Is wholesale culture change really required?

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Is wholesale culture change really required?

23 June 2006

South Africa-based consultancy The AA Group say the very idea of “managing corporate culture” leads organizations to plan changes that are far more wide-ranging than is actually necessary.

Most organizations only need to modify their existing culture rather than change it totally. Change is far more likely to be successful if it builds on the existing culture and values.

Five alternatives to wholesale change
The AA Group suggests five ways to consider shaping organizational culture as an alternative to wholesale change:

• Clarifying – Revisiting existing cultural values and providing reassurance of their continued importance to the organization.
• Emphasizing – Prioritizing certain key values within the organization in reaction to the external environment.
• Redefining – Bringing in new practices that support an existing value.
• Building – Giving weight and meaning to an existing value that hasn’t yet been fully internalized by the organization.
• Creating – Creating new values or replacing existing values that are no longer relevant.

Set realistic time scales
Think carefully about the timescale you set for achieving your objectives. James O’Toole, author of Vanguard Management: Redesigning the Corporate Future, says companies attempt culture change in one of two ways: through revolution or evolution. Attempts at revolution are most certain to fail. An organization’s culture is formed over many years of company history through people’s shared experiences and its future culture will be formed in the same way.

If you’re being asked to help deliver change to short time scales (i.e. less than a year), either the objectives being set are unrealistic or you’re back in the arena of more simple, short-term behavior change rather than a major culture change.

Further reading from Melcrum:
This is an extract from the Melcrum report, Driving a high-performance corporate culture

Source: http://www.sourcecomms.com/topics/wholesale_change.shtml

Blogged on 12:37 AM by Upay

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