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