Recently, I updated my stakeholders on the cultural aspect of a learning curriculum redesign project. It is a significant redesign project that includes organizational learning elements. As I was packing up, I got one last question:

“How much time and money should we invest in culture? Why can’t we just get on with it?”

No time was left to elaborate, so I could only state briefly:

“If I push my isolated vision and learning philosophy on the organization, the training team, and the program, I could indeed move faster. Would it make the redesign successful? Probably not. The success of this project depends on the dynamics, cultural aspects, and environment around the training-program. We organize these in such a way that they support and enhance the goals. They are vital for the adaptation of this change effort. Otherwise, people will revert to how things were in a heartbeat.”

Walking out, it occurred to me I should invest more effort in explaining the exact cultural effects on learning and change projects. 

What is culture?

Culture from Schein’s description boils down to the shared learning of a group that found workable solutions to situations, experiences, and obstacles met. Evidence of what works and what doesn’t work shapes this culture and appears on many levels. It can be vocational, regional, national, international, organizational level, and sublevels.

Culture encompasses experiences, written and unwritten rules, behavior, norms, values, and traditions, to name a few. Some cultural identifiers are noticeable, others are much more subtle and even subconscious until questioned.

To link culture with learning transfer, Corinne Brion expanded on Lindsey et al.’s explanation on culture which has a more individual perspective. Lindsey offers that culture is how you identify with people who are like you and that differ from you, fed by your ability, everything you believe and undertake. It shapes our interactions with each other, and what we bring with us every day we get to work.
 

Brion’s conclusion was that if culture fuels every interaction, everything we do and how we do it, then it is interesting why so few of our scholars truly focused on models that include culture in learning transfer.

The risk in getting on with it

The Katzenbach Center conducted a survey of over 2200 executives, managers, and employees in 2013. Eighty-six percent of C-suite executives and eighty-four percent of managers and employees said culture is critical to the organization’s success. And yet, culture is not a major factor that is addressed in executing change projects.

In my project, not addressing requirements of both learning and culture increases the likelihood of failure. When the first efforts of change don’t work out as planned, this emphasizes that the old way of doing things was ‘better’. This directly undermines current and future change efforts. As learning strategists, we need to bring culture into learning transfer.

Leading with culture

I’ll go one step further, to increase chances of success you should lead your change program with culture. Understanding your cultural blueprint and starting from there will allow you to create a holistic change plan with a far greater success probability. 

Two prime reasons I see for leading with culture:

1. The Power of Learning
   L&D professionals hold influential positions. Especially in organizations that are formalized, and where trainer-centered teaching styles are favored. L&D teams directly influence organizational and individual performance. What they teach the workforce in terms of knowledge, behavior, and skills, as well as those subtleties of ‘the way we do things around here’, sticks.
2. It Takes Two to Tango
   Organizational learning and culture are interrelated. Culture holds on to what has gone before, drives forward and influences learning practices. Learning practices simultaneously both restrict and adapt culture. One cannot be seen isolated from the other.
   

Leading with culture will help the organization embed change-welcoming circumstances that will help the transformation.

6 Steps to maximize your culture and learning relationship

The below steps are the best practices for running culture led learning programs. Add these steps to your change plan and see the uptake of your project increase.

1.xDefine your strategic goals

For example, changing from a task execution focused organization to a customer partnering organization can have consequences on every aspect of the organization. That requires planning. How do you go from a control and market-based culture to one that is more focused on collaboration and service? Where are you now and where do you want to be?

2. Take inventory of your learning function

Consider: 

• How is it organized and performing?
• Do the materials of programs reflect the goals, values, and ambitions of the new direction?
• How is your L&D team developing your workforce, new and old?
• Will they emphasize or obstruct the message you want to convey? 
• Who communicates what messages in the programs?

3. Diagnose and plot your current and desired culture

Use a reliable tool to diagnose and plot your culture. Include your supporting learning functions, even when they are not directly affected. You will want to understand whether their current culture position complements or is in direct conflict with desired state.

4. Start dialogue around strengths and weaknesses

Do this for both the current and desired culture. What has worked may continue to work and building on strengths gains momentum in the change process.

5. Name the critical items to address

Create an action plan on those items and equip the organization and teams with the right skills, knowledge, support, and resources. Link the cultural components to your change program, so the exercise of steps three and four are immediately connected.

6, Celebrate failures and successes in the road towards transformation

Especially the failures. For culture to embed, the learning must be repeated until small successes are booked. Failure is just one step closer to success. 

Imagine the impact

Since I started leading my L&D projects with culture, I have noticed far more buy-in from all levels of the organization associated directly with the change.

Strategy&, part of PWC, released an article in 2013 that says that leading with culture is not a shortcut. That’s true, it is very thorough. But so far it realized real conversations around the changes coming our way, what we needed to prioritize in relation to cultural attributes, and their relevance to learning transfer. It helped our teams to understand their strengths and constraints and fix the fundamental behaviors and practices before we would start any change initiatives.

Priorities in change management for learning projects need to be reconsidered. Leading with culture enables us to tackle the biggest hurdles first, building on the strengths of the existing culture to minimize the challenges and obstacles along the route.

References: 

Wikipedia contributors (2022, December 6). Organizational learning. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:05, December 8, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Organizational_learning&oldid=1125922255

Schein, E. H. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Cameron, K. S. & Quinn R. E. (2011). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Brion, C. (2022). Culture: The Link to Learning Transfer. Adult Learning, 33 (3), 132–137. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from https://doi-org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/10.1177/10451595211007926

 
Aguirre, D. et al. (2013). Culture’s role in enabling organizational change. PWC. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/insights/2002-2013/cultures-role/strategyand-cultures-role-in-enabling-organizational-change.pdf