In an organization that values control and process, optimizing those processes by cutting out red tape doesn’t mean a culture change. To that organization, it means process optimization.
The same question is indirectly raised again — is it possible to change culture by tweaking process? Can a change in process cause a change in culture? One the one hand it's a category problem (a member of a set cannot be the set itself), and Conway's Law tells us that whatever we do we will always end up spitting out but copies of ourselves. It wouldn't be unlike ordering people to have fun, or forcing democracy onto a tribal society. Without the vocabulary of mental representations, the new concepts will not be integrated in the culture.
On the other hand, IT is not the only area where humanity tried and succeeded to introduce constructive change. Consider how institutions had to change with advances in human rights, but also consider adoption of new forms of communication, and even just successful product deployments — the dynamic is not new. We have to be able to explain new things using the old things as the alphabet. Therein is the limitation of Conway's Law, but it doesn't fully apply here: the basic building blocks already include concepts of family, empathy, cooperation, etc., while our objective of creating a harmonious working environment can be communicated in those terms. Therefore, aren't changes in culture and process inseparable, and neither will endure without the other?
