When citing the 1996 research of Kotter and Heskitt on the relationship between organizational culture and performance in an online classroom post, one of my students questioned the order of the assertion that strong, positive cultures contribute to strong bottom lines. He wondered why it couldn’t be the other way around; that an organization that performs well develops into a strong and positive culture. He was absolutely on point, because it’s been proven in organization such as Ford Motor Company under Alan Mulally. His critique also brought to mind recent research on sustaining change by Grenley, et al. To make change happen, leaders have to institutionalize the change with new structures and processes for getting things done. If the outcomes of process change exceed expectations and the structures include reward, recognition, autonomy and accountability, the culture is, indeed, strengthened.
My student’s perspective of the link between culture and performance also identifies why so many cultural transformation initiatives fail. Even when the new vision and values come from the top, without changing the way things really get done, things will remain the same. Culture hasn’t changed. Leaders must enable performance with influences that go beyond their personal behavior to congruent operational change.
