. You have to make the agenda for change personal. At an individual level, they have to see ‘what’s in it for me’ to create urgency and momentum for change.

There will always be people resistant to change. But the group will also have evangelists and fence sitters. Work with the evangelists to convert the fence sitters. These are the 2 groups who will be the real change makers. We must air out all our views and debate them. But once a decision has been taken, everyone must implement the decision even if it was not what you had proposed. Then there is no looking back.

Any other takeaways to help others drive culture change successfully?

» Culture is an outcome of the values translated into action

» Have leaders role model the behaviors that are needed to succeed.

» Leader must ensure communication of the values

You must get the top leadership group of an organization, the top 500 leaders to believe that culture change is the right thing to do, and act as role models and display the new behaviours. That is how culture change happens in large organizations.

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How people learn new norms of behavior as a part of culture Bijal Chhaya

Principle Consultant, LPS, Wipro

@BijalRChhaya

All human interactions in society has an underlying dynamic of jostling for power. We are always attempting to control the other. The powerful therefore would like to keep the dynamics that drive social interactions typically on their terms. Therefore what happens is that most people, out of sheer survival compulsions, align with the powerful, at least in the short term. However, over time, with every such interaction the power dynamic will start to shift. That is because the less powerful people will gradually realize that they are at a point of disadvantage and therefore in the long run stand to lose unless they start resisting the status quo. They also begin to intellectually understand the reasons for their disadvantage and gradually begin to evolve responses that help them overcome this disadvantage. This jostling for power effectively means that the disadvantaged person, the group or even entire societies gradually begin to relook at the way they make meaning in their lives and see how to swing the narrative in their favor.

This dynamic shift requires the disadvantaged group to move onto a ground which provides them the advantage. It requires multiple things. For instance, pushing your opponent’s emotional buttons to force mistakes. Or it might require even a feint giving the impression that they are still in control thereby getting them to lower their guard. But at the heart of this challenge is that the underprivileged group is seeking to grab control of the dynamic that is the source of their disadvantage.

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In the early part of the twentieth century, India was ruled by the British. All rules, laws and customs on the Indian sub-continent were framed such that it was advantageous to the British and disadvantageous to the people of India. This was the dynamic that Mahatma Gandhi first observed in South Africa and then later in India. Gradually the entire purpose of his life was subsumed to resisting this fundamental dynamic. A minor element of this subjugation was the taxation on salt by the British. But this is what his genius chose to resist for the symbolism that it represented.

Salt is fundamental in the human diet. Its need is even more acute in tropical climates. Historically given India’s vast coast line, salt was extracted from sea-water by evaporating the water. But the British banned the making of salt in this manner to monopolize colonially licensed salt after paying tax to the Imperial power. In order to resist this law, Mahatma Gandhi marched on March 12, 1930 from Sabarmati ashram in Ahmedabad to a village called Dandi near Navsari on the coast. This march lasted 24 days and on April 6th

1930 the salt law was broken by Mahatma Gandhi. This symbolic act was followed by large scale making of salt across the subcontinent. In order to curtail this defiance the British arrested over 70000 people across India. But the deed was done. The subjects had brought the spotlight on this non-violent resistance and made people around the world emotionally align with the disadvantage that Indians were living with. This set the foundation for Britain providing the Indian independence.

This short narrative brings alive how India’s independence is owed to a small group of people initially and then the whole country daring to challenge an existing paradigm - the British people’s right to define the rules by which India was governed. Similarly, each of us owe it to ourselves to stand by our beliefs and act in a manner that serves us and the organization. In seeking and building meaning into our actions, we are actually seeking to draw power towards areas that we see to be valid. When over time, a critical mass of colleagues at work connect with the essence of what you are seeking to do and modify their own behaviors to resonate with the choices that you are pointing towards it gradually becomes a movement. It can be similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha, wherein the people within the organization have built a new norm of behavior in order to remain relevant in an unfolding future.

This jostling for power effectively means that the disadvantaged person, the group or even entire societies gradually begin to relook at the way they make meaning in their lives and see how to swing the narrative in their favor.

The people within the organization have built a new norm of behavior in order to remain relevant in an unfolding future.

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The Power of Culture in Partnerships and Strategic Alliances Andi Albanese

Global Business Manager, Global 100, Wipro

@andialb

Building a strong corporate culture poses many challenges of its own.

Partnerships and strategic alliances are crucial to remain competitive in today’s business landscape. But the output of a partnership is a result of the free flow of information, trust, and dedication to shared objectives. The availability of information to all parties will drive better business results, increasing creativity and strengthening the ability to build on ideas. But to create an environment of openness and collaboration, trust and a shared vision must be the core of the relationship.

The latest research suggests that culture is a powerful force in the success of long term relationships. Although the goods and services that a company sells are the basis to business, relationships built on a solid foundation and common understanding of culture will drive success. Partnerships with these crucial elements will make greater investments in the relationship, cultivating trust and shared values, and generating greater pay offs in the form of more closed deals and business success.

The blending of two groups tends to not be seamless, but an iterative process that takes time to find the right balance. Creating the boundaries of a relationship and joint culture can be difficult; however, below are some recommendations for building a strong partnership that delivers value to customers and to each of the parties involved:

Although the goods and services that a company sells are the basis to business, relationships built on a solid foundation and common understanding of culture will drive success.

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Create a Clear Vision: Partnership leaders must have a clear understanding of each company’s respective culture; it is important to remain authentic to your corporate foundation. With the individual corporate identities as a basis, a partnership team must analyze the structure and nature of its joint relationship, assess the priorities, and draft a joint vision statement and create a cohesive working model. The vision of the alliance that I worked with was to gain customer affirmation of “the partnership and the solutions to be the most effective for solving their strategic and mission critical priorities.” The key to this vision was to drive value for customers by joining Wipro and the partner’s efforts to create better results for business issues. This vision is further solidified by the strategic intents or pillars which include marketing, competency development, and governance among others.

Understand the Value: It is important for each partner in the relationship to feel as an equal contributor and understand the value that the joint effort is going to drive. For instance, one partner may have a reputation of strong technology platforms, but without an innovative solution and relevant use case from the other partner, the platform will generate little value to the customer. When both sides of the relationship understand the value of each other, only then can they put aside individual biases and develop the best proposal for the client, utilizing the greatest offerings the joint team can create.

Set Process Goals: In addition to the tactical goals that work teams set, it is also important to identify process goals. Process goals can also be understood as group norms or shared agreements among members about the expected behaviors and shared values. Process goals form the basis of how a partnership team should work together and merge two independent corporate cultures into a cohesive group, creating synergies and value for clients. Investment in training and defining team norms increases commitment to the partnership. When partners feel strongly about a defined process, normative power is created and deviations will rarely occur. Most people want to be liked by team members and will comply with norms. This also applies to the parties in a partnership.

Such processes to strengthen existing partnerships may include:

Communication: Through what medium and how often is the partnership team expected to communicate? Communication style is often a by-product of team structure. Globally dispersed teams have difficultly engaging in in-person discussions; time zones present conflicts for connecting at convenient times of the day. However, there are many ways to overcome these challenges. Video conferences can be a substitute for in-person interactions. File sharing and online collaboration tools such as Microsoft OneDrive or IBM Connections can create a joint working space without the concern of document version control.

Decision-making: Will your team make decisions based on group consensus or will the leader have the final say? Decision-making styles are often deep rooted in the culture of a society. This can pose issues when companies originate from different parts of the world. Setting a process in advance will help avoid unnecessary conflicts that could be damaging to relationships.

Evaluating Client Deliverables: The final hours of a client deliverable deadline can be very stressful, especially when there are many opinions about what a successful end product looks like. A partnership team should set clear guidelines for evaluating deliverables including topics such as quality standards, preferred deliverable format, and branding. This will ensure that the submitted client proposal meets the standards of each party and has the best chance of success and satisfying the client.

Don’t let the culture of your partnership be a by-product or a side item. By establishing a culture and work style, the joint forces are more likely to be successful and generate the most value to the client and the parties involved. Be thoughtful about relationships and act with intent, establishing values and norms that will carry you across the finish line in proposals and client wins. At the core of business are partnerships and people, and the culture of these interactions drive your ability to predict customer needs, out-deliver competitors, and ensure the future success of your business.

Don’t let the culture of your partnership be a by-product or a side item. By establishing a culture and work style, the joint forces are more likely to be successful and generate the most value to the client and the parties involved.

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Should culture change be attempted?

Smithal Shah Senior Manager, LPS, Wipro

@smithalshah

Culture is an organization’s operating environment. It is an implicit form of behavior, attitude, and activity. It is a system of shared assumptions, values, ideologies, principles and beliefs which govern how people behave in organizations. It gets formed over years, becomes an organization’s DNA and a critical determining factor in an organization’s success. It is also difficult to change.

While challenges like change in current business environment, emergence of exponential technologies and globalization are creating new business avenues, they also are the reasons for some organizations to go bankrupt and become extinct. Past success will not guarantee success for the future. In today’s world, in order to remain successful, it is imperative for organizations to adapt with speed and agility to compete with changing business environments that is increasingly digital and disruptive.

Organizations in the face of such challenges typically lookout for options to adapt and succeed. The most common prescription suggested is –“fix the culture”. However, the views of corporate leaders who have led major transformations successfully in the past argue that culture isn’t something you “fix”. Also, changing culture of any organization is an uphill journey; a difficult task which may not see light at the end of the tunnel. In many organizations, culture change initiatives have become cliché. Senior leaders get attracted by this new prescription for dealing with the challenges of an organization. Most often they overestimate the potential of culture change and underrate the difficulty in implementing it. Leaders need to be watchful and not get swayed looking at the business case of “culture change” put forth by lucrative consulting companies since such assignments can fetch them high returns.

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Attempting any culture change can be a difficult journey and a path not for the light-hearted. It shouldn’t be attempted when the following exists:

Lack of ownership: Without conviction, leaders will not be enthused to ensure that their teams will “own” responsibility to make change happen. At times leaders are found running multiple changes and initiatives as a part of an overall organization plan and vision. These change initiatives may be competing or overlapping with each other. Without intervening and resolving such conflicts, the enthusiasm will die and would leave employees frustrated. Leaders can drive real change when they model the new behavior towards the desired future state. Leaders should ‘walk-the-talk” and exemplify new expectations. Teams look upon their leaders; and if leaders are not committed, the progress of any change can ultimately dampen and come to halt.

Inconsistent communication: Any change process can create confusion and anxiety among employees. Some may feel disoriented, especially during the transition phase where they are discontinuing with the existing way of doing things and are yet to adapt to the new ways. Many leaders fail to engage with the teams and communicate consistently to share the relevant information and address their queries. By leaders being at helm, employees feel safe and comfortable.

Always top-down: Culture change fails when it is only driven from the top. Typically, the leadership team works with the next level to disseminate the “why”, “what” and “how” of the change initiative and then asked to cascade the same throughout the rest of the organization. If only driven from the top, it implies imposing a change. Employees feel demotivated when decision-making gets centralized by leaders excluding lower-level employees in the change process, even though they are directly affected. Naturally, employees who are forced to align to the new change have the initial reaction to resist it. Success of such a change initiative is short-lived, no matter how good these top-level decisions are made, because they ignore so much of the organization and fail to build enough ownership and accountability for driving change on the ground. The challenge relying on a bottom-up approach is it is time consuming and resource-intensive.

Unrealistic timelines: Setting an unrealistic timeline for change implementation is the most common mistake leaders commit. They do so because of their desire to bring about immediate change. Leaders get driven by the “speed” syndrome. Two facts about any transformational change journey to be kept in mind are:

1. Resources, effort and time needed to plan and implement any change initiative must be added on top of – the resources, efforts and time required to perform business-as-usual.

2. For any change initiative, thoughtful and thorough planning is required to arrive at realistic timelines considering other systemic variables of the organization. It will take the time it actually requires despite any wishes to make it happen faster.

Today, leaders advocate culture change as the norm for an organization. It may sometimes be easier and faster to set up a new organization as a separate division or subsidiary, shielding from any intrusion by parent, than adapting to a slower and harder process of trying to change the culture of the existing organization.

Employees feel demotivated when decision-making gets centralized by leaders excluding lower-level employees in the change process, even though they are directly affected. Naturally, employees who are forced to align to the new change have the initial reaction to resist it.

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Leading Culture Change at SAP Labs

V. R. Ferose Senior Vice President and Head of Globalization Services at SAP

@VRFerose

What was the signal that it was time to change the culture at SAP Labs?

I had inherited a culture that needed correction in focus and motivation. A sense of pride for working in the company was slowly diminishing and management connect with the employees was lessening.

How did you start the culture transformation at SAP Labs?

In April 2010, when I took charge as the Managing Director at SAP Labs India, the second largest R&D facility in the SAP universe, my priority was to shore up employee morale and bring down the attrition levels to below industry standards. Besides this, there were a few other issues that needed course correction. My agenda was to identify the problems and fix them, and time at my disposal was two years.

To get to the bottom of the various issues that had come to my notice, I embarked on a ‘listening’ campaign. Listening is the key to establishing effective working relations and I am a firm believer in this. From my initial conversations and feedback, I gathered that the communication channels within the organization were unfocused and sporadic. Full potential of the employees was not being realized, although the working facilities and benefits were attractive.

Our employees had the industry best employee policies at their disposal, like free food, free transportation, no attendance etc. It was like paradise but there wasn’t enough hunger, eagerness, and passion. People were not driving themselves hard enough. I wanted to create a sense of hunger for employees to achieve something. I wanted to set big goals and challenge them. I think this was the culture I wanted to create.

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A lot of leaders believe that they need to communicate but don’t because they themselves aren’t very good communicators. I don’t think the two need to go hand-in-hand. Great leaders don’t have to be great speakers. They just need to stand up and answer questions. What people look for in a great leader is not skills or charisma; they look for honesty and authenticity.

How has your leadership beliefs informed the way you lead change?

Often its poor leadership that makes organizations go awry. But the blame is directed towards reasons such as lack of quality in hires, poor creativity etc. I have seen organizations being transformed without the need to replace resources. Many a time leaders are under the mistaken notion that to transform an organization, it is necessary to fire a set of people and replace them with a new talent pool. While you have people that need to be changed, you shouldn’t start with the assumption that people are no good and feel that you have to get rid of all of them. With the right vision, inspiration, tools and strategy, change is possible with existing resources.

1. The root cause of every problem is a leadership problem. This meant that if things failed, it was my fault not the fault of the organization. It’s tempting to put the problem somewhere else without looking at ourselves. I took the ownership for the culture change. If it needs to happen, I have to drive change across the organization.

2. Involve people in the change. While I may be the person that needs to drive the change, I can’t do it alone. You need the buy-in from the organization to make a transformation happen. If you really want to change culture, it must be both top-down

and bottom-up. Change must happen from both directions. Great leadership will push down the agenda but people in the entire organization need to be bought in and own the change too.

3. People at the end of the day look at real actions. I have seen people put a lot of emphasis on strategy, which I believe is important but the real thing is getting things done. People will evaluate you on what you have done and not on the quality of your presentation or how well you articulate your vision statement. It’s about doing a few things incredibly well and amplifying the message, so people get it and understand you are serious about change.

4. Articulating your thoughts and putting a huge emphasis on communication. A lot of the time people’s visions remain in the eyes of only a few people. Every employee should understand the vision. You should be able to stand up in front of employees often and explain and answer every question. I cannot underestimate the need to communicate, communicate, and communicate! There is nothing called over communicating. You just need to stand up and answer those difficult questions. This needs to be built as a culture. Your leadership team has to do it and the more you do it, the better you will become. Then people start believing in a true transformation.

What stops leaders from leveraging the power of communication?

It could be underestimation. A lot of leaders believe that they need to communicate but don’t because they themselves aren’t very good communicators. This gets in the way. I don’t think the two need to go hand-in-hand. Great leaders don’t have to be great speakers. They just need to stand up and answer questions. What people look for in a great leader is not skills or charisma; they look for honesty and authenticity. So you can still be yourself in front of people and answer their questions without being a great orator. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in front of people, especially when there is bad news. However, it is important for a leader to communicate both good and bad news.

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As to me, culture is intangible and results in an outcome that cannot be measured. That was the culture I was trying to create: A culture where we force some positive ‘accidents’ to happen; Accidents of ideas at the intersection of different minds and then the next big product happens.

How did you go about changing the culture? What role did you take for yourself and for your team? What was your communication strategy?

I did a series of one-on-one interviews across the organization, at all levels, before I created my 100 day plan and made it public in the organization. I listed 50 things we will do in the first 100 days. People told me I was too ambitious and also insane to make it public, since there were no guarantees that the goals could be achieved. I however, was convinced that we should make it public. It is a leader’s job to create a culture of openness and transparency. Employees loved the fact that the MD shared the 100 Day Plan and allowed others to evaluate him afterwards. It wasn’t my 100 Day Plan; I told them I couldn’t do it alone. Everybody had to sign up and contribute to make it happen. In my view, people always admire leaders who are open and honestly say what can be done and what can’t.

a. Every transformation is about leadership. The leader has to show the way. Communication is the key. I had a solid 100 Day Plan and a clear long-term strategy, which I shared with the entire organization and then relentlessly executed it.

b. I was transparent with the failures as much as with the success.

c. I showed up in front of the employees regularly and answered every question directly via open houses. Responded to every mail within 24hrs.

Do you think the same principles of Culture Change apply for large organizations, given SAP Labs had only 4,000 employees?

Size matters. But I believe the principles are the same. The way you execute change is different and the way you see results is different because, sometimes if you try to make too many changes in a big ship, you run the risk of toppling it over.

How did you build role models and change champions as well as deal with those who didn’t want to be a part of the new organization?

Leaders should focus on people who are on their side. Often, people get into conflicts with those who resist change. However, I believe that it’s important to work with people who support you rather than debate with those who oppose. Just firing people won’t add up to anything. I think a lot of leaders make that mistake. Focus on the positives but find a way to make a change. If you fire people too quickly, you aren’t giving them a chance to change. People can change and become your biggest champions. Everyone deserves a chance to change and get on-board. You should evaluate people on their merit and give them sufficient time to change.

How did know you had the right team with you to achieve your vision? How did you deal with those who resisted change?

In every situation there was a mixed bag of champions, naysayers and fence-sitters. We worked with champions, converted the fence-

sitters and tried to bring our point of view to the naysayers. We benchmarked our top leaders against the external market and made them, me including, undergo a leadership evaluation by a third party. It was important to create a culture of transparency and put on the table, our collective strengths and weaknesses as a team.

When the results of the evaluation came in six months after, a few leaders who were benchmarked below average than the market volunteered to move out. They understood their weakness and since the evaluation was done by an external vendor they appreciated the fairness and transparency. This sent a strong and positive signal across the organization. We had to push this exercise which wasn’t easy, but evaluating leadership was an important step for us to successfully change.

How did you drive a culture of innovation? Did you hire new profiles and specialists who already possessed the ideal behavior?

We did both – in many cases we had to hire new profiles e.g. Designers. We also invested to put in place a system to identify and groom managers. To do this, we focused heavily on middle management.

My core belief is that real innovation happens when different minds and cultures come together. Since most companies tend to source their talent from a specific pool, with similar degrees; background etc., they tend to breed similarities. This is why most engineers in an IT company, for example, would be socializing with a group having similar background, and in a very rare case would their friends be from a completely different background like an artist; doctor etc.

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Since I grew up in an environment where there was a huge emphasis and importance to sports, literature and theatre, and not just academics; all of which contributed immensely to my personality, I believed that ideas from diverse fields would help SAP Labs colleagues to innovate more effectively.

Like how the Medici family through whose patronage poets, philosophers, scientists, painters and other artisans collaborated to create the Renaissance period, my desire was to get intellectuals from diverse fields into SAP Labs so that there could be a resurgence in innovation.

We did this is many different ways. We started a ‘book club’ where we invited prominent and budding authors to come and talk to us about their books and what led to their writing it. Each month we invited prominent leaders to our campus to speak on a diverse range of topics. Instead of burning lots of cash to do this, we used our network of contacts and goodwill to identify and invite our guest speakers. We encouraged and facilitated the creation of a ‘theatre club’ and several interest groups. This helped in creating a huge buzz within the organization. Employees loved it and it created a deep sense of pride.

These elements brought back a lot of energy into the organization. The innovation was the outcome of the culture we created. Of course, I had critics and skeptics who were of the view that since the outcome of these initiatives could not be measured, it was a waste of time and energy.

That did not dent my focus. As to me, culture is intangible and results in an outcome that cannot be measured. That was the culture I was trying to create: A culture where we force some positive ‘accidents’ to happen; Accidents of ideas at the intersection of different minds

and then the next big product happens. If you create the right culture for innovation, great products will be the outcome. I was personally involved in all of the activities. It was important for me to lead from the front.

How did you follow up and hold people accountable?

I made people a part of the change. You need to have your multipliers – people who believe in the values you stand for. It is not possible and sensible to micromanage. I started several initiatives, but picked the top 10 to do a deep dive. Leadership is about dream and details. The identified top 10 critical initiatives were put on ‘watch list’, whose progress I reviewed every two weeks. I picked high potentials who had a track record of performance and put them in charge of the 10 initiatives. While the critical initiatives were progressing successfully, a few others that I started did not take off as expected. But that was fine with me as they would have been good to have initiatives but not critical.

I also shared and amplified success stories. We created rewards that were aspirational, like the Star of the Year awards, where the winners got an opportunity to pick a course of their choice at top-notch institutions like Stanford and INSEAD. Rather than hand out monetary award, we invested in people’s growth through learning.

What were the critical levers you used to change culture?

» The leader has to ‘walk the talk’. Every action of the leader has to reflect his belief in the culture he wants to create

» Bottom-up involvement is as important as top-down. For real change to happen across the organization, everyone needs to believe that they can contribute and are a part of the change.

» Build a plan, execute and communicate, communicate and communicate

If you could go back in time, what would be the three things that you would revisit to make the transformation even better?

» I think I have a bias towards immediate action. Many times, I made quick decisions which in retrospect were not always correct. Sometimes, taking time to make a decision helps you get more clarity and facts, which in turn leads to better decision.

» Getting more product ownership in the lab. While we were successful in this journey, I wish we had done more

» Expanding the pool of next generation leaders. While we increased the average leadership competency, we could have done better in creating a bigger pool of next generation leaders.

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How should leaders drive change in the organization’s culture? Abhijit Bhaduri

Chief Learning Officer, Wipro

@abhijitbhaduri

How should leaders drive change in the organization’s culture?

Every time I change my password I go through a familiar routine. When I log in next, I punch in my password only to be greeted with the annoying message that my password is not correct. For half a second I am puzzled. I am convinced that it is the email provider who is wrong and not my password. I wonder who to write a strong letter of protest to and by then another thought taps me on the shoulder and reminds me that I now have a new password. Then I panic for the second time. What was the new password? What could I have changed it to? After fumbling for a bit I remember my new password. It takes a few repetitions before the new password is part of my memory. And I no longer have to make an effort to remember my password. It has become my new habit. I can type it without having to fumble – until I change it again.

How is culture formed?

Habits are like that. They take time to take root and are equally hard to dislodge. Organizational culture is what we call the habits of an organization. These are ways in which people behave spontaneously especially when they are unsupervised. When everyone starts behaving in a similar manner consistently, we say that the organization has a strong culture. The new members of the organization quickly fall in line. They watch everyone around them and learn how to behave in most commonly occurring situations.

The Army and many other traditional organizations have “standard operating procedures” for every scenario. That means the people are simply expected to follow the common code. I have seen many leaders lament that “if only we could have that army like discipline …” In their mind, discipline means “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.”

31 | LPS Quarterly

Standard operating procedures

Is that a desirable end state? That depends on the nature of the business environment in which the firm has to operate. It is true that when people follow orders without questioning, the most routine and repetitive tasks get done in the shortest possible time. That is pretty much what traditional training systems have done. They teach people to perform repeatable tasks in the shortest possible time without hesitation. The more scenarios that can be visualized ahead of time, the more easily people can be trained to respond in the optimum manner. These then become the standard operating procedures of the organization.

But there are other aspects of culture. These are the invisible rules that also become like codified standard operating procedures. How should employees with more experience behave when a trainee questions the decision? How do organizations deal with differences in opinions and approaches? Is that tolerated, encouraged or merely brushed aside for the moment, only to be ignored later? We admire companies that are innovative. Their culture supports contrarian viewpoints and mavericks. That needs leaders who can manage the creative tension that these cultures spawn.

Are the leaders modeling the right behaviors?

Leaders define the contours of the organization’s culture. But every individual employee has to own it. Leaders have to build evangelists and story tellers who simplify the different elements of culture and make it easy to relate to. Culture change does not happen through posters. It happens when people emotionally care about the organization’s future and believe that the new behaviors will make the organization succeed. They need to see their own success as vividly as the organization’s. Finally, the new behaviors are reinforced when leaders act as role models. If remembering a new password is hard, trust me changing organization’s culture is much harder.

Driving organizational culture change needs patience. While people readily endorse the idea of punishment as a way of building “discipline”, if that is not happening, it maybe for want of leaders who can be role-models. People must want to be like the leader they see. No wonder discipline and disciple both share the same Latin roots. It means instruction or knowledge. When leaders create disciples, organizational culture is shaped.

But there are other aspects of culture. These are the invisible rules that also become like codified standard operating procedures. How do organizations deal with differences in opinions and approaches? Is that tolerated, encouraged or merely brushed aside for the moment, only to be ignored later?

32 | LPS Quarterly

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