Bobby Purvis | May 12, 2023
Culture isn’t a light switch that can be turned on and off.
Cultural change starts slow, but consistent and steady actions start the wheels moving. If you are new to an organization or a tenured employee that worked their way up the corporate ladder, you will have the same challenges. If you have ideas of how you want the culture to be at your organization, it must start small.
As a person with awesome responsibilities, you want things to happen quickly, but culture is on its timeline. Be patient and consistent, change will be so slight only people on the outside will notice. People are watching to see your actions. Are you a consistent person that can be trusted? Or do you have a new idea every week, and if it doesn’t stick, you move on to another idea? With your inconsistent actions, you haven’t built trust, and people will figure this out. There won’t be any buy-in, because you have proven you give up when things get hard.
Do you have something important to you? If it was important 5 years ago and it's important to you today, then make this your first initiative. It will be easy to be a champion for this cause. Now it's time to show everyone else you are consistent, and won't waver even when you get pushback. As you navigate through the rough period of change, you stand strong, and people will notice. Once you have proven you believe in the change, people are more likely to follow you.
As you implement bigger and more impactful changes, you will encounter the same difficulties and pushback as you did with the small changes. The difference now is people will be willing to buy into your vision because you have proven you can be trusted. You won’t give up, and they can depend on you, and change will happen.
Cultural change starts with you.
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