"LITTLE BOYS get out of the way!" Cultural change in school playgrounds and parliaments.

"The little boys rule that school playground. They destroy the self esteem and lives of our little girls. That is bad!

It is those bully boys; they think they're big, but they are weeny little boys who have to change their ways.

The playground bullies, the smart *****, the boys of privilege need to get out of the way, shut themselves up and listen. Not just listen, but sit down and hear. Then respond."

This was the collective cry my tribal women ancestors offered to me in topical conversation about school yard bullies years ago, in a yarning circle about my new teaching career under a mango tree on ancestral lands.

This situation still remains the same today. Some things have changed. Structures, policies, rules, processes. But really nothing deep, nothing cultural has really changed.

Little boys still rule!

Time for little girls now.

Get out of the way bully boys!

So how can we change parliamentary culture? That place that is supposed to be an institutional cultural light on the hill led with a sense of fairness and expected greatness and supposed identity for each of us, all of us.

To build an organisation's culture requires a number of key elements in the equation. And even then, the equation changes according to many other factors. Nothing is definite.

Further to this, we see and read and hear pretences of a lot of persons pretending to have cultural change expertise on how to change organisational culture. Buyers of these people, beware! I see many that really need to be relegated to the "charlotans drawer" as merely that- pretence and light on experience, narrow, marketing their importance and really masked "neophytes".

In this article I begin another Catalyst Series of Culture Change to be a sneak peek for my upcoming book: "LEADING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE" that describes elements from my experiences in institutions to start conversations and actions for change. I believe we, as leaders in our various portfolios and jurisdictions across society all need to contribute ideas and share experiences and learnings with each other to re-begin the transitions at this time; from the horrid toxicity of cultures in such places as school playgrounds and grown up parliaments; indeed anywhere in any organisation generically (yes, your organisation too); to become a fairer and better functioning entity for and with people who work and/or study there.

So, what can we do now?

First of all, we have to weed out people who are toxic; they do not hold the values for the new order, the new ways, the new cultures. Help them get out of your canoe; weed them out of the garden...out!

We do not need people rowing incessantly against the tide in a non-constructive way.

We can deal with constructive and productive criticisms, people fighting for justice and freedom and effectiveness and efficiency and fairness and the like but not sneaky untruthful schemers and naysaying political types. Get rid of them.

So, recruit carefully. Ensure people fit the changes required in your environment.

Secondly, find the best leaders.

Leaders who are active about the cause to shape a positive culture.

Leaders who will work democratically, empathetically and with expressed clarity of purpose alongside their people, not upon them Society does not need or want power-wielding demagogues.

Then we need to form high performing teams and develop the best leadership groups.

People who gather together their people into a high performing teams focussed upon the purposes and with a clear strategy to change that culture collectively with actions and results, not rhetoric.

Culture and leadership are inextricably linked. Leaders can shape and destroy cultures through both conscious and unconscious actions.

Just take a look at the Australian Parliament or the American Presidential journeys in the last little while. Look at Myanmar, right now; China's effect upon Hong Kong; Indonesia in West Papua. These diverse situations across the world are lessons for change leaders and managers trying to understand and change cultures. These (to name just a few) are learning case studies and human cultural laboratories for how leaders shape and destroy cultures.

The next Catalyst Series sharing of articles will cover the following topics as conversational and insight starters. I hope these will be of interest to those shaping and re-shaping cultures of organisations:

1. Defining cultures, including "de-culturing"; sharing cultures, pervading cultures, and making cultures durable.

2. Reviewing different culture styles in organisations.

3. Seeking integrated cultural frameworks to set cultural directions for change.

4. Making culture deliver deep behavioural and values' outcomes...Not just rhetoric and superficial technological, instrumental or mechanical techniques and processes that merely "dress up" the culture and only really tinker at the edges.

5. Aligning culture with leadership and strategy and purpose about why we are there.

6. Developing Masters in culture change.

7. The place of cultural learning as strengths.

8. Dealing with cultural change through chaos and complexity.

9. Using strong cultural levers.

10. Techniques for change managers to put it all together with (a) profiling of cultures, (b) shaping activities for cultures and (c) converging techniques for cultural change through contexts, different conditions, industries, leadership styles and corporate strategy.

Finally, I comment upon those annoying damned "schoolboys" who my ancestral women referred to years ago, because these school boys keep raising their ugly heads don't they?

I ask and raise ideas about new types of leadership, new playgrounds, new environments, new organisational design and structures for more representative and "withit" workplaces where people love to work in more meaningful, purposeful ways. After all, we all deserve happy, positive workplaces; sure with challenges, but always places where our identity is respected, our expertise highly valued and our well-being is nurtured.

I pose questions about contemporary structures and strategies and processes, programs, projects and activities. I ask will these change culture?

What are the new ways of doing things, structuring, behaving, valuing?

What are new assumptions we need to be thinking about?

Unless we all "own" and express for these changes and show human ingredients that I would express as "change agentry expertise" we are doomed to continue as we have always been...same...decades later... same.

To help new organisational cultures emerge for better, more effective organisational workplaces we will need an array of elements all coming together. I try to talk about these in my final article.

Change managers, change leaders will be central to making and shaping new cultures. We will all need to be adaptive leaders for survival and success.

Cultural change must happen in the places we call "schools"; and, it must happen in places we call "parliament".