The time of one-size-fits all culture has ended. Companies need to do more if they want to make the desired organisational culture stick.

For an organisation to effectively translate its goals into results, there must be alignment between its business strategy and organisation culture. But alignment is only achieved when the shared beliefs, values and working behaviours of the employees support the organisation’s goals and objectives.

Company culture, or “the way we do things around here”, is often considered to be one of the hardest things to change. A company’s most desirable cultural qualities depend on the particular business strategy the organisation is emphasising on. Hence, developing appropriate attitudes, skills and capabilities amongst key employees so they respond to strategic change is a key area where learning and development programmes can make an impact.

However, behavioural changes have to come before “cultural change”. By focusing on behaviours, employees become clear on expectations for acceptable and unacceptable actions. As more people adopt the new behaviour and it becomes widespread, the cultural change has taken place. Thus, it is necessary to identify the key sets of behaviours that will produce the required change, followed by plans to support and reinforce these behaviours.

For example, if teamwork is desired employee behaviour but the organisation only rewards individual accomplishments, it is easy to see what the organisation will get in return. In some ways, culture change is an outcome of the coordinated interventions taking effect over time.

Using learning to reinforce culture The three key phases in leveraging enterprise learning to drive culture change are “alignment”, “learn and grow” and “sustainment”.

During the alignment phase, all the initial planning to develop the approach is determined by: establishing a leadership team around a common vision; determining the desired culture attributes; and conducting a development needs assessment and building a roadmap for employee empowerment.

For the change to be successful, the commitment of the entire leadership team will need to be developed. This includes defining the vision and cultural attributes required for the organisation to be successful. Then for each of these attributes; key behaviours need to be defined and illustrate what people will be doing to “live” that cultural attribute on a daily basis.

The leaders must be aligned to answers to these questions:

1. Why do we have to change?

2. What’s our direction? What are the non-negotiable stakes in the ground?

3. Are you truly serious, or is this another “go-through-the-motions” initiative?

4. How am I going to be affected? What’s in it for me?

5. How do I control my own destiny?

The entire organisation can then be led with a consistent message, with leaders helping to influence and sustain the culture. Leaders need a roadmap showing how to cascade key cultural behaviours down through the organisation. Once the roadmap is established, a variety of resources can be employed to build a cultural change.

An organisation can have the greatest business model and strategy in the world but if the employees can’t handle the growth, it will lead to major problems. Thus, the “learn and grow” phase empowers employees with the necessary conviction, mindset and skills to be effective in “living” the culture. Without a well-defined and planned training regime, any cultural change will not succeed. Training must be targeted at the needs of the organisation and the individuals. The topics covered in this phase must be relevant to the desired culture – be it innovation, teamwork, service quality or leadership excellence.

This phase provides employees with the foundational training for consistent enforcement. One-on-one coaching or training will only work if the trainer is consistent, has been trained in facilitation and is exemplary in bringing about behavioural change. Often we assign a new employee to an old employee, who simply passes on bad habits. Repetition of the same message with role modelling is essential.

Consistent with the alignment phase, the “learn and grow” phase includes: establishing the responsibilities of each role in relation to the desired changes; identifying the competencies required of each role to affect the culture change, the respective performance and behaviour targets and milestones; organising a central change support group; developing or customising the relevant modules and delivery methods; and supporting and implementing the “learn and grow” plans.

It needs to be remembered that without a full and thorough training programme, no culture change will live long past the “programme of the month” status and will ultimately disappoint in terms of realised versus proposed gains.

During the “sustainment” phase, the ongoing monitoring and sustaining of the culture needs to continue. In some ways, the “learn and grow” phase never ends as the organisation continues to evolve. However, the level of intensity of change activities will decrease as the newly desired behaviours are embedded and the desired culture is achieved. The key elements of this state are: continuous reinforcement; ongoing monitoring and measurement; and intervention where adjustments are necessary.

Reinforcing the desired behaviours of a culture is the most important aspect of sustaining the culture change. This can be done by integrating the desired cultural behaviours with the appraisal process, providing rewards and recognition consistent with the desired culture. As new employees are assimilated into the organisation, their orientation is centred on the desired cultural attributes. Strong leadership behaviour will continue to provide the most persuasive examples of what the culture should be.

Periodic measures of the culture should be used to monitor and to sustain progress. This can be done through an annual organisation survey that includes culture-based questions. It is also advisable to use a behaviour-anchored assessment tool in conducting periodic culture assessments. Focus groups interviews can be used to gain a better understanding of the meaning behind a survey instrument. In addition, culture issues need to be included and discussed during meetings at the corporate and local leadership team level.

In the end, great organisational cultures don’t just happen. Good organisation development professionals and change leaders constantly monitor the critical elements within their organisation. They work to find the most obvious causes of poor alignment, put programmes and metrics in place, then go at it, leveraging their enterprise learning structures to help make it happen.

Jessica Choo

Principal consultant and director

Integrated Learning Systems

www.ils.com.sg

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