They say it takes ten years to change an organization’s culture.
I say that’s a nice excuse.
Last March, I spoke at SXSW Interactive about our organization’s Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) and the amazing organizational transformation ROWE instigated. But ROWE was just the start. There’s a much bigger story to tell about how a young CEO transformed the culture of an old organization and made work suck a whole lot less.
So this year at SXSW, I’d like to tell the bigger story. A story for people who work someplace that sucks and want it to change, or work at a great place and never want that to go away.
The concept for Rebel in a Polyester Sash: Rehabbing Corporate Culture goes like this:
You work at a start up. You’re sketching out brilliant ideas on the back of beer-ringed napkins while slurping down ramen noodles and nursing your hangover from the massive party you had in your freakin’ cool loft the night before. Blah, blah, blah. Your culture rocks. I get it.
But what if you work for a dinosaur? An organization that needs cultural rehab more than Amy Winehouse needs straight up rehab? What if you work for an old-school, stereotypically uncool, butt-of-jokes and yet still loved non-profit that is now nationally known as an organization with a “weird child army in tablecloth dresses” (thanks SNL’s John Mulaney)? What if you work for, I don’t know, the Girl Scouts? A place where pantyhose, polyester, and clock watching are still raging like its 1985. That’s where I work. And despite the many great things that the organization does, working there sucked until we decided to make it not suck anymore. We broke the rules and reinvented everything: clock watching turned into working however we want as long as the work gets done; pantyhose gave way to jeans; and the polyester met its demise on the Sacred Cow BBQ right next to a heap of senseless rules.
At SXSW 2011, learn how your culture can stop sucking too. Whether it’s sucked for five weeks or five years or half a century, there is still hope. Misery and work don’t have to be synonymous. Corporate doesn’t have to equal crap. If a rebel in a polyester sash can lead cultural rehab, you can rock the rehab too.
The caveat? You can’t hear the story unless you vote. Anyone can. Even if you aren’t going to go to SXSW. (The head of a weird child army in tablecloth dresses thanks you.)
