The Physics of

Cultural Transformation

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“The way that we pose our

questions often illusorily

limits our responses… The

way we think our thoughts

illusorily limits us to a

perspective of either/or.”Gary Zukav: The Dancing Wu Li Masters

“Whatever we call reality, it

is revealed to us only

through an active

construction in which we

participate.”Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers: Order Out of Chaos

Outline of what we’ll cover

today:

1. The “Invisible Architecture™ of your organization

2. 12 laws of physics – the good, the bad, and the beautiful

3. 12 key lessons for cultural transformation

7

“The things that can be

counted don’t always

count and the things

that count can’t always

be counted.”

- Albert Einstein

In fact, because of the

Heisenberg Uncertainty

Principle, the very act of

trying to measure

something will have an

impact on that thing.

Unseen realities

What you can’t see

often matters most

A deeper level of consciousness

where apparent reality

stretches out a tentative finger

and touches the real thing.

www.Healing-Story.com

Invisible

Architectur

e“Invisible Architecture” is a trademark of Values Coach Inc.

The blueprint behind

the blueprint™

Invisible architecture

is to the soul of your

organization what

physical architecture

is to its body.

3 stages

Core Values are

the Foundation

Core values

define what

you stand for

and what you

won’t

stand for

“Committable core values

that are truly integrated into

a company’s operations can

align an entire organization

and serve as a guide for

employees to make their own

decisions.”

Tony  Hsieh: Delivering Happiness: A

Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Are your hospital’s

values just words, no

more than a plaque on

the wall?

Worse yet, are they just

plain… Boring?

TMC Values … Honor Tradition, Nourish

Dreams

Corporate culture is

the superstructure

Culture is to the

organization what

personality and

character are to the

individual.

“Culture influences how

we deliver care, how we

interrelate with our

colleagues, and how

we treat our patients.”

Laws of physics are morally neutral;

gravity doesn’t care if you are a

good person or a bad person

Culture is morally neutral; Enron

had a very powerful culture – but it

was a fatally-flawed culture which

brought down the entire company!

Emotional attitude

is the interior décor

Emotional attitude is

defined by what you

expect and what you

tolerate…

And over time what

you tolerate will

dominate what you

say you expect.

12 Laws of Physics

and How they Relate

to Culture Change

in Organizations

The Shoulders of

Giants

The Good

The Bad

The Beautiful

The Good

Law #1

Nature abhors a vacuum

Every organization –

defined as three or

more people sharing

a common space –

will have a culture.

The only question is whether

that culture is allowed to

evolve haphazardly without

thought or plan, or in

accordance with a “cultural

blueprint” that defines its

key elements and priorities.

“Consciously choosing a

business personality, or way of

being, is one of the most

important decisions a business

founder or leader can make

[and] is a critical part of the

strategic planning process

[though often neglected].”

Dianne Crampton: Tigers Among Us

Culture eats

strategy for lunch!

Your hospital

has a strategic

plan – but do

you have a

culture plan?

Shawneen Buckley at St. Francis Hospital and Health Center of Poughkeepsie, New York

Law #2

Relativity & non-locality

“A quantum particle

doesn’t exist in one

condition or another,

but in all of its possible

conditions at once.”- Niels Bohr

What you see depends

upon where you look

(and you tend to see

what you look for)

Nonlocality infers instantaneous

influence of a cause on creating

an effect over a distance,

whether that distance is from

one end of the galaxy to the

other or from one side of your

brain to the other.

A single act at one

location can have a

profound impact

somewhere

(everywhere) else in the

organization.

Anyone can influence

the culture of an

organization even if he

or she does not have an

official role in that

capacity.

“The further we penetrate

[into modern physics] the more

we shall… see the world as a

system of inseparable,

interacting, and ever-moving

components, with man as an

integral part of this system.”Fritjof Capra: The Tao of Physics

“Lean [process systems

redesign] helps break down

barriers between disconnected

department ‘silos,’ allowing

different hospital departments

to better work together for the

benefit of patients.”Mark Graban: Lean Hospitals

Law #3

Big bangs and quantum leaps

59

Organizational quantum

leaps often begin with

personal quantum leaps.

Let me share an

example…

60A real “Sarah Rutledge” story

Scripting the speech we

give to ourselves

Law #4

Gravity

67

“People who are clearest

about their personal

vision and values are

significantly more

committed to their

organizations.”James Kouzes and Barry Posner: A Leader's

Legacy

Source: Roger Herman, et al: Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People (page 139)

RecruitingandRetentio

n

… is not just one word!

69

Honey & Glue

You recruit with the

“honey” of left-brain

features such as pay and

benefits… 71

You retain with the

“glue” of right-brain

qualities reflected in

values, culture, and

attitude.

72

Law #5

Energy, impetus, and momentum

In physics, power equals work done divided by time required to do the work:

P = W/TIn other words, power is productivity!

And the source of this

power is energy

“Because power is energy, it

needs to flow through

organizations… We would

do well to ponder the

realization that love is the

most potent source of

power.”Margaret Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science

What do you call a car with no spark

plugs?

Transforming potential energy into kinetic energy

My Nobel Prize for Physics*

* Awarded in the year 2016

88

Momentum is mass times

velocity…

How many people are

committed and how

fast are they moving?

90

“Momentum is the

leader’s best

friend.”John Maxwell: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

The most successful

companies are not just

companies…

How to start a movement

93

www.TheFlorenceChallenge.com

Law #6

Critical mass and escape velocity

Nature grows

exponentially

Including human nature!

One of the most profound

cultural revolutions in the

history of the world

occurred as a result of a

critical mass of people

making a stand…

100

Escape velocity

You need enough people

who are moving fast

enough to help the

hospital escape

negativity, pessimism,

cynicism, and inertia.

The Bad

Law #7

Friction

Friction keeps culture static

107

Newton’s Third Law

Every change effort will

provoke resistance –

and the bigger the

change, the more

entrenched the

resistance.

Law #9

Entropy

The greatest source

of entropy within the

organization is toxic

emotional negativity

(TEN).

Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy

Click here to play the You Tube video

111

Creating a more

positive workplace

culture begins with

increasing people’s

intolerance for toxic

emotional negativity.

112

“One toxically negative

person can drag down

morale and productivity

of an entire work

unit.”

113

“It is a leadership

responsibility to create a

workplace environment

where toxic emotional

negativity is not

tolerated.”

117

Law #9

Stochastic interference

121

It can happen randomly!

Equilibrium is a state

of zero acceleration –

where every force is

cancelled out by

another…

Stagnancy

“Disequilibrium is the

necessary condition for

a system’s growth.”Margaret Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science

The Paradox of Chaos:

Organizations unwilling

to accept some short-

term chaos become

brittle and more likely to

succumb to massive long-

term chaos

Chaos is beautiful seen from a distance…

But it’s hard to see the beauty when you are in the midst of it!

“You will take risks, and you will

have failures. But it’s what

happens afterward that is

defining. A failure often does not

have to be a failure at all... It’s

about mastery of rescue.”Atul Gawande: “Failure and Rescue”

in The New Yorker, June 4, 2012

Thanks to Andy Kresha, Director of HR - Fremont Area Medical

Center

“Brick walls are not

there to stop you, they

are there to make you

prove how much you

want something.”

Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture

Are people afraid

of change?

Law #10

Unidirectionality

You cannot undo

cultural change

The Beautiful

Law #11

Elegance and serendipity

Do you have to start with the

right people on the bus?

You can’t always

choose who you

have on the bus!

You can’t just

throw all the

“wrong” people off

the bus!

No matter who’s

on the bus, there

are going to be

disagreements

Sometimes having

the “wrong”

people on the bus

can result in

beautiful things

You can create a bus that

everyone wants to ride

Building a culture of

ownership on a foundation of

values!

Law #12

Mystery

“To understand man’s significance, I say,

you must first accept his insignificance.

Only then could you focus him into

importance against his stupendous,

unshruggable background…

Colin Fletcher: The Man Who Walked Through Time

“And now, accepting this vision utterly,

accepting it without fear and with joy, I

had, for the time being at least, found

all I needed.”

Colin Fletcher: The Man Who Walked Through Time

By the way…

My annual Spark a Dream at

Grand Canyon workshop is

coming up Sept. 27-29

Download a flyer for Joe’s annual

Grand Canyon Spark a Dream worksh

op

~400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way

~400,000,000,000 galaxies in the

observable universe

~16,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Stars in the observable universe!

According to some

versions of string theory,

ours is but one of a

potentially infinite

number of universes!!!!

So what’s this got to do

with leadership?

Jim Collins says that

Level 5 leadership is

the paradoxical

blending of strong

professional will with

personal humility.

Question Break

The Values

Collaborative

Hospital

Results

Nebraska Rural Values

Collaborative – Recently

reported changes in

employee engagement

and patient satisfaction

Mary Lanning Memorial HealthCare

Gallup Engagement Score improved

from 23rd to 72nd percentile.

Productivity improved by 55 FTEs.

HCAHPS scores topped the 95th

percentile in six categories.

Fillmore County Hospital

Patient satisfaction increased in

27 of 30 categories.

CEO Paul Utemark said he got a

whole new team and didn’t have

to change any of the people.

Community Hospital

Rating hospital as excellent place to

work increased by 26% to the 74th

percentile.

Rating training & development as

“excellent” increased by 51% to 91st

percentile.

HCAHPS scores went from meeting just

12.5% of benchmarks to currently

meeting 87.5%.

12 key lessons we’ve

learned through our

work on cultural

transformation

Lesson #1

Launching a movement is

a lot harder than starting

a program – it is also

much more likely to

achieve a lasting positive

impact.

173

Lesson #2

Achieving critical mass

requires approximately

30% population

commitment.

Lesson #3

People must believe

senior leadership

believes in and is

committed to the

cultural vision.

Lesson #4

Middle management’s

mere support is not

enough – they must be

gung ho champions for

change.

Lesson #4a

The privileges of being a

manager also entail

certain foregone

freedoms

Lesson #5

Sustainability requires a

growing core of

passionate “Spark

Plugs” who have a

personal stake in

cultural transformation.

Lesson #5a

Personal stories

resonate better than

scripted lectures.

Lesson #6

Embrace the skeptics,

marginalize the cynics,

and plow through

resistance.

Lesson #7

Engage potential critics

in a constructive

manner – encourage

them to think like

partners in the change

process.

Lesson #8

Avoid identification of

the change process with

any single individual or

“program.”

Lesson #8a

Create initiative

coherence by being

clear about how various

projects reinforce one

another.

Lesson #9

Keep it visible: posters,

banners, screensavers,

newsletter articles, web

pages; include it at the

start of every meeting.

Lesson #10

Remember that

everyone listens to the

same radio station:

WIIFM.

Lesson #11

Balance urgency and

patience; be in it for the

long haul.

Lesson #12

In order to be

sustainable over the

long-term, the culture of

an organization must

rest on a solid

foundation of values.

Sometimes it’s more

magic than it is science!

“If we each do our

part, we will

change our lives for

the better.”

188

“If we all do our

parts, we will

change our

organizations for

the better.”189

“And in changing our

organizations, we can

change our world for the

better.”

190

To bring Joe Tye to your

organization to work with your

leadership team, contact Dave

Parlin of Speaker’s Express at

(312) 422-2749 or email

dparlin@aha.org.

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