Organizational Culture - Change

Change

When an organization does not possess a healthy culture or requires some kind of organizational culture change, the change process can be daunting. Culture change may be necessary to reduce employee turnover, influence employee behavior, make improvements to the company, refocus the company objectives and/or rescale the organization, provide better customer service, and/or achieve specific company goals and results. Culture change is impacted by a number of elements, including the external environment and industry competitors, change in industry standards, technology changes, the size and nature of the workforce, and the organization’s history and management.

There are a number of methodologies specifically dedicated to organizational culture change such as Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline. These are also a variety of psychological approaches that have been developed into a system for specific outcomes such as the Fifth Discipline’s "learning organization" or Directive Communication’s "corporate culture evolution." Ideas and strategies, on the other hand, seem to vary according to particular influences that affect culture.

Burman and Evans (2008) argue that it is 'leadership' that affects culture rather than 'management', and describe the difference. When one wants to change an aspect of the culture of an organization one has to keep in consideration that this is a long term project. Corporate culture is something that is very hard to change and employees need time to get used to the new way of organizing. For companies with a very strong and specific culture it will be even harder to change.

Prior to a cultural change initiative, a needs assessment is needed to identify and understand the current organizational culture. This can be done through employee surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, customer surveys where appropriate, and other internal research, to further identify areas that require change. The company must then assess and clearly identify the new, desired culture, and then design a change process.

Cummings & Worley (2004, p. 491 – 492) give the following six guidelines for cultural change, these changes are in line with the eight distinct stages mentioned by Kotter (1995, p. 2):

1. Formulate a clear strategic vision (stage 1, 2, and 3). In order to make a cultural change effective a clear vision of the firm’s new strategy, shared values and behaviors is needed. This vision provides the intention and direction for the culture change (Cummings & Worley, 2004, p. 490).
2. Display top-management commitment (stage 4). It is very important to keep in mind that culture change must be managed from the top of the organization, as willingness to change of the senior management is an important indicator (Cummings & Worley, 2004, page 490). The top of the organization should be very much in favor of the change in order to actually implement the change in the rest of the organization. De Caluwé & Vermaak (2004, p 9) provide a framework with five different ways of thinking about change.
3. Model culture change at the highest level (stage 5). In order to show that the management team is in favor of the change, the change has to be notable at first at this level. The behavior of the management needs to symbolize the kinds of values and behaviors that should be realized in the rest of the company. It is important that the management shows the strengths of the current culture as well, it must be made clear that the current organizational does not need radical changes, but just a few adjustments. (See for more: Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Sathe, 1983; Schall; 1983; Weick, 1985; DiTomaso, 1987). This process may also include creating committee, employee task forces, value managers, or similar. Change agents are key in the process and key communicators of the new values. They should possess courage, flexibility, excellent interpersonal skills, knowledge of the company, and patience. As McCune (May 1999) puts it, these individual should be catalysts, not dictators.
4. Modify the organization to support organizational change. The fourth step is to modify the organization to support organizational change. This includes identifying what current systems, policies, procedures and rules need to be changed in order to align with the new values and desired culture. This may include a change to accountability systems, compensation, benefits and reward structures, and recruitment and retention programs to better align with the new values and to send a clear message to employees that the old system and culture are in the past.
5. Select and socialize newcomers and terminate deviants (stage 7 & 8 of Kotter, 1995, p. 2). A way to implement a culture is to connect it to organizational membership, people can be selected and terminate in terms of their fit with the new culture (Cummings & Worley, 2004, p. 491). Encouraging employee motivation and loyalty to the company is key and will also result in a healthy culture. The company and change managers should be able to articulate the connections between the desired behavior and how it will impact and improve the company’s success, to further encourage buy-in in the change process. Training should be provided to all employees to understand the new processes, expectations and systems.
6. Develop ethical and legal sensitivity. Changes in culture can lead to tensions between organizational and individual interests, which can result in ethical and legal problems for practitioners. This is particularly relevant for changes in employee integrity, control, equitable treatment and job security (Cummings & Worley, 2004, p. 491). It is also beneficial, as part of the change process, to include an evaluation process, conducted periodically to monitor the change progress and identify areas that need further development. This step will also identify obstacles of change and resistant employees and to acknowledge and reward employee improvement, which will also encourage continued change and evolvement. It may also be helpful and necessary to incorporate new change managers to refresh the process. Outside consultants may also be useful in facilitating the change process and providing employee training. Change of culture in the organizations is very important and inevitable. Culture innovations is bound to be because it entails introducing something new and substantially different from what prevails in existing cultures. Cultural innovation is bound to be more difficult than cultural maintenance. People often resist changes hence it is the duty of the management to convince people that likely gain will outweigh the losses. Besides institutionalization, deification is another process that tends to occur in strongly developed organizational cultures. The organization itself may come to be regarded as precious in itself, as a source of pride, and in some sense unique. Organizational members begin to feel a strong bond with it that transcends material returns given by the organization, and they begin to identify with it. The organization turns into a sort of clan.