Culture is like the wind. It is invisible, yet its effect can be seen and felt. When it is blowing in your direction, it makes for smooth sailing. When it is blowing against you, everything is more difficult.

For organizations seeking to become more adaptive and innovative, culture change is often the most challenging part of the transformation. Innovation demands new behaviors from leaders and employees that are often antithetical to corporate cultures, which are historically focused on operational excellence and efficiency.

But culture change can’t be achieved through top-down mandate. It lives in the collective hearts and habits of people and their shared perception of “how things are done around here.” Someone with authority can demand compliance, but they can’t dictate optimism, trust, conviction, or creativity.

At IDEO, we believe that the most significant change often comes through social movements, and that despite the differences between private enterprises and society, leaders can learn from how these initiators engage and mobilize the masses to institutionalize new societal norms.

Dr. Reddy’s: A Movement-Minded Case Study

One leader who understands this well is G.V. Prasad, CEO of Dr. Reddy’s, a 33-year-old global pharmaceutical company headquartered in India that produces affordable generic medication. With the company’s more than seven distinct business units operating in 27 countries and more than 20,000 employees, decision making had grown more convoluted and branches of the organization had become misaligned. Over the years, Dr. Reddy’s had built in lots of procedures, and for many good reasons. But those procedures had also slowed the company down.

Prasad sought to evolve Dr. Reddy’s culture to be nimble, innovative, and patient-centered. He knew it required a journey to align and galvanize all employees. His leadership team began with a search for purpose. Over the course of several months, the Dr. Reddy’s team worked with IDEO to learn about the needs of everyone, from shop floor workers to scientists, external partners, and investors. Together they defined and distilled the purpose of the company, paring it down to four simple words that center on the patient: “Good health can’t wait.”

But instead of plastering this new slogan on motivational posters and repeating it in all-hands meetings, the leadership team began by quietly using it to start guiding their own decisions. The goal was to demonstrate this idea in action, not talk about it.

Projects were selected across channels to highlight agility, innovation, and customer centricity. Product packaging was redesigned to be more user-friendly and increase adherence. The role of sales representatives in Russia was recast to act as knowledge hubs for physicians, since better physicians lead to healthier patients. A comprehensive internal data platform was developed to help employees be proactive with customer requests and solve problems in an agile way.

At this point it was time to more broadly share the stated purpose — first internally with all employees, and then externally with the world. At the internal launch event, employees learned about their purpose and were invited to be part of realizing it. Everyone was asked to make a personal promise about how they, in their current role, would contribute to “good health can’t wait.” The following day, Dr. Reddy’s unveiled a new brand identity and website that publicly stated its purpose. Soon after, the company established two new innovation studios in Hyderabad and Mumbai to offer additional structural support to creativity.

Prasad saw a change in the company culture right away:

“After we introduced the idea of ‘good health can’t wait,’ one of the scientists told me he developed a product in 15 days and broke every rule there was in the company. He was proudly stating that! Normally, just getting the raw materials would take him months. But he was acting on that urgency — and now he’s applying this lesson of being lean to all our procedures.”

What Does a Movement Look Like?

We often think of movements as starting with a call to action. But movement research suggests that they actually start with emotion — a diffuse dissatisfaction with the status quo and a broad sense that current institutions and power structures will not address the problem. This brewing discontent turns into a movement when a voice arises that provides a positive vision and a path forward within the power of the crowd.

Social movements typically start small. They begin with a group of passionate enthusiasts who deliver a few modest wins. While these wins are small, they demonstrate efficacy to nonparticipants and help the movement gain steam. The movement gathers force and scale once this group successfully co-opts existing networks and influencers. Eventually, leaders leverage their momentum to institutionalize change in the formal power structures and rules of society.

Practices for Leading a Cultural Movement

Leaders should not be too quick or simplistic in translating social movement dynamics into change management plans. That said, leaders can learn a lot from the practices of skillful movement makers.

Frame the issue.
Successful movement leaders frame situations in terms that stir emotion and incite action. Simply explaining the need for change won’t cut it. Creating urgency may help, but it can be short-lived. For lasting commitment, people must feel a deep desire — even a responsibility — to change.

A leader can achieve this by framing change within the organization’s purpose — the “why we exist” question. A good purpose calls for the pursuit of greatness in service of others. It gives meaning to work, conjures emotion, and incites collective action. Prasad framed Dr. Reddy’s transformation as the pursuit of “good health can’t wait.”

Demonstrate quick wins.
Movement makers recognize the power of celebrating small wins. Demonstrating efficacy brings in people who are sympathetic but not yet mobilized.

Leaders often fall into the trap of declaring the culture shifts they hope to see. Instead, they need to spotlight examples of actions they want repeated. When Prasad launched projects across key divisions, they demonstrated how a nimble, innovative, and customer-centered way of working could deliver meaningful outcomes.

Harness networks.
Effective movement makers build coalitions and bridge disparate groups to form a larger network with a shared purpose. People are more apt to support what they have a stake in creating.

Leadership at Dr. Reddy’s engaged people from across the organization in defining the purpose. During the launch event, employees were invited to make the purpose their own by defining how they personally would help deliver it.

Create safe havens.
Movement makers create spaces where members can craft strategy and discuss tactics — environments that act as microcosms of the future culture.

If individuals are expected to act differently, it helps to change surrounding conditions to support new behaviors. Outposts and labs often serve this role. Dr. Reddy’s established two innovation labs to explore the future of medicine and create a space where employees could embrace new beliefs and behaviors.

Embrace symbols.
Symbols create solidarity and communicate what a movement stands for. These can be simple or elaborate, but they reinforce unity.

Dr. Reddy’s linked its culture change to a new corporate brand identity, reinforcing internally and externally that the entire company stands together in pursuit of its purpose.

The Challenge to Leadership

Unlike a movement maker, an enterprise leader often has authority and can mandate changes — and sometimes should. However, when it comes to culture change, authority should be used sparingly. It’s easy to overuse power in hopes of accelerating transformation.

It’s also easy for leaders to avoid organizational friction. Harmony is generally preferred, and transitions are often judged by their seamlessness. But in a movement-based approach, a moderate amount of friction is positive. A complete absence of friction likely means little is actually changing.

Look for places where the movement faces resistance — they often indicate where the dominant organizational design and culture need to evolve.

And remember: culture change only happens when people take action. While articulating a mission and changing structures are important, it is often more effective to first show people the change you want to see.