"We need a culture that values selling," is a phrase bantered about when organizations are perceived to be getting in the salesperson’s way. But how do you change an existing culture (whatever it may be) to a sales culture? Most organizations believe that if the CEO and VP of Sales communicate the importance of selling with enough conviction it will convince the rest of the organization to rally around anything sales related. In short, they hope the culture will adapt.

While some of this may work, today's organization simply doesn't have the time. And it's never a good idea to bet your future on hope. While something like a “culture of sales” may lie in the abstract, it is ultimately linked to discrete sales processes.

Demystifying Culture
In their book, Execution, authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, define culture as the sum of an organization's shared values, beliefs and norms of behavior. It is the goal of GE, for example, to be either first or second in each business they operate. That translates into behaviors that make up GE's culture, or "way of operating."

When Do Cultures Need to Change?
CEOs set out to change cultures when their renewed vision for competitiveness is inhibited by the values and beliefs of their people. Hence, GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt believes that, in today's global economy, the key to being number one or two is more about innovation, versus the existing culture, which believes it's all about grinding costs down and increasing share through acquisition. Immelt's new initiatives reward behavior differently. Sure, costs and margins are hugely relevant, but an executive's ability to innovate has taken on a much different level of appreciation in Immelt's new GE.

The Intersection of Culture and Process
Getting people to behave, in a style that supports an executive vision takes more than posters, town meetings and pep talks (which is what most companies try). With every desired cultural attribute, such as "we're sales oriented" lies a series of processes and behaviors that need to be deliberately put into place.

Having worked at both Digital and HP I speak from my own experience. Digital had a strong cultural value of "making your numbers" and missing them wasn't tolerated. Near the end, when executives were presiding over dwindling numbers, the culture didn't change. And neither did the numbers (except that they went down). The pressure on numbers encouraged sales people to sell - including products that customers often didn't need. At HP, satisfied customers was an overriding cultural value. If you blew out your numbers, but had unhappy customers (or co-workers that disliked working with you), you received a bad performance review. If you delivered happy, loyal customers, but missed your numbers, you didn't necessarily get a bad report card. You got advice and guidance on how to get more happy customers.

So before you roll out an internal communications campaign to rally the troops around a new set of desired values, identify the behavior (and processes) that connect your idea of cultural nirvana to a working engine with the cogs and wheels it needs to properly deliver. Redefine reward structures. Map processes around your new vision of what it means to be competitive. Then get the communications campaign rolling. Without process, you have nothing to communicate other than a nice dream.

For some addtional insight on the relationship between culture and execution, I highly recommend the aforementioned book, appropriately titled, Execution, by Bossidy and Charan.