Lots of change programs within organizations and teams just go under. One could state that Culture eats strategy for breakfast. And that is right: you could agree on modifying your strategy, your customer service or whatever, but if this planned change doesn’t line up with the current organizational culture, you won’t get very far…
Organizational culture labels what you value, the way you understand things, your assumptions and beliefs about work and so on and so: your doings. When you take results into account, organizational culture is key because it has such a keen impact on behavior. It is in the brains of managers and people on the floor where realizing change and boosting performance begins. It has everything to do with shared culture. The trick is to let it work for you instead of hamper change.
How could this be accomplished? You will know where you stand if you have some reference. For pretty much any change process the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) is a very clear starting point. This tool is currently applied by more than 10,000 organizations globally and is formalized and developed by professors Cameron & Quinn.
The OCAI distinguishes four culture types with competing values founded on the Competing Values Framework. Those are:
- Adhocracy Culture, based on Creating
- Market Culture, based on Competing
- Hierarchy Culture, based on Controlling
- Clan Culture, based on Cooperating
Even though this depiction may be elementary, it works hugely well. Participants assess 6 vital aspects of their organization’s culture when ending the online survey. The result is a profile of the current culture, that’s a combination of the four archetypes above.
Frequently one of the culture types is predominant. For example, some people might have a dominant Clan Culture, sharing information and ideas, connecting and smiling.
People measure their preferred culture for the future, after the change has occurred. It’s really interesting and helpful to compare these two profiles. In case of a big gap between the current and preferred situation, people might be prepared for solid change or are not feeling satisfied about their current working climate.
Assessing organizational culture is the key step to booming, maintainable change. It’ll show you where your team or organization is currently and where they want to go. It is very informative to check where executives and employees differ and identify numerous subgroups. That gives guiding principles on what to do next: how could you overcome resistance, what exactly do employees expect, how could executives make the change program better, and so on and so forth.
Detailing your results in a workshop, takes you from the simple but well-defined four-typology to tailor made solutions for your organization. Working with all members, you’ll be able to work out differences and truly get people to not only say YES to the change program, but act like YES and really implement the new behavior. And there change really comes to pass!