Culture change needed?
Company culture needs to adapt as change swirls around an organisation. Once a leadership team has identified the change, culture change needs to follow.
Here are three cases we’ve worked on:
Case One: a company (Board and executive) identified it needed to be more customer focussed and steps were put in place to initiate that. Next came changing the culture of the organisation. In this case there was no dispute about the need for change, so the ‘goal’ was easily articulated from the top down. To help the change, followers needed to be converted to ambassadors. Tactically, it demanded regular and clear communicaitons, so a series or seminars, internal videos with the CEO, and encouraging staff in the use of social media were just three of the steps put in place.
A survey is being used to benchmark and then measure success and the rate of change.
Case Two: a leadership team decided it needed to be more socially/digitally oriented. Superficially the change was easy, setting up the social media channels and integrating them into the website. Culturally it was a challenge. Even with the support of the CEO, staff were relucant to spend a few minutes a day a) learning how to use the channels, and b) participating. It took encouragement, training sessions and easy-to-access ongoing help.
Case Three: the leadership team decided it needed to chase a new market. The risk was that it would cannabalise some of the traditional markets. This posed a conundrum at Board and executive level with some wanting a trial to use existing internal resources and staff, and others wanting to set up a small satellite company to trial it outside. The decision: Trial it inside with existing resources. This was a big challenge for some employees, asked to promote a new loss-making venture (no customers) instead of growing already profitable sectors.
