In a recent blog, I wrote about the daunting challenge facing Human Resources Directors who are tasked with helping their organizations assess and change their cultures. During a workshop on this topic, I explained the tools they could use for diagnosing the values, beliefs and behaviors that make up a company’s culture today and how to determine what these defining attributes should become in the future.

But implementing lasting culture change is far more complex than simply saying:  “Let's be more innovative.” Or, as one client said to me: “I want a culture that really delivers results.” They really need to know how to drive change.

For culture change to work, 3 things need to be in place: 

1. A shared understanding of what the culture is today.
2. Agreement about what the company’s leadership would like the culture to become in the future.
3. A process to begin and sustain that transformation, along with ways to monitor, measure and celebrate the successful culture change as it evolves.