Consultants use the word culture to market their services. When I worked at General Motors in the 1980s, problems existed with quality and competitiveness; where I last worked, safety and security were impediments to survival. In both places, consultants convinced managers the problem was workers’ attitudes that could be altered with training. In both places, they failed. And, in both places, there were genuine problems that needed to be addressed that could, indeed, be traced to attitudes.
The problem with the proposed solution is that attitudes are as much psychological phenomena as anthropological ones. If we looked at Chernobyl, we would see safety problems that transcended the cultures of the United States and Soviet Russia, and might conclude the difficulty of following detailed instructions was something inherent in human nature. But, if we looked at Japan, we would see quality problems eliminated by social organization, and deduce culture moderated the influence of innate psychological responses.
When I was in school, our simple definition of culture was "shared patterns of human behavior and belief that were learned." Once analysts framed problems as anthropological ones, solutions followed from the word "learned." If consultants had framed them in psychological terms, they would have had to deal with motives or incentives. That is a far more complex problem to solve, and consultants who tried it years ago failed.
Before workers are going to accept they are the ones who need to adapt, they need to be convinced there’s a problem. It helps if they can believe in the proposed solution. We know from the disappearance of societies in the Easter Islands and Greenland that even in the severest crises, people may not recognize the need or human capacity for change, and will die to maintain cultural and personal consistency.
In the two GM plants where I worked in the 1980s, people did adapt Japanese ideas both because they feared their plants would close and because they knew who was more successful at selling cars. Their biggest problem was perpetuating their innovations. Over time, they had to accept workers from other lines who had not been part of the original experiment because they weren’t as amenable to correction but had seniority to bid when jobs opened.
The more serious problem was young managers. Those who came from other locations had no incentive to conform with unique demands of the plants. The formula for promotion was set outside, and meeting the plants’ requirements might hinder future advancement. Indeed, if a place did close, their only hope was applying to another, now suspicious corporate office.
In both places, many came to see demands for improvement coming from higher level managers who couldn’t sway their immediate subordinates and thus lost credibility. The question became "he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?"
It’s not enough to hire consultants. If a CEO wants divergence, he has to promote a plausible alternative. That’s not the same as sending top executives to some resort to wordsmith a mission statement. Indeed, if a company head knows what he wants, he doesn’t need anyone to tell him.
In 1980, Roger Smith had a vision for General Motors: compensate for problems from unpredictable customers and employees with automation; replace recalcitrant managers and workers with a new company, Saturn; reduce administrative costs by merging five brand names, two manufacturing divisions, and other autonomous groups into three integrated organizations.
As long as Smith addressed problems that were cultural and had clearly defined solutions, he had support. So many wanted to tour his joint venture plant built with Toyota at Fremont, California, it had to limit the number of visitors. When he turned to corporate bureaucracy, he made people apprehensive. Corporate folk wisdom passed through xeroxed graffiti warned the old and cunning would triumph over the young and talented.
Once his demonstration plant in Hamtramack disrupted a local community and he proposed transferring employees to EDS in 1984, the cultural problem became increasingly personal. The threat of economic loss, be it to an engineer or a Detroit area resident, no longer seemed worth the sacrifice after management bungled the introduction of the first car in years to excite customers, the 1984 Fiero.
Smith’s solutions became all stick and no carrot. When individuals’ psychological allegiance with established ways became stronger than with proffered change, GM lost the opportunity to modify its behavior. The other common piece of xeroxed graffiti in those years compared any new project to mating elephants, something that provoked a great deal of stomping and roaring and took many months to produce a small result long after the instigating male had disappeared.
When leaders who promote messianic change fail, those who reject the need for transformation become more entrenched. When Roger Smith retired in 1990, General Motors soon removed Robert Stemple, the man he’d named as his replacement, and sold almost everything he’d introduced.
Now, more than a decade later, the company faces potential bankruptcy, and top managers still think they can ignore suggestions from outsiders. Their best answer is to make investors happy by lowering costs by cutting production, but to satisfy themselves they continue what they’ve been doing in the remaining operations.
Those who recognize there are problems may feel doomed like Norsemen and Easter Islanders abandoned to a fate dictated by those who support the status quo and wonder what it will take to make people with power aware more is required when it’s never their jobs or benefits that are eliminated. Change is still all punishment and no reward.
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