it's the culture, stupid!
](http://www.flickr.com/photos/30041560@N03/)blog. wiki. ms excel file. ms project plan. ms sharepoint page. basecamp project.
they’re all tools. while people may prefer one tool over another, whichever tool it is will not take hold unless the culture there supports it.
i see a lot of proposed changes to current work streams and business processes fail because — even with support from leadership — the user base rejects those changes. there could be a few reasons why:
- it’s not simple. if the change is convoluted, adding extra steps to the workflow process or time to complete tasks, people are going to reject it—even if they agree in principle that the proposed new method is “right”
- they don’t understand it. if you make a change that people don’t understand the reasoning behind, they will have a hard time accepting and implementing it. #1 sign that you made boo-boos? hearing employees say, “uh.. why are we doing this again?”
- it doesn’t fit. if your changes contradict the way you do business, it’s only going to lead to confusion and frustration, and ultimately it will be abandoned.
if you’ve tried making changes to the way your team or organization does work in the past and failed, check the process again. look at what you’re trying to do, and see what your people think about it. when new tools don’t take hold, don’t discredit their use.
it’s the culture, stupid!
keep the tools and fix the culture.