Leading A Cultural Shift

Shifting the culture of anything, anybody, any church, any university, any organization, and/or any business can often be a difficult venture. How much culture has to play within all persons and entities both large and small gives us the reason for this being the case. Experts say that culture runs around 90% of what is done within a church, university, organization, and business. 90%! “What about managers, leaders, CEOs, and such?”, you might be wondering. The remaining 10% is given to the leaders of an entity to run things. I know what my fellow leaders out there are thinking, “Nope, you are wrong. You need to rework those numbers as I am doing much more leading than 10% of the time.” This can be a shocker to many but if you uncover the layers of where you lead you will see the numbers to be true.

Take this example into consideration: a church got a new pastor after many years with their former pastor. They were excited for this new pastor and were willing to make changes to grow the church. One change came in the form of financials. This side of church, or any non-profit, can be tricky as often times only a few are privy to the information, and many church and non-profit leaders do not have a background within the business accepts of the organization. This pastor had some experience and noticed that only one person counted the money, kept the books, wrote the checks, and was the treasurer. The pastor addressed the situation and said that another person needed to be involved in the process as a financial secretary to bring transparency to the financial situation of the church. At first this person was not so sure about this with an attitude of, “Don’t you trust me?”, being place before the pastor. The pastor assured them of trust but that it was the proper thing to do as it protected both the church and the person. This was a huge cultural shift for the church as it began a process that brought about significant changes to how things were run. It was an uncomfortable process at times, but once the pastor left the church was in a better place in terms of how they organized themselves and went about the decision making process. To the pastor adding a financial security was a small change, but that small change brought about a cultural shift that still impacts how the church views it’s role in the area it serves.

In this example the leader, the pastor, did little in terms of doing as the only thing they did was add a financial security, or about 10% of the work. The shift in the culture was immense however as it gave transparency where there had been none, it shifted the value system towards a more organized base instead of a chaotic one, and it gave a way for people to trust one another as they had a way to verify trust. Does this fly in the face of leaders wanting to make big changes in order to fix problems? Yes, but think about how big changes are made. Look at weight loss and personal fitness. If you want to lose 50 pounds you don’t do so overnight but by making changes to diet and exercise. The changes you often make are small compared to the task at hand, you cut certain things out of what you eat, you add in a gym membership, you walk the stairs instead of taking the elevator, etc. Over time you reach the goal and do what you can to stay in a healthier place. That is culture in a nut shell. To change the 90%, the culture, a leader has to focus on the 10%, the small changes, they can impact. This takes consistency, determination, and follow through on the part of the leader. As the saying goes, “Dream big, start small.”

This picture is of one person’s take on the elements needed for change, little something to chew on for you: