Culture Change
Culture is the life blood.
Culture Change: A man and a woman
If purpose and vision set the direction, and structure provides the mechanics, corporate culture or character is the life-blood of the organisation, essential to the delivery of results and success. This is illustrated clearly in our PrimeFocus framework.
Essential to performance
Corporate culture is essentially “the way we do things around here” and the evidence is clear that it makes a huge difference to performance.
For example in “Corporate culture and performance”, Kotter & Heskett show that organisations with “constructive cultures” participating in a twelve-year study showed a seven-fold increase in profit compared to those with “defensive cultures” who failed even to double their profits over the same period.
It’s not any old culture
The purpose of culture change is to establish the culture that will deliver the corporate vision. It is not necessarily about creating a “nice place to work”. Therefore the starting place for culture change is to be very clear about the strategic direction of travel.
Providing a route map
Next steps require a clear measurement or depiction of the current culture and of the target culture. This provides a route map for change. There are many ways of doing this and it is vital the method fits with everything else happening in the organisation. We can choose from a range of methods for culture measurement including the use of diagnostics such as Human Synergistics or Cultural Transformation Tool (CTT). We can also create bespoke methods to suit the organisation. These can be highly energising and experiential.