Organizational Culture Change & Alignment
the process of defining and/or aligning the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment, and ultimately, the success of an organization

Symptoms

• Key new talent from other companies struggle to succeed and frequently leave
  
• A new leadership team is struggle to 'turn the ship'... Strategic initiatives are painful to implement, often met with wide-spread organizational resistance... months after we 'declare victory' on these projects, behaviors, processes and cost are back to where they were
  
• It is nearly impossible to implement anything 'new' or cutting-edge because "that's now how we do things around here"

How we help

• Initially, we work with leaders in the organization to understand if the conditions exist for successful culture change, or if culture alignment is more appropriate.
  • Culture is a complex system of fundamental, sub-conscious organizational beliefs and 'habits', built over a long period of time.  Therefore it is unlikely that it can be changed at its core without significant disruption and turnover (but not impossible).
    
  • An alternative to fundamental Culture Change is Alignment... to understand and decompose the various cultural assumptions, elements, norms and artifacts, and to reassemble them (and add new norms and artifacts), such that we remain consistent with, and honor, our deeply held traditions, but update and align to the current and future needs of the organization.
  • Depending on the scope and desires of the organization, we may employ one of several third party or bespoke surveys to collect necessary data.  We DO NOT use the survey results to draw conclusions.  Rather, we use them to focus deeper analysis as needed.
  • The results of this analysis are used by the leadership to determine whether wholesale Culture Change is needed, or Culture Alignment is preferred.
• We then engage leaders at all levels in a series of workshops to design (change &/or align) the new culture...
  • ...While Leaders define and embed organizational culture, they are also are limited and constrained by it (especially new leaders)
• Our approach is to first "think our way to a new set of behaviors" in workshops, then in implementation to "behave our way to a new set of beliefs".

Typical outcomes

• An updated set of leader and organization behaviors, norms and artifacts (symbols, stories, language, workspace layout, etc.) that reflect an updated organizational culture, aligned to a competitive strategy.
  
• Clearer understanding of "who we are, why we're here, what we do and how we do it" across the organization... what is celebrated, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.
• An implementation plan, including measures and incentives, to institutionalize the updated culture