How to Change the Culture to Solve More of Our Real Problems (Part 2)

This is Johanna Rothman’s October 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.

In How Can You Solve Problems When the Real Problems Are Cultural Changes? (Part 1), I suggested our various cultures affect how we recognize and solve our real problems.

I suggested we watch for wanting to “go back” because “back” is almost never an option. (That’s denying the reality that our circumstances have changed.)

Instead, I suggested we can nurture change in these three ways:

Listen to other people’s stories. Then, (maybe) tell your stories.
Seek a common, overarching goal.
Find and work with allies.

Let me start with what I mean by culture.

A Working Definition of Culture

In Edgar Schein’s classic work, Organizational Culture and Leadership, he says that culture is about us, as humans. If you add Kurt Lewin’s idea that performance is a function of the person and the environment (that culture), then we can see that culture is all of these things:

What we can discuss
How we treat each other
What we reward. (This last part is especially important.)

When I speak, consult, or work with managers (see the Modern Management Made Easy books), I ask them to think about both the best and the worst behaviors their organization tolerates. Then, I ask which behaviors these managers reward.

Too often, managers reward the “worst” behaviors. Here’s an example: a single person firefighting in a supposedly agile organization. That’s antithetical to agility. Why? Because agility requires that the team collaborate to produce value for the customer. When managers reward solo work, they avoid creating an agile culture. (That’s an example of a resource efficiency culture instead flow efficiency thinking. The more managers focus on the individual’s outputs, the less autonomy, mastery, and purpose each person has. The less agility the organization can create.)

That’s why starting with teams can never “transform” the organization. The culture prevents agility. That’s a real problem that requires a culture change.

It’s the same idea for our societal problems. In society, we trust our elected representatives to spend our tax money on what we value. That’s a form of reward.

And in our personal lives, we spend money on what we value.

As soon as money (rewards, value) is involved, we can’t reason our way into supporting anyone’s change. Data, especially other people’s data, has never changed anyone’s mind. Stories can. That’s why I first start with stories.

Ask People to Tell You Their Stories

I start with stories because stories allow—and encourage—us to connect as humans.

At work, I start by asking teams or managers to tell me the stories of their successes. Sometimes, they tell me they have no successes.

That’s when I explain that almost everyone has had some successes, but maybe not as significant as they would have wanted. (Note: this honors their experiences, without making the other person feel bad about their experience.)

Now they explain the outcomes they wanted and the outcomes they saw. Some of these nice people still want to talk about data, which is fine. I am a bit of a data nerd, so I’m happy to generate and discuss relevant data. (I often ask about cycle time, financial results, and customer satisfaction.)

That data, and possibly much more, is very interesting and can offer clues about the real problems. It’s not enough. We need the stories of the culture.

How to Uncover Culture with Stories

One of the best ways I know to do this is to create and use this technique: a retrospective timeline. (See The Creation Experience Does Not Mirror a User’s Product Experience to read more.) The yellow stickies on the top represent the events people found significant. Everyone can agree that those events occurred, even if everyone does not agree on the significance of those events.

But the wavy lines at the bottom? Those are how people felt at those times. Those are the stories we need to uncover. Notice that everyone’s feelings differ. That’s typical as we move through change. (See Where Are You in Your Changes?)

In my first post, I said that the world feels as if it’s in disarray. You might not have access to a timeline. Instead, choose a specific and shared event (society, work, or personal). Then ask the person how they felt about it. As part of that story, you will probably hear about the other person’s autonomy, mastery, and purpose. That’s because autonomy, mastery, and purpose directly correlate with what we can discuss, how we treat each other, and what we reward. Culture affects our ability to manage the real problems we see.

How Culture Works With or Against Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

When we tell each other stories, we see how our current culture addresses—or does not—those real problems. That’s because autonomy, mastery, and purpose directly correlate with what we can discuss, how we treat each other, and what we reward.

The more autonomy, mastery, and purpose a person feels, even once, the less anyone can go “back” to what they had before. If you ever lived on your own and then went back to live with your parents, you probably felt this. You had the freedom to choose everything about your life. When you went back to your parents’ house, you had to live by their rules. If your parents were anything like mine, you no longer had the freedom you enjoyed.

Going “back” is rarely the answer. Once people have a taste of freedom (that Overton Window idea), very few of them want to go back. Instead, they will move forward. Maybe not right now if they can’t find a job, but they will move forward. Martin Fowler said this very well: “Change your organization or change your organization.”

There is a caveat to this: Some people are afraid of freedom and want someone else to take care of them. See Who Do You Want to Decide What You Can Read, See, or Hear? for more on this.

Even when people fear the freedom to choose their lives, they all want some outcome—often, what they call a “good” life. When we use stories, we can expose the overarching goal that might lead to that outcome.

Clarify Everyone’s Overarching Goal(s)

Many of my clients want agility. However, agility requires a culture of collaboration. When organizations focus on the individual, the organization’s reward system starts to make less and less sense. Worse, those rewards start at the top. (See How to See the Blind Spots That Maintain the Current System, Useful or Useless on my other site to read more about individual manager goals.) That’s why agility is a culture problem.

When we choose an outcome-based overarching goal, we can find some basis for agreement. What’s the smallest goal we can agree on?

(This is the same problem for society and for relationships. We cannot move forward without an agreement on the overarching goal.)

In organizations, that minimum goal might be reduced cycle time. Families might use a minimum goal to balance saving for retirement with a dinner out once a week. In my community, I want smooth roads so everyone can get where they’re going safely, good schools because I want the next generation to be ready for what’s next, and dependable garbage pickup.

We can agree on minimum goals and make those the overarching goal to nurture cultural change. But we know that deep change requires time. That’s why allies help.

Find and Work with Allies

I’ve said in several of my books that sometimes I wish I was the Empress of the Universe. I would banish multitasking and make collaboration with other people the default. However, I’m not the Empress of anything. I cannot just decree these things. Even if I could “dictate” how people worked, someone would always disagree with me.

That’s why I choose allies and focus on that overarching goal. I don’t care how small that goal is. With a goal, I can hear the stories about what the other person values—their culture. They can hear mine. We have a shot of agreeing on something.

One of my senior manager clients, Tom, still thinks he needs to measure individuals to see if they “measure up.” I asked him to clarify how he measures himself so he can know how he “measures up.”

Once he realized he did not have a good answer to that, he decided he could rethink the reward system, along with his entire leadership team. They recently asked some of the less-senior managers to also rethink the reward system. Tom now has allies who are helping him think through and experiment with changes. That’s a way to nurture change.

Nurture Change When You Follow the Money

When we “manage” or “drive” change, we use our power over other people to change something. But people like having more autonomy, mastery, and purpose. How do we solve these real problems when other people try to dictate the changes? I start with the rewards, to follow the money.

Plenty of organizations say, “We value our people.” Then, they ask them to work too many hours a week. That’s a culture that devalues people. Worse, everyone feels as if they can’t talk about it. That’s a little culture story about what people can discuss, how the organization treats some of the people, and the rewards the organization offers to whom.

That’s why the money discussion is so important to any cultural change. If we can’t discuss money or how we choose to reward anyone, we often cannot solve this organization’s real problems.

The more we nurture small changes in conjunction with an overarching goal, the more allies we create. That alliance allows us to solve some of our real problems and create a little momentum.

Culture Change Requires Forward Momentum with Problem Solving

Here are all the ideas I’ve shared in this post:

Acknowledge the changes. Recognize that those changes rarely allow us to go “back.”
Acknowledge how culture—what we can discuss, how we treat each other, and what we reward—often defines our autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In addition, once we experience some freedom, very few of us want to go “back.”
Recognize that rewards often drive behavior.

Now, given all that, how can you listen to someone else’s story, uncover a shared small goal, and ally to make a small change? How can you then nurture that to make the next change?

That is how we will find our way out of disarray.

Thank you for reading. I did not expect this post to go this long! (Part 1 is here.)

Announcements…

I am in the middle of organizing my Kickstarter for Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value. When I have the link for that Kickstarter, I’ll let you know. (I might send you a quick email between these monthly emails.)

If you are part of the agile community, consider checking out The Agile Network. Also, don’t miss out on discounted membership options. Use Discount Code: ROTHMANPMC33 to get 33% OFF all memberships.

A Working Definition of Culture

Ask People to Tell You Their Stories

How to Uncover Culture with Stories

How Culture Works With or Against Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

Clarify Everyone’s Overarching Goal(s)

Find and Work with Allies

Nurture Change When You Follow the Money

Culture Change Requires Forward Momentum with Problem Solving

Recommended Reading

Announcements…

Read More of Create an Adaptable Life

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