{"id":10052,"date":"2021-11-24T06:44:43","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=10052"},"modified":"2021-11-24T10:49:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T15:49:56","slug":"7-principles-of-culture-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/7-principles-of-culture-change\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Principles of Culture Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Employee behaviors are critical for the success of Business Transformation<\/a> endeavors.\u00a0 However, transforming the ingrained behaviors and mindsets of the workforce isn\u2019t straightforward, and when tackled cause the enterprise\u2019s emotional state to go down.<\/p>\n

Leaders need to identify the components of Culture that are in line with their Corporate Strategy<\/a>.\u00a0 They have to ascertain and harness the positive elements of culture that can drive the desired Transformation and suppress those that obstruct it.<\/p>\n

For the desired Organizational Culture<\/a> to sustain, leaders should work on gaining acceptance of the transformed behaviors.\u00a0 Leaders who do not give culture its due importance risk ruining their strategic endeavors, as they lack the commitment required from the employees to achieve success.<\/p>\n

The real question is why senior leaders fail to use the positive elements of Organizational Culture constructively in the first place.\u00a0 The answer is simple; there are 4 common yet wrong assumptions\u2014or myths\u2014regarding culture change that are deeply established in most businesses that are anything but facts.\u00a0 Paying heed to\u2014and acting on\u2014these 4 myths results in grave consequences:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Culture is the root cause of all our failures<\/li>\n
  2. Changing our Organizational Culture is beyond us, forget about it<\/li>\n
  3. Let Human Resources<\/a> deal with Organizational Culture<\/li>\n
  4. Culture is the responsibility of top management<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When senior executives devise a strategy to transform the deeply entrenched organizational culture\u2014by putting in place new policies, practices, reward structures, and performance management<\/a> systems\u2014there is strong resistance that outplays the strategy.<\/p>\n

    This is primarily due to employees\u2019 reservations and uncertainties regarding the impact of these changes on their work, colleagues, atmosphere, routines, family, and their enterprise\u2019s reputation.\u00a0 Transforming the Organizational Culture<\/a> using the individual\u2019s actions and conduct necessitates seeking assistance from 7 guiding principles:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Be Practical<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. Reinforce New Behaviors<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. Seek Out Role Models<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. Identify Cultural Carriers<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. Leverage Existing Culture<\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. Be a Role Model<\/strong><\/li>\n
    7. Explain Impact of New Behavior<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      Application of these guiding principles facilitates in transpiring successful culture change. \u00a0Let\u2019s dive deeper into a few of these guiding principles.<\/p>\n

      Be Practical <\/strong><\/h2>\n

      The first guiding principle to changing the culture involves starting rationally and pragmatically. \u00a0It is not feasible to strive to change every behavior at once. \u00a0Leaders need to concentrate on the behaviors most critical for the organization.\u00a0\u00a0 The ones that reverberate with the existing company culture and have a key role in improving the organizational performance. \u00a0This entails ascertaining groups of employees whose behaviors should be transformed immediately. \u00a0A clear demonstration of the requisite changes goes a long way in reinforcing the desired behaviors and culture in the organization.<\/p>\n

      Reinforce New Behaviors <\/strong><\/h2>\n

      The 2nd<\/sup> principle to changing culture involves emphasizing new behaviors.\u00a0 The desired behaviors should be reinforced using formal and informal mechanisms.\u00a0 Formal reinforcement mechanisms include metrics, processes, appraisals, salary reviews, training<\/a>, and incentives to reward new behaviors.\u00a0 These formal mechanisms allow people to practice new behaviors repetitively, until they begin to realize their value. \u00a0Informal reinforcement mechanisms include support networks and associations to nurture sensitivity and devotion needed to cope with uncertainties.<\/p>\n

      Seek out Role Models<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Organizational Culture Transformation necessitates distinguishing role models to demonstrate the desired behaviors. \u00a0Culture change begins when change practitioners act by modeling the new behaviors.\u00a0 These change practitioners are pride builders for an organization. \u00a0The examples set by these practitioners assist in inculcating pride in others about embracing the desired behaviors.\u00a0 This action is referred to as \u201cpositive deviance\u201d or constructive non-conformity.\u00a0 These pride builders in turn identify and develop more exemplars.<\/p>\n

      Interested in learning more about the other guiding principles of culture change?\u00a0\u00a0You\u00a0can download\u00a0an editable PowerPoint on 7 Guiding Principles of Culture Change\u00a0here\u00a0<\/a>on the\u00a0Flevy documents marketplace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      Do You Find Value in This Framework?<\/h2>\n

      You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the\u00a0FlevyPro Library<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0FlevyPro<\/a>\u00a0is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what some have to say:<\/p>\n

      \u201cMy FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today\u2019s market.\u00a0 They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.\u00a0 I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u2013 Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      \u201cAs a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.\u00a0 For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u2013 David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      \u201cFlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.\u00a0 In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!\u00a0 The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight \u2013 it\u2019s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u2013 Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Employee behaviors are critical for the success of Business Transformation endeavors.\u00a0 However, transforming the ingrained behaviors and mindsets of the workforce isn\u2019t straightforward, and when tackled cause the enterprise\u2019s emotional state to go down. Leaders need to identify the components of Culture that are in line with their Corporate Strategy.\u00a0 They have to ascertain and… 7 Principles of Culture Change<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":10055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[1950,2753,129,793,1418,116,2752,2751,824],"class_list":["post-10052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organization","tag-behavioral-change","tag-culture-change","tag-metrics","tag-organizational-culture","tag-organizational-systems","tag-performance","tag-positive-reinforcement","tag-role-modeling","tag-transformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10052"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10062,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052\/revisions\/10062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}