Culture change has to be daily. It can not be weekly. A leader has to be in touch with the employee base close to constantly. I found this to be a much easier task during my tenure in the Army, as you might imagine. I also found that my military background (closeness of the group) to be of extreme value when I started working once again in the civilian world.

My first position entailed a complete culture change and a significant overhaul of the training base. The management team that hired me did so largely due to my military experience. I soon found that they were just as clueless as the team I had been hired to take over. The entire organization was in need of a culture change and a military approach was not close or even appropriate for the situation at hand.

As an outsider coming in to attempt “culture change,” the task is several levels of magnitude more difficult than an insider, with influence of course, taking on a project of this nature. This is the situation I found upon arrival.

John, as you mentioned, the process of change wasn’t exactly overnight but did not take very long in the grand scheme. Team members soon discovered the benefits of the new direction and became champions of the process very quickly. Falling backwards was a considerable problem early-on and required multiple “let’s-stop-and-discuss-the-situation” type meetings, but soon the backward trend was just a memory.

As a matter of fact, I just recently posted (http://whathowardsaidtoday.blogspot.com/) a short discussion recounting a very similar “change” I experienced early in my career.

Good posting and discussion.

John Howard Hatfield