Culture, culture change, change management…these are all big topics.

But they don’t have to be overwhelming if they are approached with knowledge and skills. A sense of humor is a big help as well.

What is Culture?

In the business world today, change is the norm, not the exception. Everywhere we hear talk about “organizational culture” right along with “organizational change”. What exactly is culture and why does it make a difference?

Culture takes a while to understand—to peel back the layers of the onion—but once grasped, even small changes can have huge impacts. We know that from experience. We’ve seen the results when there is alignment between what you say you want managers to achieve and how you actually compensate them, or when you give teams the tools to become self-organizing. Culture has the power to support and facilitate your vision rather than fighting it. As a leader, intentionally shaping your organization’s culture is perhaps your biggest contribution and biggest challenge. Are you completely ready?

Healthy Cultures

A healthy organizational culture encourages people at all levels of the enterprise to contribute their passion, their vision, and their best selves. The result shows in workplaces where the energy, the “buzz,” and the drive to excel are palpable. Everybody wins in this kind of organization—employees feel valued and respected, the organization achieves outstanding results, and clients or customers actually like doing business with you.

Pipe dream you say? Well, we don’t think so. We think if you can imagine it, you can create it—given the will, the knowledge, and the skills to do so. Our job is to share our experience, techniques, and knowledge as we help you develop those skills. The “will” part is up to you.

Underlying Assumptions and Beliefs

One definition of culture suggests that it lives in the stories that organization members tell themselves and each other about the rules of the game or “the way we do things around here.” Culture is what gets transmitted to a new hire when we tell them the difference between the published policy on office hours (or most any other employee relations policy) and the unspoken norms–the way things “really” work around here. Some people think about culture as the dominant values the organization espouses such as “product quality.” Some see culture as the feeling or climate conveyed to others. All of these aspects of culture have a place in the discussion, but they reflect the culture more than being the essence of it.

Defining culture as rules or norms or values misses the deeper layers of meaning that have such a profound impact on how work actually gets done in an organization. Culture is really about the underlying assumptions and beliefs that shape the organization’s structure, processes, relationships, and leadership. It is complex. It is systemic but may have variations in different subgroups or subsets of the organization.

We Can Help

We can help you examine the culture currently present in your organization and then determine the best targets for change. We develop key indicators to track success towards our goals. At the same time, we work with managers and leaders to most effectively apply their expertise in the changing environment via coaching and training.

People and organizational systems cannot and should not change overnight, so pacing is critical. We build transition structures to ensure that work can proceed as you implement change initiatives. Design Teams and Steering Committees, drawn from a cross-section of your organization, collaborate with us as we work through this process.