Culture Change in an Organization
By: Shobhit Desai
Tags: Corporate Culture, Culture Change

Determining the required Culture

The culture of every organization is similar and different at the same time.. Even organizations in contrasting industries such as medical and technology tend to share a common core of cultural values. For example, all organizations desire to grow and increase revenues to remain in business and stay competitive. To achieve company goals they work towards being team-oriented and demonstrate concern for others. Some companies are driven, rather than relaxed, as they are always striving for higher revenues and larger market share. Therefore, it is obvious that certain factors define the required culture of any organisation to be successful. These factors are:

Values: In the depth of every organization, cultures are mainly composed of values. Values are neither right nor wrong, but the organization must identify which values are apt for their growth. These common values include outcome-orientation, people-orientation, team-orientation, attention to detail, stability, innovation, and aggressiveness (Karman, 2020)

Degree of Hierarchy: The degree of hierarchy is the limit to which an organization values its traditional channels of authority. The three well-defined levels of hierarchy are high — having a well-organized structure and the expectation from people that they will work along the clearly outlined channels; moderate — this type has a defined structure or channels but makes certain exceptions on using other informal routes; and low — such kind of hierarchy often makes its employees challenge the authorities due to its loosely defined communication channels and also ambiguous job descriptions (Neidorf, 2002). Based on the research, an organization with an extremely high level of the hierarchy is usually not as effective as the one with a low level of hierarchy as they tend to become slow due to the formal authoritarian processes.

Degree of Urgency: The degree of urgency outlines how swiftly the company wants or needs to speed-up decision-making and innovation. Certain organizations which have a well-planned vision and mission chose their own level of urgency, but some organizations have them push the urgency by the marketplace. A corporate culture with a high level of urgency will always push projects quickly and also a dire need to respond to a change in the marketplace. A mid-level of urgency makes the organizations execute projects at a consistent pace. A low level of urgency is defined that people work much slower, giving attention to details and value quality over efficiency. An agile organization has a high urgency and tends to be fast-paced and they support a decisive management style. An organization with a low urgency tends to be more structured and supports a more conventional management style (Karman, 2020).

People Orientation or Task Orientation: Organizations usually dominate the value of people and tasks. An organization which puts its people first before taking any decision has strong people orientation as people usually drive the organization to perform well and high productivity (Sims, 2000). Any organization that has a strong task orientation would always put tasks and processes first when taking any decisions and believes that efficiency and quality of the task output drive organization’s performance and productivity. Some organizations voluntarily choose their people and task orientations no matter what the industry demands. But other organizations drive to fit their orientation to the nature of their industry, historical issues, or operational processes (Karman, 2020).

Functional Orientation: Functional areas are also the factors on which certain organizations frame their culture. Some examples of the functional orientations would include marketing, operations, R&D, engineering, or service. For example, an innovative organization known for its research and development will orient its functions towards R&D. A hospitality company would focus on service and quality which depends on its history of choices and its customers. People in different roles in the organizations might think that their own functional areas are the ones that drive the organization towards success. Organizational leaders should understand what most employees think to be the company’s functional orientation (Karman, 2020).

Organizational Subcultures: Any organization can have a big blend of subcultures in addition to the major culture. Sub-cultures always exist among groups or individuals who may have their cultures and traditions even if it is not shared by the rest of the organization, it can have a strong effect on the organization’s core values. Sub-cultures may sometimes cause serious problems. For example, regional cultures majorly differ from the overall culture which the leadership tries to infuse. Aggressiveness is common in one area that may not mix well with a culture emphasizing team building. An organization which has a culture that is built around equality may sometimes have trouble if the national culture emphasizes hierarchy and expects its people to surrender to authority (Levin, 2000). Managers and HR professionals should identify these differences and address them directly.

Strategies to Change the Culture

Company culture is one of the main reasons for issues related to employee behaviours and performances. It is not to be blamed on the organization, but the impact that a company’s culture might have is of considerable significance. The organizations’ culture dictates the various benefit programs, decision-making processes, and the working style of employees (Karman, 2020). Changing company culture is not an easy task to be committed to, and produce results. To change the company’s culture, there are certain factors or strategies that you need to focus on and they are detailed below:

Identify the new culture: The first step is to determine what the structure and processes will be of the new culture. It depends on whether the new culture’s goal is to create decentralized operations and create an autonomous decision-making process or increase the drive for more creative innovation. Not considering the goal of the new culture for the organization, can be very critical to map out the structure and process flow. The culture change that is to be implemented has to be clearly outlined and the plan is to be properly documented. This is presented to the CEO and board of directors for review and proposed approval (Bonheim M., 2006). For example, if a multinational company is looking to create more autonomy, they may delegate the authority to the management of the local office and ask the corporate managers not to interfere. By applying such a structure in place, the global managers would stop interfering in every little issue of the local branches and let them handle the operations relative to their specific markets. By empowering the local office to operate on their own, they learn to take certain market-linked decisions and become autonomous (Karman A., 2020).

Define the non-negotiables: Not everything in the company needs to change in the process of changing the culture. Certain factors of the cultures have to be retained to keep the company from changing the value to the outside market. This type of strategy is implemented when mergers or acquisitions occur and require a change in the culture of the organization.

Do not rush it: Changing a company’s culture would take anywhere from two months to several years. As John Heywood said, “Rome was not built in a day” so also is the company corporate culture. It takes a lot of research, effort and a clear rationale must be made for the required culture change.

Invest Now: The wait for additional resources or manpower should not be done for a change to be implemented. The groundwork for the change could start very early on with just a small idea which then blooms into a whole new project.

Focus on the people: Employees must always be kept in the loop while attempting to change any new processes and structures. It should be important to keep the employees well trained for the change that has occurred and any future change that is planned. This helps in making the culture change a success. It is sometimes a good idea to get on-board new employees to fit into the new culture to also bring in a fresh perspective. New employees would help reinforce the new cultural values and keeping the existing employees trained and updated would foster change and increase cooperation (Wilhelm, 1992).

Reward employees for the behaviours you want: The best way to get support from the existing employees is to give them some incentives and keep them motivated for whatever is to come along their way. Their behaviour towards the change will be the catalyst to help change the organizations’ culture. This is sometimes called buy-in from employees.

Review, revise, optimize: The change is a continuous process and there have to be milestones to be reached to review the change that has been implemented till date. This can be done by taking feedback from the people that are affected by this change. Any positive or negative feedback must be evaluated and the plan to further change must be adjusted accordingly. Happiness quotient also has to be taken into account which creates a fostering ambience to work in. The change is a process improvement project which has to be reviewed and adjusted depending on the requirements (Karman, 2020).