Loading...
Answers
MenuWhat strategy would you use to fix a impulsive, fast-moving, siloed culture that needs to be more agile, focused, and innovative?
This question has no further details.
Answers
Read Tribal Leadership, a great book on culture and Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, a great book on implementing change when it's difficult.
Great question! I've been working with organizations for the past 15+ years on getting everyone on the same page going the same direction - i.e., creating a healthy, high performing culture. Here are some ideas...look at a few key items - Vision, Leadership, and Motivators. Ensure there is a common, well-articulated, and easily understood Vision - it's hard to create focus without something on which you can focus. Make sure leadership is focused, encourages creativity, fosters cross-divisional collaboration, and is a little more planning-oriented such that the company can be agile without being impulsive. Finally, with motivators, look at your rewards/recognition and accountability measures to ensure they drive behaviors consistent with the vision, creativity, and collaboration. Feel free to schedule a call if you'd like to talk more specifically about the situation, the issues, and targeted/effective solutions.
I just walked a company through this process. They have a staff of about 35.
The first step in any cultural initiatives is bringing the truth to the surface. To be honest, many employees sense the reality in their culture, but until it's brought to the surface and articulated clearly, no change can happen.
Once your culture is clear to everyone, the serious question to ask is whether you all want to change. Then - and only then - can your culture become more agile, focused and innovative.
So...
Step #1 - survey/collect everyone's view of the culture.
Step #2 - have a conversation with your team after you've collected the results.
Step #3 - as a team, determine whether the current culture is what you want, or whether you need to change.
Step #4 - start small and decide on one change that you can make as a team.
Step #5 - implement the change, celebrate the win if the change goes well, then focus on another change you can all make.
If you need some more insight into this process, don't be afraid to get in touch.
Related Questions
-
How do I improve an old and small tech company culture?
I'm going to answer this from the perspective of an engineer who has worked in similar environments and who has had leadership changes that went well, as well as ones that didn't Basically you're describing an environment in which people aren't doing as much as they are capable of, they were working in a hostile environment in which threats were common, and there's a sort of lack of accountability + poor communication / collaboration. Okay first thing, I wouldn't recommend using analytics to hold people accountable. Not yet anyway. It's a carrot and a stick problem and bringing out the stick first... you're likely to add demoralized staff to the list of problems you're trying to solve. What if instead you talked to everyone and explained your vision for the company and then followed up with each employee over the next week or two. Figure out what their vision for their own career is and what they want the next year to look like, the the next three, the next five. If you can align your employee's goals and ambitions to your own, I think you'll have a lot more luck getting people to solve the disfunction that they can. And they'll be a lot more understanding when you start taking measures to hold people accountable. Again, just my perspective as an engineer. I would bet you that the people you are working with are aware of the same problems as you. And they would probably agree with you that people need to be held accountable. But you need to be careful about how you do that. Accountability right now probably will look like more micromanagement and intimidation. Paint a picture for where you want to go and commit to helping your people reach where they want to go... well, then accountability isn't such a bitter pill and it will likely be seen as necessary, not more of the same toxic leadership that wrecked the culture last time.EV
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.