How Can You Change The Corporate Culture?

A company's corporate culture is defined by its combined attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values. It's the ‘way things are done around here', to put it simply.

A company's corporate culture, despite being an intangible concept, can have a major impact on success. Organisations that have a culture that sits well with business objectives often do better than their competitors.

However, for many companies, there comes a time when the culture has to be examined and the process of changing it has to be tackled.

The first step to culture change

To get your company moving towards a desired culture, you first have to define it. You probably have a feel for what it is already, but it is important to put this outline into words. To assess what it is, you should:

Examine how employees act, and ask them for feedback on what they think the company culture is;

Look for common patterns of behaviour across the company;
Ask for feedback from customers and associates; and
Research what has been written in the press or the internet about your company. The outside perspective is sometimes the most accurate.

Decide the sort of culture you want

Your company should decide on a culture which is best going to match the objectives of the company. This is especially so when the company is changing direction. Where goals and objectives change, it is quite possible that the culture that supported the company in the past, may not be so relevant in the future.

You might like to begin with a review of your values, mission and vision statements. Analyse them to see that your current culture supports them. Below are some attributes of positive cultures that might be relevant to your company:

Customer focus:

Employee commitment and loyalty;
Strong ethical framework and high integrity;
Strong and highly effective leadership;
Personal responsibility;
Open and honest communication at all levels;
Focus on continuous improvement of systems and processes;
Employee incentives; and
Encouragement and reward for innovation and initiative.

Implementing a corporate culture change

To introduce a corporate culture change the company has to be willing to embrace it - from senior management down. Here are some tips for implementing changes:

Make company culture reflect corporate objectives;

Design a concrete action plan - collate everyone's input about how to make improvements in polices, procedures and corporate practices;
Document exactly what behaviours and actions need to be changed; and
Emphasise the positive - parts of the culture may not need change or improvement.

To introduce change that is truly effective, managers have to continually communicate the principles involved and the reasons for the culture change. To do this, managers must:

Be passionate about it

Managers have to believe in the culture change and be enthused about it - if they don't believe in it, then others won't.

Reward and praise changes in behaviour

Regular positive feedback will help reinforce positive habits.

Be the ‘model citizen'

It's important for managers to practice what they preach - otherwise the message won't stick. In fact it could work against them. The manager's leadership is very often the most important factor in making cultural change.

Be consistent

It's important that the corporate culture change isn't seen as a management fad. Stick to the strategy for the long term.

Repeat!

The message of corporate change must be communicated regularly and consistently until it permeates the entire company.

All content in this article (c) 2007 Kelly Services (Australia) Ltd. Reprinted with permission from the original article at www.smartmanager.com.au
First published: 10 May 2007.
Last updated: 10 May 2007.