“We need to change our culture” said the Chairman

You’d be right to be sceptical if told this. Because, just as certainly as if you were born a stroppy sort of “take me as you find me” person, truculence is in your genes, in your DNA – like it or not.

So it is with an organisation in which culture is not to be moved around like furniture. Nonetheless three people in as many weeks have told me their company needs to change its culture, failing to understand this equates to a DNA transplant.

For instance changing from outward going to thoughtful.
Or from arrogant to caring.
Or from caring about the bottom line to caring about your people.

It can’t be done and so it shouldn’t be tried.

The great brands like Coke, Heinz, McDonalds, Google are what they are and when they try to be anything different their magic dissolves before you just like sherbet. Healthy McDonalds? Away with you – what people like is that taste, that speed, that price and that staggering consistency. McDonalds when, in the recent past, it tried to be a purveyor of healthy salads, looked like a particularly reluctant cross-dresser.

Brands and companies have cultures built over time. They have memories, triumphs and failure built into that culture recipe and you can’t subtract those ingredients at will. This is their DNA.
Define the two or three characteristics which best define you and build on them.

Success is about being the best you or a bigger you.

The day Goldman Sachs pretends it is soft and cuddly will be the day it dies.
The day Apple acts just as a trendy brand, ditto.

So the big question is not 'what do you want to be?' but 'what are you now?' What are you now and how can you build on this?

And a makeover for a brand or company, which is a perfectly sensible thing to do, is not the same as a culture transplant which will usually prove fatal.

Be proud of your cultural DNA don’t mess with it.