Culture Management

Cultural change doesn’t have to be painful

If it feels like your organisation is stuck – everybody is doing their job, but you’re just not moving forward – chances are you need a shift in culture. Maybe you’ve tried different incentive schemes to increase your employees’ motivation and engagement, but nothing you try seems to stick in the long run.

Culture shaping can feel like a huge, almost impossible endeavour. But with the right preparation and culture management process, it doesn’t have to be painful at all.

Empower everyone in your organization to take personal ownership of your success. Begin your journey today.

Why is accountability in the workplace so important?

Any advantage the best companies today have comes from strong cultures and accountable workforces – all doable by you. Achieve greater alignment, agility, and innovation by focusing on getting your people to think and act in new ways. Once you commit to this level of talent and leadership development, watch your game change, and find yourself among the best. However, creating alignment, accountability, purpose, and engagement is hard work and we want to help you get the improved results you need. We back our focus on results with a proven process and hard data – all brought to bear on what most would typically consider to be the softer side of organizational development. This is the heart of our team development process. But what is a company culture? Culture is how organizations do things. Whether deliberate or not, every company has a culture. A positive work culture is not only defined by happy hours and an open floor plan. It affects how employees think, act, and interact daily. Therefore, if you want to change how things are done, you need to take a look at how your culture is affecting your employees’ work. There are many possible reasons for why your culture might be off-balance:

A merger or acquisition brought together two companies, each with their own culture, that now must operate as one
Rapid employee growth that outpaced existing systems and processes
A legacy of “this is how we’ve always done things” that keeps things stable, but radiates resistance to change

Without proper alignment between departments, towards a common goal, your organization will struggle to keep employees motivated, focus on long-term strategies, and handle disruptions. On the other hand, companies that manage to successfully create cultural alignment around Key Results innovate quicker, have more successful product launches, and increase the ability to deliver results.

Why is it so difficult to change employees' behaviour?

The first question to ask: Are You Intentional About Improving Culture?

We all know that improved performance sits at the crossroads of intentionality and rigor. However, even the best leaders can struggle to deliver measured, meaningful, and memorable methods to achieve better performance. We get it that creating alignment, accountability, purpose, and engagement is hard work. We want to help you get the improved results you need. We back our focus on results with a proven process and hard data—all brought to bear on what most would typically consider to be the softer side of organizational development.

Organizational culture is the sum of values, roles, communication, attitudes, and assumptions shared by the members of the organization. It manifests itself as habits that new employees pick up by observing how their managers and colleagues behave.

Culture is easy to learn, but difficult to unlearn because it is shared by the entire group. An individual will struggle to challenge the existing way of working without buy-in from the group, including those in leadership positions.

Incentives and ad-hoc change interventions may deliver results in the short-term, but sooner rather than later you will see your employees revert to the “old way” of doing things. The only way to create lasting and sustainable change is to identify and challenge the shared belief system and build habits to permanently reinforce the new way of working.

Get in touch to find out whether a culture intervention could be the solution for you.

How to implement a successful culture management process

Culture change can’t be achieved by simply telling people what they should do differently and enforcing processes. It requires managing the whole process: from earning wide-spread buy-in across the organization, to implementing and monitoring new habits that will make the new culture the new norm. That’s why we don’t focus on silver-bullet interventions. We manage and adapt the culture management process according to the specific needs of your organization – from start to finish.

5 D's of Cultural Transformation

Diagnose

Assess how your current culture is holding you back from reaching the desired results.

Discover

Determine the cultural change needed to achieve your strategic vision.

Design

Define and model your ideal organizational culture.

Develop

Develop the steps towards creating a sustainable desired culture.

Deploy

Implement the culture change roadmap and build habits to reinforce the new shared culture.

We’ve worked with many well-known multinationals like Ford, Merck AG, Johnson & Johnson, Thermo Fisher, Abbott, Urenco, Petronas, to name a few. What they all had in common was the desire to build a culture that empowers their teams to become not just responsible, but accountable for results.

Using the proven methodology of Partners in Leadership®, we identify areas in your business where no one is taking ownership for performance (or performance failures). Next, we help you establish a common business language and method that builds greater alignment and ownership to achieve the results that matter most. The program does not end until the desired behavior changes have become ingrained habits that employees reinforce within each other and pass on to new hires.

We are the only market provider of this framework outside of the USA, and have over 100 international certified facilitators, able to guide the process in almost any language. This means, we are able to implement the same program across all your international offices, delivered in their native languages – a common challenge for global organizations.

Is your organization in need of a culture change?

If this sounds familiar, and you’re looking for ways to manage change, innovate faster, and create a positive work attitude across the workforce, you may now be wondering whether a culture change program is what you need. We understand that this is a big decision, so we are happy to schedule an introductory call to advise you based on your specific situation. Please send us your questions using the form at the bottom of this page. Check out Ford’s success with our culture solution.