Influencing Up: How to Effectively Change Organizational Culture
How to get buy-in for a cultural initiative when you lack decision-making power: the five roadblocks and a four-step formula that works.
How do you influence organizations when you don’t have decision-making power?
Many well-intentioned and hardworking professionals have big aspirations for cultural change in their organization, but lack the budget authority or decision-making power they need to achieve impact and success. So, if you’re not in the C-Suite, what’s the most effective way to introduce a cultural change initiative to an organization?
Before we share the four-step formula, let’s talk about the five most common roadblocks to achieving high-level and strategic buy-in for these types of initiatives.
5 common roadblocks to buy-in
1. Constrained budgets
Cultural budgets always seem to shrink and tighten first. Even though we know that culture has upstream effects on every organization’s bottom-line, most executives and senior leaders don’t see it that way.
2. Organizational priorities
Your priorities won’t always be the organization’s priorities. This is why you’re paid to pay attention to cultural health, learning, and development. But aligning everyone on strategic goals is both difficult and time-consuming, especially if your voice is not the majority opinion.
3. Changing leadership
Sometimes, your buy-in turns over. You can’t expect every senior leader to stay in their role forever. What happens when your executive sponsor moves on from the organization?
4. Access to decision makers
Your role in your organization may have limited access to decision makers. You can send information and resources up the hierarchy, but it can be difficult to know if the message is getting through to those that need to understand it.
5. Personal risk
You can’t discount the personal risk you feel spearheading a cultural initiative. Choosing to place your personal reputation and standing on a certain framework, ideology, or initiative can feel daunting, especially when you can’t guarantee success. Asking for resources is a major act of vulnerability.
The rest of the guide walks through the four-step formula itself, built on the Value Equation: maximize the dream outcome, maximize the perceived likelihood of achievement, minimize time delay (this is where pilots make a huge impact), and minimize the effort and sacrifice involved in the initiative.
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