The Integration Myth: Fixing Culture Without Changing Systems

An infrastructure client launches a culture change programme. "New" collaborative values are articulated. Leadership messaging emphasises partnership over competition. Budgets are allocated for training, communication campaigns and recognition schemes celebrating collaborative behaviour. Six months later: performance management still rewards individual delivery metrics, procurement processes are still optimised for lowest cost, governance structures still escalate every decision through hierarchies and contract terms still transfer maximum risk.

People hear "collaborate" in values statements whilst experiencing "compete" in operational systems. Which message do they trust? The one embedded in how they're measured, rewarded, governed, held accountable.. it's human nature. Values statements don't change behaviour when systems and structures reinforce the opposite. This is organisational cognitive dissonance - and it's extraordinarily common.

Culture change programmes fail when they are disconnected from the systems and structures that drive behaviour. Attempting to change culture whilst leaving incentives, processes, governance, and organisational design unchanged is like asking people to swim against the tide whilst simultaneously increasing the current strength. When cultural aspiration meets operational reality, operational reality wins.

The integration gap is straightforward to define, challenging to address. Culture comprises shared beliefs, values, and norms shaping behaviour. Systems are processes, procedures, and information flows enabling work. Structures encompass organisational design, governance, roles, accountability, and incentives. All three shape behaviour. All three must align for genuine transformation.

Culture change programmes typically address culture alone with communications campaigns, leadership training and values workshops. These are necessary activities, but insufficient.  Behaviour emerges from the interaction between culture, systems, and structures. Changing one whilst the others remain unchanged creates the contradiction people experience daily. They hear aspirational messages through formal communications whilst experiencing contrary reality through operational systems. Cognitive dissonance resolves by dismissing aspiration as rhetoric and trusting the reality embedded in how they're actually treated.

Harvard Business Review research on authentic leadership shows relevant parallels at individual level. Balance is required between authenticity and impression management. Authenticity without impression management appears ineffective. Impression management without authenticity appears manipulative. Skills development doesn't compromise authenticity - it enables authentic expression. The same principle applies organisationally: designing systems and structures supporting desired behaviour isn't manipulation, it's integration. Creating governance that enables psychological safety, incentives that reward genuine collaboration, processes that support capability development - these don't compromise cultural aspiration, they enable it.

Consider the circular economy transformation in infrastructure. The Environmental Industries Commission calls for the UK to put circular economy at the heart of infrastructure delivery - an essential shift given climate imperatives and resource constraints. Government procurement consultation aims to mandate progress through contract requirements. A noble goal and an insufficient mechanism.

The circular economy represents an integrated transformation that requires technical capability, structural incentives, and cultural values to be aligned simultaneously. Technical capability means understanding circular design principles, life-cycle assessment, material flows, reverse logistics. Structural incentives mean economic models rewarding reuse over disposal, procurement processes valuing whole-life cost over capital expenditure, risk allocation enabling innovation. Cultural values mean commitment beyond compliance, collaboration across supply chains, long-term thinking over short-term optimisation.

Clients demanding circular economy through contract clauses without addressing supplier capability, market incentives, or industry culture will create compliance theatre not genuine transformation. Contractors respond by meeting minimum contractual requirements whilst maintaining linear economy business models because that's what their systems, structures, and culture enable. Contract clauses alone cannot overcome integrated misalignment across all three dimensions.

Client demanding circular economy through contract clauses without addressing supplier capability, market incentives, or industry culture creates compliance theatre not genuine transformation. Contractors respond by meeting minimum contractual requirements whilst maintaining linear economy business models because that's what their systems, structures, and culture enable. Contract clause alone cannot overcome integrated misalignment across all three dimensions.

Public procurement reforms demonstrate a pattern at policy level. Government aims to grow British industry, jobs, and skills through contract requirements. A worthy objective addressing real capability gaps. But attempting to mandate capability building through procurement clauses alone encounters a fundamental limitation: consultant business models, procurement processes, performance metrics, and governance structures all reward different behaviour. Genuine capability building requires an integrated approach - procurement systems and incentive structures and cultural values aligned, not just contractual requirement imposed.

This isn't an argument against culture change or procurement reform. It's THE argument for integration. When culture change is disconnected from systems and structures, people experience contradiction between aspiration and operational reality. When procurement reform relies on contract clauses without addressing underlying business models and market incentives, suppliers comply minimally whilst maintaining existing practices. When any single dimension is addressed in isolation, temporary improvement occurs followed by reversion as unchanged dimensions reassert influence.

Integration means considering how changes in one dimension impact on and require changes in the others. Cultural aspiration for collaboration requires new performance management systems, governance structures that enable effective joint decision-making, incentives that reward collective outcomes. System changes for data transparency require structural changes to information governance across organisations and a cultural shift toward openness. The structural redesign of organisations requires systems evolution to support new workflows and cultural development to enable new ways of working.

Integration doesn't mean everything changes simultaneously - that creates organisational chaos. It means thinking about transformation holistically across systems, structures, and culture rather than hoping cultural aspiration overcomes structural impediment. Sequential change is fine - change culture first, then address systems, then restructure - as long as you're thinking about how each dimension affects others and planning integration deliberately rather than assuming culture change alone sufficient.

The organisations succeeding in genuine transformation recognise systems, structures, and culture as an integrated whole and not separate workstreams. This is systems thinking applied to transformation - understanding that changing one part of system affects others, sustainable change requires addressing the whole system holistically. Not three parallel transformation programmes but an integrated approach recognising interdependence.

Culture matters enormously. Shared values, psychological safety, genuine commitment to outcomes beyond individual interest - all are crucial for complex delivery in major projects. But culture doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is shaped and enabled or constrained and contradicted by systems determining how work happens and structures determining how people are organised, governed, incentivised and held accountable.

Attempting culture change whilst leaving systems and structures unchanged asks people to behave differently whilst maintaining everything else that makes current behaviour rational. This contradiction is often resolved in reality by maintaining the behaviour aligned with the old systems and structures experienced whilst treating cultural aspiration as well-intentioned rhetoric disconnected from operational reality.

Integration requires honestly assessing what systemic and structural changes enable cultural aspiration. Then addressing all three dimensions together - not perfectly simultaneously, but deliberately interconnected. Cultural shift will require governance reform and process redesign. Systems improvement will require structural support and cultural development. Structural redesign will require systems evolution and capability building.

The alternative is pattern too common in major projects and organisational transformation: a culture change programme is launched with enthusiasm, initial energy is generated, behaviours temporarily shift and then revert as unchanged systems and structures reassert influence. Six months later we are left wondering why that fantastic values workshop didn't create lasting change.

What culture change are you attempting whilst leaving your systems and structures that reward the opposite behaviour intact?

References

Harvard Business Review (2025) "When Authentic Leadership Backfires" by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, October 2025. Balance between authenticity and impression management; skills development enables rather than compromises authenticity.   When Authentic Leadership Backfires

Association for Consultancy & Engineering (2025) "Put Circular Economy at the Heart of UK Infrastructure - EIC", 17 September 2025. Available at: https://www.acenet.co.uk/news/infrastructure-intelligence/put-circular-economy-at-the-heart-of-uk-infrastructure-says-eic/

UK Government (2025) Public Procurement: Growing British Industry, Jobs and Skills - Consultation on Further Reforms to Public Procurement. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/public-procurement-growing-british-industry-jobs-and-skills-consultation-on-further-reforms-to-public-procurement