No Shortcuts to Fix Shortcut Culture

I was recently asked to help an organisation which had suffered a fatality on one of their sites.  The matter is still under investigation.  When I walked into the organisation I was amazed at the lack of self understanding and sense of culture.  There was little understanding of what it took to foster a professional culture and no idea that the organisation itself was deeply infused with shortcut culture. 
Shortcut culture was evident in everything.  When it came to documentation there was precious little, where it existed it was copied and not understood.  When it came to appearance there was next to no corporate identity, pride or sense of self.  When it came to tasks to be done it was about ‘mates’ and ‘mates rates’.  Even though the company had made a solid income over the past few years, this had been attracted by being the cheap, price was the winner not the maturity of the organisation or its ability to manage risk.  Most key elements of organisational culture were in a poor state, it would take a substantial effort, time and cost to make the cultural change needed.

So I commenced gently with the organisation and was met strongly with the request to take shortcuts to overcome current challenges, including negativity in the media and in the political arena.  If I was to help here I would be simply endorsing the culture which was their problem in the first place, so I didn’t assist in this regard.  When this proved to be a dead end for the organisation rather than seek the hard road, they chose the old shortcut road.  They didn’t really want to change culture but simply wanted to ‘talk’ about it. I was then de-prioritised and new avenues for success were sought with other organisations that promised to not only to endorse their shortcut culture but to take more shortcuts to get the company ‘back into business’.  The company concerned had been met with political resistance since the fatality, this would now be fixed by backroom deals and hand shakes.  There were other areas of resistance which were proving difficult and these would now go away.
So, now I watch on with interest to see two shortcut cultures seemingly ‘move forward’ not only without cultural change but with more deeply embedded cultural dysfunction.  Surely a recipe for a disaster.  There is no shortcut to culture change, its is costly and long term but the rewards are great.  Organisations can chose wether they want to be a culture of excellence or just ‘get over the line’.  I wait with interest to see the results, its not if something may now go wrong, its just a matter of time.