Culture change is about building stories that exemplify the culture you are trying to create.
When I was CEO at Telesp (Telefonica), I learned that stories can pave the way for change throughout an entire organization.
Prior to my becoming CEO, the company had developed a very strong and successful top-down, command-and-control culture. The government set regulations that told top managers what they needed to do, top management directed employees in what they needed to do, and employees did whatever they were told with excellence. Unsurprisingly, this culture led to a very isolated, even elitist, top management team—regular employees weren’t even allowed to be in the same elevator as the CEO.
Eventually, our government-protected monopoly in the São Paulo market came to an end, and we had to start competing for our customers’ business. It was obvious to me that we were going to need to shift from a command-and-control culture focused on reaching government service requirements to a customer service–oriented culture focused on getting and keeping customers with new telecom products and high levels of customer support.
One of our first non-regulated products was a home internet service called Speedy, but this new technology came with some growing pains. We created a consumer helpline where customers could call and get assistance with Speedy. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we also had a second helpline for senior managers at Telesp—where senior managers could get the “extra help” that they might need to make Speedy or any other service work. As soon as I found out about this second helpline, I closed it. If senior managers had difficulties with Speedy, they would have to get the same support as regular customers. In the meantime, I signed up for the Speedy service myself and some time later, I encountered some difficulties, so I called the helpline. The young man on the other end of the line was helpful and tried very hard, but after two hours, he still couldn’t make Speedy work for me.
Despite the fact that we were not able to get Speedy to work, I was very impressed by the young man’s efforts and told him that I was the CEO of Telesp. I asked him what kind of support he would need from the company to be able to address my problem and future problems. This 19-year-old young man was able to articulate not one, but 14 things he would need to be able to address problems with Speedy. Without hesitation, I invited him to the next corporate executive committee meeting to share those 14 things with the rest of the leadership team. He agreed and we were on our way to challenge the way things were done in the old culture of Telesp. It was time for the hierarchy of ideas to be the new norm.
Two weeks later, this young man—an hourly employee at our call center affiliate—gave a presentation to the executive committee about the 14 things we needed to do in order to help Speedy customers use this product. More than half of the problems were unknown to my executive team. I then turned to them and let them know that we would be suspending sales of Speedy. We could not continue selling a product that we did not know how to support. I also asked the Speedy team to present a plan for how we would fix the 14 problems that needed to be solved to help our customers, and the young man at the call center would help me evaluate the plan. This was revolutionary at Telesp at that time.
Not long after, a plan was presented and fully implemented so we could start selling Speedy again. I hired the young man from the call center into a management trainee job in the firm, and Speedy became a very successful product.
This is so much more than just a story—this exemplified the first steps we took to change the culture at Telesp. It meant that the old command-and-control culture was dead and a new culture of ideas-based hierarchy would emerge. It gave employees—people who had for years never been asked how the firm’s operations could be improved—hope that their ideas might actually be listened to.
It set off a chain reaction, one where employees throughout the company were inspired and empowered to create their own culture-change stories—stories that reinforced the message:
“The old Telesp culture is gone; the new employee-engaged and customer-focused culture at Telesp is here.”
This is just one example of the power that culture change stories hold, and there are several more examples from 50+ business leaders woven throughout my book, The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization, co-authored with Jay B. Barney and Carlos Júlio. I hope it will inspire you to begin building your own culture-change stories.