By using the right incentives to motivate and reinforce change, you increase the chance of successfully changing an organisation. But what the right incentives are depends on understanding cultural preferences.

It is one month after ’golive’ of a new system in your organisation. The change managers have been dismissed and you’ve celebrated a ve celebrated the as a noun. context right upfront. could be country/international culture or organisational culture (e.g. successful change implementation. Though everyone has received the proper training and heard the key messages the appropriate number of times, system reports reveal an unacceptable number of workarounds. New projects are already in the preliminary phases and the focus is shifting. Still, you acknowledge that reinforcement efforts must be taken up a notch to ensure that the system and processes are being utilised in a way that realise all the benefits promised. But how is reinforcement most effective?

Changing human behaviour requires a specific process. Understanding of what is changing and why. Desire to change. Knowledge of what to do (differently) and the opportunity to practice. And last but not least, sticking to the new routines. This method for managing change is called ADKAR and was develop by Jeffrey M. Hiatti.

Incentives should be adapted to cultural preferences

Two of the five ADKAR steps posit incentives to change. To achieve desire for the change, the incentive to change must be desirable. However, incentives are even more openly used when the changed behaviours are to be reinforced to make the change stick.  

Reinforcement of change is essentially socialisation as we know it from the academic field of Sociology. Socialisation can be rewarding and appreciative or punishing. Both mechanisms send a clear signal of the desired behaviour. In practice, both can be used by a direct approach of reward or punishment or it can be used indirectly as a dismissal of the unwanted behaviour.

Finally, socialisation can also be either explicit with blatant praise or reprimand or it can be implicit such as by entrusting more responsibility to someone displaying the desired behaviour or disregarding another who shows unwanted behaviour.

Just as you are probably not likely to serve prime steak to a vegetarian coming over for dinner, it is equally essential to pay attention to how the incentives you provide matches the cultural context. Especially if you are ensuring change in a culturally diverse setting or are managing a change in a culture different from your own. But how can you identify what is desirable for individuals from unknown cultural mindsets?

Geert Hofstede (1928) developed a method of making the highly confusing area of cultural challenges manageable by placing cultures on scales of different cultural dimensions. He identified five relevant dimensions such as high/low power distance and masculine/feminine cultures. All national or industrial cultures can then be ranked and placed on scales. The approach is disputed for numerous reasons. For one it is a static reflection of cultures reduced simply to national or industrial traits. However, used reflectively some of the dimensions are helpful when navigating for ways to ensure the right cultural fit with incentive structures.

In a recent best practice study by Prosci, Change Management challenges were mapped against cultural dimensions. When looking at incentives for reinforcing a change, two dimensions are highly relevant.

Completely opposite incentives motivate individual vs. collective cultures

One dimension divides cultures on a scale from highly individual to highly collective. In individual cultures, people are independently expected to take initiative, strive for goals, and ensure their own happiness. At the other end of the scale, in collective cultures, people are expected to act in alignment to the interests of the community or group. In return, the individual expects that their personal interests are always being looked after by the group.

By keeping this knowledge in mind when planning drivers for changing peoples’ behaviour, it seems logical that acknowledgement of good behaviour in an individual culture is motivational when the rewards focus on the individual. For example, it would be fully acceptable to bring out one person’s extraordinary results as an example to be followed. However, doing the same in a collective culture would be a massive mistake.  It would have an opposite effect, as people would feel uncomfortable with individual acknowledgement. In that type of setting, what would be motivating would be to reward or acknowledge the entire team or group for an effort.

In between these poles lies a vast range of cultures with traits leaning towards one of the dimensions but without clear affiliation. A safe way to ensure drivers for cultures in this grey area would be to portray the message that “together we are one company and together we must make the change to succeed”.

Performance orientation drives people towards different goals

A more direct dimension for ensuring motivation to changes is performance orientation. This is how to encourage or reward performance and give honours. In cultures with low performance orientation, the focus is primarily on social relations. Formal feedback and acknowledgement would be perceived as judgemental and uncomfortable for the individual. It would be far more beneficial to allow the employees to choose their own drivers or rewards – and they might not even be business related. Consequently, the incentives can be highly individualised.

Where performance orientation is high, employees are expected to constantly improve their performance and more direct methods of communication and incentives are far more common. Resistance to change is often about the individual not being able to see their personal gain from spending energy on changing their habits. Remember that this is energy that could otherwise be used on achieving personal goals. In settings as this, it is imperative to tie together personal performance goals and adaptation to a change. Performance Measurement is a highly motivating factor and can be used directly in a reinforcement plan to ensure commitment to a change.

Again, there is a grey area between the dimensions. In cultures in-between the poles, change managers often encounter a lack of ownership from the employees. Resistance to measurable performance mechanisms is also common. So, if the cultural setting in which you are managing a change is not overtly a high-performance culture, performance management drivers are a dangerous tool. It is far better in less distinct cultures to provide personal acknowledgement for desired performance or early adoption.

It is not rocket science to adapt drivers and incentives to the cultural setting. It’s just that doing it without the thought of the cultural setting can lead to counterproductive results. I find that looking at the cultural dimensions provides a simple tool to understanding the scale of cultural traits to consider. To accommodate for risk of reducing culture to simply national aspects, one can look for similar or contradicting preferences on the dimension scale e.g., industrial. If two factors align, it is a good indication of a strong cultural preference. If they misalign, it might mean that we are perhaps moving into the grey area and that at the very least, calls for further enquiry.

Anna Balk-Møller

In a study by Prosci on practices in change management, 84% of respondents rated cultural awareness as being important or very important when managing change.

However in the globalised business market, it can be argued that national cultures have decreased significance as a factor of importance. If a product or service equals a client’s needs, the interest of overseeing cultural and linguistic differences takes priority. Though that might be the case in some areas of business such as negotiation, it is not the case with change management. The main reason is that change management, is an exercise in appealing to individuals or groups of people. For this we need to consider human factors, such as cultural preferences.

So, the question is, how do we address cultural diversity to successfully manage change?

Mistake # 1: Global English is not the cure for cultural deviance

As internationalisation has become a condition for most organisations, an easy mistake is to assume that interaction between business associates can just be conducted by establishing a common ground by using a common language and implementing global processes. But cultural aspects still distinguish those involved.

Change Management is essentially about engaging people to put in the effort to learn new practices. The cognitive energy spent in the change process by far exceeds the energy spent on doing something people already know how to do. So, how do we get people to put in the extra effort change requires in their already busy workday?

We do this by building awareness about the change, creating the desire to change and ensuring that they achieve the abilities to manage the change. The essence of these disciplines is to relate the change to individuals or groups. As cultural aspects are deeply rooted in individuals, we need to be able to manage these within a change process.

Mistake #2: Reducing culture to stereotypes is ignorant

If the first mistake is to neglect the influence of culture, the second is to reproduce cultural stereotypes by thinking of culture as merely a national phenomenon. Regrettably, the complexity is far greater.

Having cultural intelligence (CQ) is not having a world map of stereotypes. Nor is it collecting tales of business contracts failing due to cultural ignorance. Cultural intelligence equals cultural awareness. It is the knowledge and curiosity about cultural variances and parallels. It requires having your antennas out and picking up on sometimes subtle signals. And it is the knowledge of how to incorporate all the relevant considerations into a change management strategy or communication plan that will produce the desired engagement of the people impacted.

Culture is both a combination of individual, national behaviours and organisational, sub-cultural or industrial preferences. Actually, it can be argued to be much more than this. But in a gallant pursuit of streamlining the complexity, these elements should be considered in the making of successful change management communications.

6 elements to consider when implementing change in an intercultural setting

1. Conduct a cultural analysis – when assessing the impact of a change, consider the cultural aspects of the target groups. E.g. Production workers will have different characteristics in the US than in France.
2. Diagnose yourself – awareness of cultural preferences of others requires you to be acutely aware of your own heritage. As the producer of change management strategy and communication materials, your cultural preferences play as big a part as your know-hows of past success.
3. Don’t overdo it – the scale of the change determines the need for addressing the cultural complexity. As a rule of thumb, if the change is radical OR if it impacts the employees on a personal level, such as Job role or change in reward structure, cultural factors should be reflected.
4. Find the landmines – cultural awareness means being sensitive to specific taboos or cultural-specific rules to avoid antipathy. Remember that even the use of change managers is not equally common in all cultures either.
5. Look for misalignment – you might find alignments between national and organisational, sub-cultural or industrial preferences in regards to specific cultural dimensions such as e.g. power distribution. BUT be sure to look for misalignment as well. These might indicate a reduced impact of the cultural trait and help you avoid falling into a stereotype trap.
6. One size doesn’t fit all – though it is easier to manage one global strategy, local adjustments can be what make or break how it is interpreted locally. The culturally aware change manager identifies the need for local customizations and join forces with local allies to provide customizations.