Leveraging the Law of Diffusion to Facilitate Organization Culture Transformation
  • More executives are recognizing the connection between culture and performance and, consequently, spending more time and money building cultures that will promote desired results. But organization leaders are also experiencing the heavy lift required not only at the top but at all levels of leadership to make that culture transformation a reality. How else might we think about tackling organization-wide culture change? Law of diffusion says that if 15-18% of individuals in an organization adopt a change, that number can successfully influence the majority of the organization. Why? That 15-18% is the tipping point required to demonstrate success and normalize those new behaviors to the point that others feel safe in adopting them as well. Once the large majority adopts the new behaviors, those last hold-outs are more willing to adopt the change or are forced to change because they can no longer be the outliers - or they leave the organization. So how do we best get to that magic 15-18%? We know that direct managers and teammates have the highest influence on employees. Use that influence to implement culture change at the team level first, rather than at the organization level. Employees (and managers) are more accepting of small changes they are a part of creating on their own teams rather than being the subjects of a large organization transformation program. The beauty of the law of diffusion is you don't need to work with every team right off the bat. For the biggest impact, implement culture transformation at the team level, focusing on these key teams:
  • Early-adopter teams who are on board with the desired future culture and excited to adopt that culture themselves (or are already doing it),
  • Teams that interact with many parts of the organization, increasing exposure to the new culture, and
  • Cross-functional teams whose members can begin to seed this new way of working with colleagues in their home functions.
Eventually, you need to bring it all together and address holistic transformation across the organization. Culture change cannot take place if the organization's systems and processes continue to reinforce the old culture. For example, teams cannot be more innovative if they are still rewarded to take low risk or no risk, or if they are measured on successes alone rather than experimentation and lessons learned. As new behaviors begin to take hold, executives must be ready to shift performance management, talent development, and other organization processes and measures to facilitate and reinforce culture transformation. But rather than tackling the macro first, focus your organization culture transformation resources (money, time and energy of leaders, managers, and change practitioners) on those 15-18% of individuals in key teams, and let the law of diffusion work for you. Marisa Sanchez
What is the meaning of Organization Development (OD)? Why do it? Who does it benefit and how?Organization development is a broad field that draws from a number of disciplines and can be applied to any organized (or disorganized!) group of people. Based in human behavior theories and values, the goal is to build and sustain effective organizations by leveraging the knowledge and experience within the organization. This newsletter serves as a vehicle to inspire you to use organizationdevelopment in your own work.