Culture Renovation: 18 Leadership Actions to Build an Unshakeable Company

CHAPTER 13

STEP #10: CONSCIOUSLY COLLABORATE

Our best efforts are collaborative, and the Patagonia culture rewards the ensemble player while it barely tolerates those who need the limelight.

—YVON CHOUINARD, FOUNDER, PATAGONIA

While most successful renovations paint an enticing vision for the future, they also rely on strong internal collaboration to propagate it across their employee networks. But in many poor-performing companies, collaboration morphs into a cultural norm that is detrimental to change efforts.

“When it comes to culture, I have seen three dysfunctional archetypes in my work on collaborative networks,” said Babson’s Rob Cross.

“First is an overly participative culture; one of over-consensus where connectivity is through the ...