The traditional business school logic for the architecture of organisations reads like this: have a mission and vision first, strategy comes after. These will dictate the processes and systems required, then people will behave accordingly. It banks on a pristine linear sequence as if everything starts from zero and then builds up.
The merits of that theoretical approach aside, it always pictures behaviours as a consequence, as a by-product. It is based, consciously or not, on the traditional saying ‘if you build it, they will come’, attributed to software developers and the like. It represents a flawed belief that functionality alone is enough to drive engagement, without considering user needs, experience or market demand.
Read more: Culture change is broken. Here's how to fix it
However, fundamentally, it assumes that people’s behaviours will perhaps be the result of those new processes and systems. If that were the case, a pristine CRM system with perfect functionality that, for example, makes collaboration easier (24/7 live connectivity, clever tools, attractive interface) would have a high usage. Why not 100%?
Ditto for other technologies. Will people will use it? Sure, in many cases, if there is no alternative. But there are plenty of examples when that usage is actually quite poor, suggesting people bypass it, and prefer alternative ways, perhaps ‘old' ways.
The pattern ‘processes and systems produce the behaviours needed’ seems broken. Why? I have chosen the example of a ’collaborative tool’ on purpose. Collaboration is a behaviour: something that people do or don’t, a choice tinted by many variables.
Collaboration is not the output as portrayed in the traditional linear logic, the end of the chain. It is in fact the input. Exactly the opposite. Translation: we need pre-existing collaboration conditions (culture) to support the processes and systems. If the ethos of the company, for example, is one of significant individualism, no amount of new, shiny, collaborative tools will create collaboration.
Behaviours create culture, not the other way around.
Technology transformation doesn’t happen without behavioural change. There are lots of reasons why people don’t necessarily click with this. One is the omnipresent example of us, individually, having changed this and that due to technology. The iPhone makes it a thousand times easier than before to call your granny, but you still need to want to call.
Read more: Real change starts with measuring business culture
At scale, technology change and transformation, digital transformation, or anything else within this family, requires a behavioural change. The word is ‘requires’. I am not saying ‘will produce’. There is no change unless there is behavioural change.
Going back to the sequence at the beginning, it is not ‘processes and systems will create behaviours’ (the equivalent of ‘if you build it, they will come’) but ‘what behaviours do we need to sustain these processes and systems’? The arrow of causality is inverted.
Embarking on a change and transformation process without having decided what behaviours we need – if not first, at least nurtured in parallel – is close to suicidal in organisational terms. Any time that behaviours are seen as a by-product, we will have a big problem, a big mountain to climb. Many fiascos have historically been attributed to the technology (not good enough, not sophisticated enough etc). And what do you need when technology doesn’t deliver? Simple: an upgrade. And the circle self-perpetuates.
Read more: How to create a culture that works for everyone
Now, substitute the word ‘technology’ for AI. All arguments hold.
By Dr Leandro Herrero, a psychiatrist, author and organisational architect leading The Chalfont Project
