After 8 years of Actively working in the niche of Corporate Culture Diagnosis and Transformation, I can say that the biggest misconception about Corporate Culture Transformation is that the leadership feels they should work on it for 3 to 5 years putting in LOTS and LOTS of Resources, Energy and Time and ideally do that ONLY when things are more under control, and expecting to see “something” in 5 years.
I’ll give you the good and the bad news: Organisational Culture Transformation happens regardless of whether the leadership wants it to happen or not! In the constructive cases, the leadership takes an active part in Leading the Transformation so that the corporate environment with all the humans inside, the interactions between them, and the rules and processes, and procedures, all of these are aligned towards delivering the Organization’s Goals, Vision and Mission.
Saying that “we’ll work on Transforming the Organizational Culture only when we can afford the time and the resources to do all the improvements” is like an individual saying that they’ll go to the doctor only when they’ll have more time and feel healthier, hoping that the doctor will not take away from them even more energy, time, and resources. To be fair, there are lots of consultants out there that are simply not equipped with what a Change Agent needs to know in order to deliver a State of Art Corporate Culture Transformation with the LEAST possible time and energy investment from the company’s side and with the BIGGEST positive impact on the results of the organization. By the way, the results in all of our Diagnosis and Transformations can be felt like this: IMMEDIATELY after the debriefing of the Diagnosis report; During the Alignment Workshop; one month after the Alignment Workshop; 3 months into the Coaching of some of the personalities inside the organization; in the results of the 2nd quarter after the Alignment Workshop; after the calibration diagnosis report, to mention a few instances.
Let me highlight some of the points about working on your Corporate Culture:
- You don’t need weeks of interviews to measure the Corporate Culture. Actually, by applying a reliable RESEARCHED instrument and using some internal feedback to debrief the results with a few of the leaders, we can give you a good feeling about where your pain points and blockages might be, allowing you to do two things: 1. Focus. 2. Acknowledge the good work you’ve intuitively already done regarding some of the needed systems that appear to be already strongly integrated into the people’s way of working.
- After correctly measuring the starting point of your current Corporate Culture, one thing that is missed from some amateur transformations is the identification of the current business dilemmas on which your organization should use wise internal negotiation continuously and pivot according to the available resources and the external environment. “Dilemmas” are TWO positive states of affairs that cannot be pursued at the same time (either because they use the same resources or because they are driven by opposite group behavior tendencies). These dilemmas we can identify and highlight for you in a 2-day workshop with the extended management team.
- Having a coherent strategy in place, alignment, and clarity in the leadership team, the snowball effect is enabled. Even if one of the leaders would still want to work in an unconstructive manner (“the way we got used to doing things around here”) it would feel so unnatural that either the person will adapt in a matter of weeks, or they will leave the company.
- Further, it is important to set up a CORRECT and ALIGNED communication strategy, in order to take control over the Transformation, process which we are experts in setting up for you, in your environment in your industry with your resources, and with your goals. Further, of course, we will help you get an aligned recruitment, a concise, yet effective onboarding, an optimal retention system, and most of the other systems that an organization should have, regardless of whether they went through a transformation or not. Simply stating that “we have good recruitment” is not the same as having “an aligned recruitment” with the goals. Some of the leaders have no idea what “aligned recruitment” means and they confuse it with “the toughest possible recruitment process” which is really unnecessary most of the time.
- After the Transformation, if you have a long “TO DO list”, you did it wrong! An efficient transformation will assess what you have, and with the available resources it will unblock the group’s energy by aligning their behaviors to the goals of the company, and sometimes that means simply not doing some things that are in opposition to the direction of the company. It is not recommended to work on everything just because a leader believes that by doing so, fast change will happen. Actually, the opposite is correct: focusing only on the important few things coming out of the correct Diagnosis and ensuring that the Organization’s purpose is always the most important, will be the most efficient way to “fix” your Corporate Culture and to change it so that it supports the delivery of your Organization’s mission and goals.
- Coherent and Conscious Organizational Transformation is really EASIER DONE than explained if you are a versed Expert in this field!
The beauty of a correct Organizational Transformation is the fact that you have CONTROL over it, and you really feel the progress! You can speed it up by taking onboard more external expert support, or you can use more of your Intuition with less external support. One thing is good to remember: the Organizational Culture TRANSFORMS regardless of whether the leadership wants it or not, because the external environment is constantly applying pressure on the organization. However, our experience so far shows us that it is better for the business if the leadership is involved consciously in the Transformation! Remember Complacency and what happened to the main mobile producer on the market in 2007.
So, the best moment to Diagnose and start the Conscious Transformation of your Corporate Culture is NOW, with an expert on Organizational Transformation, like ourselves, that understands how to put the Goals of your Organisation at the CENTER of EVERYTHING you do!
Take the first fast reliable steps in understanding your Corporate Culture, check out the opportunity below:
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