Culture Two

June 22nd, 2005

Despite manifold examples of failed corporate culture change efforts, there is an example I learned years ago that resonates with me.

In the 70’s, the US Army was having a terribly difficult time with race relations in Germany. We had forces stationed there, and there were many black soldiers, and significant black-white tensions. While I don’ t know what the experts would/did say regarding the reasons, the fact is, there were many incidents of assault and some homicides relating to race among soldiers. The Army was QUITE concerned, obviously - this was the Cold War, and our forces in Germany played a crucial role in helping Europe feel that Soviet bloc tanks weren’t going to come racing through the Fulda Gap and conquer Europe.

The Army did all sorts of training, helping soldiers learn about each other, and to build bridges, and to address soldiers’ root cause feelings of bigotry and hatred and ignorance. LOTS of classes, awareness sessions, sensitivity work. Lots of Organizational Effectiveness specialists working with unit commanders, trying to communicate a different way of thinking about soldiers who were “different” than they were.

It failed miserably. Race relations did not improve appreciably. Assaults, altercations, homicides, etc. all continued. No decline.

You can argue that they didn’t do it right, that if they had done the training “better”, things would have changed. I won’t disagree, but would say that what they tried is notoriously hard, witness modern diversity training you have attended.

Leaving that debate aside, the Army knew what it had tried HAD NOT worked. So, (I believe the impetus for this was a new commander), they changed their approach. Essentially, the Army said, “we’ve tried to change the way you think. We’ve tried the hearts and minds thing. It is not working. We’re going to try something different.”

The Army said, “we may not be able to change what you’re thinking, but we sure know EXACTLY how to change your behavior.” The command in Germany instituted DRACONIAN (relative to previous standards) punishments for ANYTHING even REMOTELY related to poor race relations. Inter-rascial fights were punished SEVERELY. Verbal abuse based on race was punished with loss of rank and courts martial, though no other speech was punished so harshly. Race-related punishments were publicized and repeatedly communicated.

The message was simple: regardless of how you think, we can’t see or change that. We can, however, change waht you do. And we have made it so painful to do these things that you’ll think twice about it.

And almost overnight, the behaviors - which many had seen as the symptom to begin with, stopped.

This story is an example of my beliefs about organizational change. Feel free to knock yourself out trying to change people’s minds. About the only person who has a better than even chance of doing that is someone’s boss, and even then it takes noteworthy communication (persuasion) skills. My recommendation is to not bother with their hearts and minds.

Change their behavior. PERIOD.